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Albright Confronts Asian Nations



JULY 27, 13:37 EDT

Albright Confronts Asian Nations 

By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer 

<Picture>
Albright meeting with ASEAN leaders in Manila
AP/Pat Roque [26K]
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MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
confronted several Asian nations at a conference Monday, criticizing
Myanmar for blocking the movements of opposition leader Ang San Suu Kyi
and China for jailing dissidents after President Clinton's visit. 

She said turmoil in Myanmar, still called Burma by U.S. officials, was
posing ``a threat to the stability of the region.'' 

As ministers of 20 Asian and Western countries and the European Union
met at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, Nobel
laureate Suu Kyi spent a fourth day Monday stuck in a car on a rural
Myanmar highway surrounded by government security personnel. She was
arrested Friday on her way to a meeting with supporters. 

In denouncing the military-ruled government of Myanmar - a participant
in the conference - Albright said the United States would hold it
``directly responsible'' for the health and welfare of Suu Kyi. 

Albright went public with her complaints after Myanmar Foreign Minister
Ohn Gyaw defended his nation's actions in a closed-door session with
participants. 

Ohn Gyaw was asked by The Associated Press to comment on Albright's
concerns for Suu Kyi. ``Nothing will happen to her,'' he said of the
opposition leader. 

The conference host, Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, said
later that Albright's statement of concern was ``just too vague'' for
the rest of the group to adopt. 

``We have not seen any deterioration in (Suu Kyi's) health or capacity
to think,'' Siazon said. 

Recounting her conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan,
Albright told reporters she noted that China had released some
prisoners, but ``I made ... quite clear that arresting people is not the
way that we see follow through.'' 

A senior Clinton administration official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity, said that Albright was concerned about the arrests of about
20 dissidents after Clinton returned from 10 days in China earlier this
month. The Chinese delegation didn't respond directly to her concerns,
but ``they couldn't miss it'' as criticism, the official said. 

Despite Albright's sharp words for Myanmar and China, the annual
security forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations produced
much agreement - both on the need to do something to stop Asia's
economic crisis and a statement that ``strongly deplored'' nuclear tests
in May by India and Pakistan. 

In a statement, ministers from 19 of the countries plus the European
Union said the tests heightened tension in a region already on edge from
a growing economic crisis. The statement did not mention the nations by
name, only referring to two countries in South Asia. 

``Since we know our geography too well, it was not necessary to identify
them,'' said Siazon said. 

India dissented from the report and defended the tests it carried out in
May ``because the nonproliferation regime had turned flawed and
discriminatory.'' Pakistan was not a member of the conference. 

Albright said she made U.S. concerns over human rights known in a
meeting with Tang, the Chinese foreign minister. 

``While we both consider, and I especially, (that) one of the major
successes of the president's trip was to raise human rights issues
publicly in China, ... I did raise our concerns about some of the recent
arrests,'' she said. 

Albright said she and Tang also discussed the House vote last week
endorsing Clinton's extension of normal-trade relations, a vote Albright
praised. 

Meanwhile, Tang assured the United States it will follow through on its
pledge to stop targeting the 13 nuclear missiles it has aimed at U.S.
cities, although he did not say when - or whether it had already done
so. 

``The Chinese people are a people who always honor our commitments,''
Tang told reporters during a picture-taken session at the start of the
breakfast meeting with Albright. 

The summit between Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin a month ago
yielded an agreement to stop aiming nuclear missiles at each other. 

Albright also discussed the upcoming summit meeting in Moscow in
September between Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. 

``We have a mature partnership now,'' she said of the U.S.-Russian
relationship. ``We can hit the ground running,'' echoed Russian Foreign
Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who shared a news conference podium with her.


High on the agenda of the September meeting, Albright said, will be
nonproliferation issues, the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan,
violence in Kosovo and the current financial crisis. 

For his part, Primakov said Russia would work hard to fight its way out
of its own financial crisis. ``We, too, will have to swallow that bitter
pill,'' he said. 

Of the highway standoff in Yangon, Myanmar, Albright said: ``Members of
legal political parties are being prevented from traveling in their own
country,'' Albright said. ``The Burmese economy is falling apart. ...
Burma is a country in great and growing stress today.'' 

Albright made her views known both in a speech to the conference and at
a news conference. 

``The Burmese representative here has just ... responded to the
allegations, and I think his response is quite typical of an
authoritarian government that just doesn't get it, that blames the
victim for the problem,'' Albright told reporters.