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News Release Vol 10 No.15 of the My



                     EMBASSY OF THE UNION OF MYANMAR
                                 OTTAWA
                         MYANMAR  NEWS  RELEASE

             VOL. 10                              JULY 28,
                 1998                              NO.15

    The "Opinion" carried by the Globe and Mail (July 28, 1998) entitled
"Dog days in Burma" and what it tried to forward are in fact distortions
bordering on malicious political slander.   It is obvious that the
reports of credible international organizations such as the World Health
Organization (WHO), the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP)
and even European and North American NGOs working within Myanmar
(Medicine du Monde, PSI etc.) have been completely ignored but
apparently drawing its information from insignificant dissident groups
over the border such as Shan Human Rights Group and so-called "ethnic
leaders" who are in fact closely linked to the currently drug
trafficking remnants of the former Mong Tai Army.

    The truth according to the WHO and anti-AIDS NGOs in Myanmar are
that the country has one of the best anti-AIDS programmes in South and
South-East Asia and the fact that the United States Drug Enforcement
Agency has resumed financial assistance to the Myanmar anti-drug effort
last May go entirely against the "opinion" of the Globe and Mail.
Blowing up a political stand-off created and led by Mrs. Suu Kyi Aris
into an international outcry is another matter.  It is nothing new that
certain Western governments and its media continue to support the wife
and mother of British citizens (who, by the law drafted by her own
father in 1947 does not qualify to stand any election) which Asian
nationalists will view with suspicion and continue to reject.

     The Government of the Union of Myanmar continues to advise leaders
of all political parties NOT to travel to the countryside without
security provided by the police department, although all ordinary
citizens are free to go anywhere on their own.

     It is, however, completely untrue that soldiers, barbed-wire or any
other obstacles were being placed around the car carrying Mrs. Suu Kyi
Aris who rejected this advice repeatedly in recent days with the
ulterior political motive of instigating an "incident" that could be
exaggerated and made to look like civil unrest within the country.   The
timing of these efforts have been clearly chosen to coincide with the
ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Manila where some of her prominent Western
supporters, particularly Mrs. Albright as part of her regularly
unproductive exercise in throwing polemics at all her political
adverseries for the past several years, have already predicted a major
upheaval in Myanmar.

     Like all such predictions of the past, the present one will also be
soon proven wrong in spite of all out efforts by Mrs. Aris.   The
majority of the people of Myanmar have so far taken little notice of
these artificially manufactured "incidents" as well as the
all-out-foreign-media campaign as urged by Mrs. Aris herself.    They
all know that she is free to return home and seek medical advice freely
whenever she needs it.

     As of today, all cities and township in Myanmar are peaceful with
people carrying on business-as-usual.

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