posted news from scb 17-8(5)

[OKKAR66129@xxxxxxx]

Subject:	Yangon demo by foreign activists "irrelevant": diplomats
>From:	Heiko and War War Min Schaefer <zxmpl18@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:	Mon, 17 Aug 1998 11:33:45 +0200

Agence France Presse wrote today:

YANGON, Aug 17 (AFP) - A brief protest by foreign activists against 
Myanmar's junta had no significant impact here and attention remains 
fixed on the opposition National League for Democracy party of Nobel 
peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats and analysts said. 

Although praised by rights groups when they were deported to Bangkok 
Saturday after six days' detention, the 18 foreign pro-democracy 
activists were branded "naive" and "irrelevant" by some diplomats, 
including a number whose governments firmly oppose the junta. 

"They might have won a lot of support overseas but it was all pretty 
irrelevant here," said one western diplomat. 

"If anything they might have done their cause within the country more 
harm than good," the diplomat added, referring to state media reports 
which said the foreigners had travelled to Myanmar to incite unrest. 

"I can't think of any country in the region where locals welcome 
foreigners coming in to stir things up." 

The activists were detained on August 9 after they tried to hand out 
leaflets in central Yangon promoting human rights and democracy. 

"I don't think anyone kept the leaflets," another western diplomat 
said, citing witness reports. "They would have dropped them straight 
away even if they were interested in the first place." 

The diplomats also disputed claims by some activists that they were 
mistreated before being deported after being sentenced to five years 
imprisonment with hard labour at a trial Friday. The sentences were 
immediately suspended but would be enforced if they reoffended, 
offficials warned. 

"They were certainly better off than most people in Myanmar," said a 
diplomat from the embassy of another Asian state, dismissing complaints 
about lack of running water as ridiculous. 

"They were naive if they thought they wouldn't be caught, they were 
naive if they thought they could just walk away and they were extremely 
naive if they thought being detained would mean spending a few days in 
a five-star hotel." 

Power and water supplies, where they exist at all, are intermittent in 
much of Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries. 

The activists were rounded up while handing out pamphlets urging people 
to remember the 10th anniversary of a bloody military crackdown on 
pro-democracy demonstrators on August 8, 1988. 

The detainees were six Americans, three Thais, three Malaysians, three 
Indonesians, two Filipinos and one Australian. 

Although the protest drew international media attention, opposition 
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) 
party ignored the activists. 

The Nobel peace laureate launched her own demonstration Wednesday, 
making her fourth failed attempt to visit supporters in the provinces 
in little more than a week. 

The junta has said it cannot allow her to proceed further for her own 
safety as there are security problems in the area. However she is free 
to return home to Yangon at any time, it said. 

Her van is now at the scene of last month's confrontation -- a small 
bridge some 25 kilometres (15 miles) outside Yangon -- but this time 
she has brought extra supplies, diplomats said. 

A junta spokesman said an ambulance was at the site and security 
personnel have been deployed to protect her. 

In a statement on Saturday, a junta spokesman added that efforts were 
being made to make her roadside stay as comfortable as possible and 
that she had been provided with a tape player and Western music 
cassettes by Madonna and Michael Jackson. 

The NLD won 1990 polls in Myanmar by a landslide but the junta has 
refused to give up power. The party has demanded that the junta convene 
the parliament elected then by August 21 or face unspecified 
consequences. 

"Now we have the foreigners' thing out of the way, we are all waiting 
for August 21," said another western diplomat. 

"Something has to give. It may not be a big deal but both sides are so 
set in their positions that there will be a confrontation of some 
kind." 

kf/sm 

Are now all western diplomats crazy? Ignoring Burma is an easy job, and
now to urge people to do same by calling the activists as naive...

I don't understand this world! It seems the Junta has more silent
friends than we all expected!

Regards
Heiko
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