[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

US Lawmaker Rejects Opposition[=NLD



Subject: US Lawmaker Rejects Opposition[=NLD] Veto

US Lawmaker rejects opposition veto
South China Morning Post - 18th Jan
BKK
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi should not have a veto on aid to her
country, a United States congressman said yesterday.

Tony Hall, a prominent aid advocate, said Burma's health, education and food
problems were "too dire for the international community to ignore".

"I would not say that she should have veto powers at all," he said in Bangkok
after a visit to Burma.

The opposition's suspicions that the military regime would cream off or manage
aid money has effectively cut Burma off from all but a trickle of humanitarian
help.

The congressman, who has encouraged health and food programmes for North Korea
and Sudan, said the world should not be blinded by politics to the Burmese
people's "tremendous" problems such as HIV, hunger, dirty water and
illiteracy.

Mr Hall said Ms Aung San Suu Kyi had been isolated by the regime and so
"doesn't really get a chance" to see many of the problems faced by her fellow
citizens.

He urged her to let reputable non-government organisations know she was not
opposed to humanitarian work as long as they could give "a 100 per cent
guarantee that it would not benefit the regime".

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi claimed some aid workers ended up as government
"collaborators" and that more than 50 per cent of all assistance was siphoned
off, he said.

She also asked that anyone offering humanitarian assistance to Burma should
consult the National League for Democracy - which won a 1990 election by an
overwhelming majority only to be ignored by the military.

But Mr Hall said many aid organisations saw consultations with any political
party as "going down a slippery slope" and had concentrated their efforts in
other, less complicated countries.

Burma's military intelligence chief, Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, had given
Mr Hall the usual line that the regime "was working towards democracy while
safeguarding law and order".

Nevertheless the general had "promised to be gentle and lenient with the
opposition and would try to find agreement with them", said Mr Hall, who had
asked the military junta to release political prisoners and stop persecuting
ethnic minorities.