Opposition flays Myanmar official's

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Subject: Opposition flays Myanmar official's Japan trip

Opposition flays Myanmar official's Japan trip
07:44 a.m. Jan 22, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Myanmar's opposition National League for
Democracy (NLD) party flayed Japan on Friday for inviting a top Myanmar
military intelligence official for a 10-day visit to Tokyo.

``The Japanese government invited a high ranking military officer of the
(ruling) State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) as an official guest,''
the NLD said in a statement.

``Extending such an invitation amounts to encouraging the military
intelligence organisation which is playing a key role in suppressing persons
and organisations striving for democracy and human rights in Myanmar,'' it
added.

Brigadier General Kyaw Win, deputy director of the Directorate of Defence
Services Intelligence, arrived in Japan on Wednesday as a guest of the
Japanese foreign ministry.

Japanese and Myanmar officials said his visit was aimed at exchanging views
on relations between the two countries.

Kyaw Win, who is also deputy chief of the Office of Strategic Studies of the
Myanmar defence ministry, is believed to be a top aide of the powerful
Secretary One of the military government, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt.

The NLD, led by Nobel laureaute Aung San Suu Kyi, is at loggerheads with the
SPDC over the government's curbing of its party activities and slow progress
towards fostering democracy in the military-ruled country.

The SPDC has detained hundreds of NLD leaders and members in the past and
released them later as part of its harassment of the party, opposition
leaders claim.

The government has also refused an NLD request that a parliament of elected
representatives from the 1990 general election, which the party won with a
landslide, be convened.

The military has refused to recognise the results of that poll.