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The BurmaNet News: February 8, 1999



------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: February 8, 1999
Issue #1202


HEADLINES:
==========
BBC: MASS CONVICTIONS FOR BURMESE STUDENTS 
BANGKOK POST: REFUGEES IN TAK TO BE REPATRIATED 
BURMA GROUP: BELGIAN RESOLUTION SUPPORTS CRPP 
REUTERS: RIGHTS BODY ACCUSES MYANMAR OVER MPS 
REUTERS: MYANMAR REJECTS CALL FOR RELEASE OF MP'S 
THE NATION: JAYAKUMAR CRITICAL OF EU ON BURMA 
ASIAN AGE: BURMESE PROTEST AGAINST GEORGE 
BKK POST: WORKERS ANGRY OVER MISSING COLLEAGUES 
BANGKOK POST: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES 
BURMANET: MONTHLY SUMMARY 
****************************************************************

BBC: MASS CONVICTIONS FOR BURMESE STUDENTS
4 February, 1999 by Burmese Affairs Analyst, Larry Jagan

More details are emerging of a mass sentencing by the Burmese military
authorities of student pro-democracy activists.  Diplomatic sources in the
capital, Rangoon, say they now know that around 200 students were given
lengthy jails terms two weeks ago - one was sentenced to 52 years in prison. 

Burma's military rulers have always feared student unrest more than
anything else. So it's no surprise that the government has meted out harsh
sentences to those students they believe orchestrated last year's street
protests in Rangoon. 
The four leading students were given jail sentences of some 150 years
between them. According to Rangoon residents, more than 200 students in all
were given jail sentences mostly ranging from seven to 14 years. 

The longest were given to the students accused of having contact with
illegal groups along the Burmese border, namely the ethnic rebel group the
Karen National Union and the exiled Burmese Students' Democratic Union.
There has been no official statement from the Burmese military authorities. 

The country's universities have been closed for the past two years after
several weeks of student protests in December 1996. Burma's military rulers
have promised to reopen all universities and colleges later this month.
Diplomats believe the harsh sentences handed out to the student leaders are
meant to dissuade university and college students from getting involved in
political activity after they resume their studies. 

Opposition sources told the BBC that some of the students were also been
arrested for their support for the call by Aung San Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy (NLD) for the parliament elected in 1990 finally to be
convened. 

The NLD overwhelmingly won general elections in 1990, but was never allowed
to take power and hundreds of NLD members are themselves in detention.

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BANGKOK POST: REFUGEES IN TAK TO BE REPATRIATED
6 February, 1999

TAK 
SUPAMART KASEM

3,000 BURMESE AND KARENS INTERVIEWED

Thai officials and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees personnel
are planning to repatriate some 3,000 Burmese and Karen refugees in Tak,
according to a border official.


Thai and UNHCR officials are now in the process of interviewing about
3,000 Burmese and Karens housed in the four camps in order to classify them
as either war refugees or illegal immigrants before their repatriation.

The four camps are Mae La camp in Tha Song Yang District, Huay Kalok camp
in Mae Sot District, Mawkier camp in Phop Phra District and Nu Pho camp in
Umphang District.

Fourth Infantry Regiment Task Force commander Col Chayuti Boonparn said the
inspection team consists of UNHCR staff, Thai state officials and army
officers, members of the Karen Refugee Committee, and non-governmental
organisation members working at the camps.

"More than 200 people have already been interviewed at the Huay Kalok Camp.
Information will be forwarded to Thai officials to consider sending some
refugees back to Burma, seeking legal action against aliens for illegal
entry or allowing them to continue their stay in the camps," he added.

According to a source, drought and lack of employment have forced many
Burmese to illegally enter Thailand to look for jobs here since the start
of the dry season late last year.

At least 745 of them are known to have taken refuse in the Huay Kalok Camp.

The inspection team had found that the names of some 800 escapees from the
four camps had already been deleted from the camps' refugee lists, the
source said.

In another development, 4,148 Karens fleeing fighting in Burma to Ban Nong
Bua of Tha Song Yang district are now facing food shortages after the NGOs
stopped providing them food aid on January 24 for fear of Rangoon's
misunderstanding that the NGOs have supported the Karen rebels.

*****************************************************************

BURMA GROUP: BELGIAN RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF CRPP
6 February, 1998 from Michel Beankens, Burma Group (Belgium)

On February 4, the Belgian Parliament passed a resolution on Burma in which
it supports the Committee Representing the People's Parliament (CRPP). With
its support to the CRPP Belgium joins Norway and Denmark.

The resolution was supported unanimously by the 131 members present in the
general assembly. It contains following points:

1. The Parliament urges the Belgian government "to condemn the military
dictatorship of Burma (Myanmar) and all human rights violations";

2. The Parliament asks the government "to press the junta to com- ply with
the ILO Convention no 29 on Forced Labour (1930) and the Convention (1948)
on freedom of assembly and association";

3. Further the Belgian Parliament calls for "an immediate tripartite
dialogue with the National League for Democracy (NLD) including Aung San
Suu Kyi and the representatives of the ethnnic groups";

4. The Parliament also calls on the government "to urge Belgian companies
and tour operators to respect the appeal of the democratically elected
majority (NLD) to cut all trade, investment and tourism links with Burma".
With this initiative the Parliament suggests a change in government policy
from gentle dissuation towards 'active discouragement';

5. The government is asked "to urge the European Council of Ministers to
maintain the existing sanctions against the regime in Burma (Myanmar) and
to impose further sanctions". The Parliament also urges the government "to
make sure that the humanitarian help to the population is not hindered'. In
a question in Parliament on November 6, 1998 Foreign Minister De Rycke
confirmed that Belgium is in favour of much stricter EU-sanctions than
those taken at the Council Meeting on October 26,1998;


6. The Parliament asks the Belgian government "to urge the Thai government
not to forcibly repatriate Burmese refugees from their territory and to
make sure that the UNHCR and other organisations can fully support the
refugees";

7. In the last point the Parliament says "it gives its support to the
Committee representing the Burmese Parliament".

During the debates in the Commission of Foreign Affairs earlier this year
the Foreign Minister shared the opinion of the Parliament that the
situation in Burma is alarming. He said Belgium would continue its efforts
to restore democracy and respect for human rights in Burma.

Birma Groep/Groupe Birmanie (Belgium)

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REUTERS: RIGHTS BODY ACCUSES MYANMAR, TURKEY OVER MPS
5 February, 1999 

GENEVA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Persecution of parliamentarians worldwide is on
the rise, with governments becoming more adept at silencing opposition
voices through the courts, a human rights watchdog committee said on Friday.

The human rights committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) said that
it had examined the cases of 311 members of parliament in 31 countries at
its week-long meeting.

Myanmar, whose government has waged a long battle against supporters of
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD), led the list of complaints taken up by IPU's committee of
five parliamentarians.

"In Myanmar, the committee looked at 150 to 160 cases of parliamentarians
who have been detained or sentenced," IPU secretary-general Anders Johnsson
told a news briefing.

"Some have died in prison, others are in very bad condition. IPU continues
to demand their unconditional release."

The Swede added: "The (Myanmar) parliament was fairly elected and should be
convened, and allowed to work."

The NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 general election, but the
military refused to recognise the results of that poll.

Turkey, which has accused 15 parliamentarians on charges "basically linked
to the Kurdish question," has the second highest number of cases, according
to member Francois Borel, a Swiss parliamentarian. Four are serving 25-year
jail terms.

The committee has taken up 1,000 complaints in 20 years.

"In the past, there were mainly disappearances and assassinations. Today
the objective is still to silence politicians, but legal proceedings are
used to stop them from exercising their freedom of expression," Johnsson said.


Juan Pablo Letelier Morel, a socialist member of Chile's parliament who
serves on IPU's committee, said the cases of 64 of the 311 MPs had been
examined confidentially.

"The reason we don't go public on all cases is that in the negotiating
process with governments this is an element of pressure that can get cases
resolved," he said.

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REUTERS: MYANMAR REJECTS IPU CALL FOR RELEASE OF MPS
6 February, 1999 

BANGKOK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government on Saturday
rejected a call by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) for the release of
detained opposition politicians who it said would be freed only if they
obeyed the law.


The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) said in a statement
obtained in Bangkok the government would avoid taking legal action against
elected members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party
if they stayed within the boundaries of the law.

The statement followed a call by the Geneva-based IPU for the release of
some 150-160 opposition Myanmar MPs who had been detained or sentenced to
jail by the government.

``The Myanmar Government would be more than happy not to take any legal
action against MPs provided that they stay within the boundaries of the
law,'' the statement said.

Myanmar authorities in the past year have briefly detained several hundred
NLD MPs and supporters to try to stop them from convening the elected
parliament or attending public political rallies.

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THE NATION: JAYAKUMAR CRITICAL OF EU ON BURMA
6 February, 1999 by Rita Patiyasevi

VISITING Singaporean Foreign Minister Shunmugam Jayakumar criticise the
European Union yesterday for inconsistency in its position on Burmese
participation in international meeting between Asean and the EU.

"The EU has no problems attending the Asean meeting and sitting at the same
table with the Myanmar foreign minister, and the EU also attends the Asean
Regional Forum when the Burmese foreign minister is present," he said.

Speaking to reporters after holding bilateral discussions with his
counterpart Surin Pitsuwan, Jayakumar said Asean would have to take the
position that if Asean members attended the meeting it would be on a
reciprocal and equal basis.

The European Council in Brussels ha announced late last month that it would
not lift sanctions against Burma or ease visa sanctions to allow Burmese
Foreign Minister Win Aung to attend the Asean European Union Ministerial
Meeting (AEMM) on March 30 in Berlin.

Thailand, which is the coordinator o the Asean side, and also host of a
pending Asean-EU Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting, is trying to
resolve the issue.

Jayakumar said he hoped the two blocs' "good sense and goodwill" and the
desire to maintain the relationship would prevail, enabling both meetings
to take place.

He stressed that Asean-EU dialogue was important to the two sides.

"It is the oldest dialogue relationship which Asean has with any dialogue
partner, and I think it is in the interest of both the EU and Asean to
maintain this relationship," he said.

Germany, which holds the EU presidency, will play host to the Asia-Europe
Meeting (Asem) of foreign minister scheduled for March 28-29 in Berlin and
a back-to-back AEMM. The EU has said it will not ease sanctions unless
there i improvement in human rights in Burma and more dialogue between the
Burmese junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Surin underlined that the JCC meeting would create a momentum toward a
higher level of discussion, the AEMM.

He said Thailand had almost succeeded in trying "to clinch the deal two
week ago".

"I think [our] positions are getting closer and closer. I think we agree
that both sides have to make some accommodation towards each other, and we
have seen some sign of that," he stated.


Win Aung had sent a letter to Surin signalling some flexibility and said
Burma would agree to discuss any issue at the AEMM.

Thailand was supposed to host the JCC meeting in November 1997, but the
conference was postponed because of the Burmese issue. Burma and Laos
became Asean members in July 1997.

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ASIAN AGE: BURMESE PROTEST AGAINST GEORGE
5 February, 1999 by Rezaul H. Laskar

New Delhi, Feb. 5: Burma has officially protested to New Delhi against
defence minister George Fernandes's alleged support to dissident Burmese
groups. Government sources told The Asian Age that the protest was lodged
during a meeting of senior home ministry officials of the two countries
held in Burma in mid-January. The Burmese side minced no words in
expressing their displeasure at Mr. Fernandes's support to dissident
Burmese students, with the issue being listed as the first item on the
agenda drawn up for the meeting by the Burmese authorities.

During the discussions, the Burmese authorities claimed that the outspoken
defence minister had extended financial assistance to students who were
"absconding" from Burma. The home ministry officials, after hearing out
their Burmese counterparts, sought to explain that the defence minister's
support to pro-democracy activists in Burma was a "personal matter", the
sources said. Mr Fernandes was reportedly told at the "highest levels" not
to publicly air his views on Burma and the country's military junta
following the development. "Rangoon has never sought to hide its dislike
for the defence minister's support to Burmese dissidents, but the Union
Home ministry officials were taken aback by the prominence given to the
matter during the meeting," the sources said.

Mr Fernandes has often come out in open support for organizations and
groups opposed to the Burmese military junta and his official residence at
3, Krishna Menon Marg served as the headquarters for dissident groups like
the All Burma Students League even before he became the defence minister
last year. Sections within the Union Home ministry and the armed forces are
in favour of fogging stronger links with the military regime in Burma for
strategic reasons. They feel the military junta is too well-entrenched to
be dislodged by pro-democracy forces in the near future, and New Delhi
would stand to loose if it did not take steps to counter the growing
Chinese presence in Burma. Cooperation between the armies of the two
countries reached a high point during Golden Bird, a joint operation
conducted in 1995 against militants from various northeastern groups while
they were trying to sneak into India from Burma.

****************************************************************

BANGKOK POST: WORKERS ANGRY OVER MISSING COLLEAGUES
5 February, 1999 

MAE SOT
FACTORY SIEGE AFTER BURMESE STAFF BEATEN

Over 1,000 angry Burmese workers laid siege to a cloth dyeing and knitting
factory, demanding the factory search for their fellow Burmese who had gone
missing after being beaten by factory guards.


Four motorcycles, the factory gate, its canteen and lamps were damaged by
the protesting workers of Colour Best Dyeing and Finishing Co. All workers
were illegal immigrants.

The violent protest follows recent action by two guards who used batons to
hit a Burmese worker who was watching TV along with other Burmese workers
in the canteen at about 11 p.m. on Wednesday. The guards entered the
canteen and turned off the television set and all lights and ordered the
workers to go to bed. According to factory regulations, all workers must go
to bed before 11 p.m.

However, some workers violated the rule by turning on the TV to watch their
favorite programme. As the guards, armed with batons, went back, offending
workers ran out of the canteen. However, one of them was grabbed by the
guards, who used the batons to hit him. The worker was handcuffed and
dragged out of the factory. He has disappeared.

The brutal beating and the disappearance of the Burmese sparked the protest
by all workers who demanded the factory search for their friend.

As the situation turned violent, about 100 Mae Sot police armed with
anti-riot equipment and tear gas were sent to the factory.

Mae Sot district chief Cherdsak Choosri and district police superintendent
Pol Col Sutheera Bunnabut persuaded the two sides to hold negotiations to
settle the problem.

Representatives of the protesters and the factory attended the talks. The
factory management agreed to help search for the missing worker after the
workers agreed to end their protest.

The two guards were being detained at the police station pending an
investigation into the attack on the worker.

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BANGKOK POST: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
5 February, 1999 

Perhaps the greatest achievement of democracy is the acceptance of the
principle that an election decides which party forms a government and which
party becomes the opposition. It is unthinkable that the government party
refuses to relinquish power when it loses an election.

Unthinkable but not impossible. It happened in Burma in 1990 and woe unto
those inside that hapless country who insist that the military junta do the
right thing and step down. Then if the people want them, the majority will
vote them in the next election.

Alas, doing the right thing isn't what SPDC-cum-SLORC is about. It is well
aware that the vast majority of the populace prefers Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's
pro-democracy NLD. So the regime, intent on clinging to power, threatens
and intimidates and detains her followers. In captivity, they are
physically and psychologically tortured.

"Tortured Voices", published by ABSDF (the All Burma Students' Democratic
Front), comprises 10 personal accounts of Burma's interrogation centres.
The first thing that jolts the reader is the regime's broad definition of
subversive activities. Apart from involvement with the NLD, there's
membership of a student union or owning a fax. Foreigners are regarded as
CIA agents.

The detailed descriptions of me barbaric acts performed by MIS (the
Military Intelligence Service) would do the Gestapo and KGB proud: Sleep,
food and waste elimination deprivations, beatings, near drownings and
electrical shocks, buried up to their necks and kicked, years of solitary
confinement.


Confessions signed but not read, much less written, by the accused. And
always including the assertion that the incriminating admissions are made
voluntarily,  a preposterous charade that absolutely nobody believes. Yet
perpetuated in Greece under the colonels, in Argentina under the generals,
by Trujillo, Stroesser, Saddam, Pinochet, Poi Pot, Castro, Amin.

Nine of the prisoners, ultimately released, fled abroad. One, Leo Nichols,
the de facto honorary consul for Norway, Denmark, Finland and Switzerland,
was a close friend of Suu Kyi and suffered the fatal consequence. We are
informed that there are currently up to 2,000 political prisoners in Burma.

"Tortured Voices" isn't a call to revolution or a Communist tract. Neither
is there any indication that Suu Kyi was involved in the writing of this
book. What it succeeds in doing is making the reader tremble with rage at
the human rights abuses in Burma. To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell to the
regime: "Be gone!"

****************************************************************

BURMANET: THE MONTH IN REVIEW - JANUARY, 1999
5 February, 1999 by BurmaNet Editor

Throughout the month of January, the closings of NLD offices and
resignations of its members dominated the political news inside Burma.  Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi has said that the numbers are not as dramatic as they
sound because active members are not the bulk of those being forced to
resign.  In other words, the daily workings of the NLD are not being
critically affected but rather the tactic is a propaganda tool and a way of
intimidating the population.  The NLD and other inside sources have exposed
the methods used to force the resignations: intimidation of the MP's in the
"guesthouses" during their "exchanges of views," sham anti-NLD mass rallies
with prescribed speeches and scripted audience participation, and door to
door visits by civil servants.  People in these civil service positions are
posing threats that continued affiliation with the NLD will result in
obstacles for members' economic, profession, and educational lives.  The
NLD has filed a lawsuit against the Military Intelligence calling the
forcing of resignations illegal, but they have not seen any action taken on
the suit yet.

It is hard to know what the true reaction of the people in Burma is to the
harassment of the NLD.  The resignations speak more to the severity of
intimidation rather than to the lack of support for the NLD.  Some contacts
inside have suggested a possible backlash, with many people becoming
increasingly insulted by the blatancy of the SPDC propaganda.  This month,
there was at least one anti-government demonstration.  In Pegu, townspeople
came into the streets denouncing the government after a military truck ran
over and killed a 18-year-old female student, protesting the lack of rule
of law to hold accountable those soldiers responsible for the death.  On
the days following the death, anti-government graffiti and pro-democracy
flyers and pamphlets appeared throughout the town.

Another site of potential public resistance is Mon State. In the middle of
this month, Naing Thaung Shein, an elected Member of Parliament of the (now
officially disbanded but still functioning) Mon National Democratic Front
(MNDF), fled to Thai border.  The MNDF won four of the 20 Mon State seats
and one seat in Karen State in the 1990 elections.  In August of last year,
the MNDF wrote a critical analysis of the political, social, and economic
situation in Mon State after three years of living under the New Mon State
Party (NMSP) - Slorc/SPDC ceasefire agreement.  Soon after, the NMSP sent a
letter in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's call to convene parliament.
The SPDC responded harshly, demanding a retraction and arresting the
authors of the MNDF report, including one elected MP.  As in many other
ceasefire areas, the people in Mon State are dissatisfied with the social
and economic situation, but the ethnic armed opposition group is not strong
enough to resume an armed struggle.  In addition, some have benefited from
increased business dealings as part of the ceasefire agreement and are thus
more reluctant to challenge the SPDC.  Still, the rumblings of
dissatisfaction in Mon State suggest that perhaps the NMSP ceasefire is
becoming more fragile.


Further north along the Thai-Burma border, the SPDC began its dry-season
offensive this month, prompting an influx of refugees, which in turn is
testing the as-yet-undefined role of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) in the camps.  The UNHCR staff have established
offices in Mae Hong Son, Mae Sot, and Sangklaburi but permanent field
officers have not begun working in all sites.  

In mid-January, a Burmese spy was detained entering a camp.  News of spies
in Huay Kaloke camp in Mae Sot has prompted many of the refugees there to
begin sleeping in the fields outside the camp.  They fear the Burmese army
or its ally the Democratic Karen Buddhist Association (DKBA) will set the
refugee camp ablaze for a third year in a row.  

The Thai authorities are displaying little tolerance for newly arrived
refugees, having threatened in early January to forcibly repatriate 164 new
arrivals in a Karenni camp near Mae Hong Son and 808 new arrivals in a
Karen camp near Mae Sot at the end of the month.  In both cases, the UNHCR
and NGO's have been only able to buy time, and the Thai authorities
continue to threaten repatriation.  

On the other side of the border this month, the Thai-based MDX Power has
been conducting a feasibility study for a Salween Dam project in Shan
State.  If this project goes through, Thailand can expect the accompanying
relocations, forced labor, and portering to result in an even greater
influx of refugees.

On the international scene, the elusive United Nations' "Carrots and
Sticks" proposal to provide World Bank aid in exchange for political
compromise remains a topic of speculation.  Through formal NLD statements
and an interview with BBC this month, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi indicated that
the news about a "deal" is premature and that no one has defined an actual
proposal.  Even with only speculatory reports, the glaring absence of any
reference to the inclusion of the ethnic minority groups in a plan to
achieve political compromise brings the effectiveness and wisdom of the
potential deal into serious question.

On January 22, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations indefinitely postponed talks because of a disagreement over the
terms of SPDC's participation.  The EU gradually has strengthened such
political pressure against the regime over the past year despite strong
business interests lobbying for a political blind eye to human rights
abuses and political stalemate.

The EU's stance on limiting the SPDC's participation in talks is
embarrassing for the junta, but it continues to conduct public relations
maneuvers in an attempt to establish some international legitimacy.  The
contrast between its rhetoric and its actions inside the country is at
times striking.  This month, Tony Hall, a U.S. congressman from Ohio,
visited Burma and met with both the SPDC and NLD.  After leaving Burma, he
encouraged large-scale humanitarian aid to combat the country's problems of
malnutrition, poor education, and disease.  His recommendation ignores the
fact that much of the aid would not arrive to its intended recipients, but
rather would be siphoned off to the military cache.  


Around the time of Rep. Hall's visit, the NLD began a campaign of mass
distribution of rice and medicine, and its efforts were welcomed and
supported by many people.  The campaign also gives a morale boost to the
NLD, as they are able to be in touch with people directly and also focus on
their daily hardships.  As Rep. Hall made his announcement encouraging
increased humanitarian aid, the military junta was restricting the NLD from
continuing with its distribution of rice and medicine and even arresting
some of the people who wanted to receive the donations.

Also this month, Brig.-Gen. Kyaw Win (who has close ties to MI-Chief Khin
Nyunt) and a delegation including Lt. Col. Hla Min visited Japan at the
controversial invitation of the Japanese government. The visit was cut
short with no official explanation.  However, the quick departure came on
the heals of Lt. Col. Hla Min's public statement that elections could be
held within two to three years, which may have been a departure from the
script that Rangoon had planned for the visit.  Any suggestion that the
regime is moving towards a democratic transition conflicts with the news
this month of a severe crackdown on internal dissent: extremely long prison
sentences of 52, 38, 23 and 21 years for four of the 1,000+ people arrested
for their parts in the August and September, 1998 demonstrations and
efforts to convene parliament.  (Most of the other 270 sentenced in January
received sentences of 14 or seven years.)

The crippled legitimacy of the junta received a major boost this month when
the international police cooperation organization, Interpol, sent out
invitations for a February, 1999 Conference on Heroin to be held in
Rangoon.  Denmark quickly announced that it would boycott the conference,
and several other countries have been holding discussions about the
possibility of doing the same.  Holding such a conference in Burma implies
that the SPDC is part of the solution rather than a major part of the
problem.  As Aryeh Nehrer, President of the Open Society Institute,
remarked in a letter to Janet Reno, a drug conference in Rangoon is in the
same category as holding a convention on weapons of mass destruction in
Baghdad on women's rights in Kabul or on terrorism in Tripoli.

The Committee Representing the People's Parliament continues to attempt
ways to carry out the duties of elected representatives, but international
recognition of the body has been weak.  Recently, The New Yorker (11
January, 1999) ran an article about the attempts by Richard Holbrooke (who
negotiated the 1995 Dayton agreement that ended the war in Bosnia) to
prompt a peaceful solution to the current conflict in Kosovo.  According to
the article, a Yugoslav intellectual pulled Holbrooke aside and asked him
why he was still dealing with Slobodan Milosevic.  The Yugoslav president
is believed to be responsible for much of the havoc in the former
Yugoslavia over the last decade, including a policy of ethnic cleansing.  

"Who, Holbrooke replied pointedly, was capable of mounting a credible
opposition?  ... If there was a local Aung San Suu Kyi, Holbrooke
continued, ... he'd be talking to her.  'Instead, there are only
discredited opposition leaders, who can't stand to be in the same room with
each other.' " This month, students, ethnic group leaders, and the NLD
continued to confront severe constraints in their efforts to stimulate
social change.  Meanwhile, the international community has continued to
grapple with this question of how to tap into the broadly-recognized moral
authority of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD to help resolve the problem
of repressive military rule in Burma.


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