Win Aung seeks help from ASEAN cou

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Win Aung seeks help from  ASEAN countries

Myanmar foreign minister to visit ASEAN countries
05:17 a.m. Feb 12, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Myanmar's foreign minister will visit four
Association of South East Asian Nations member states this month, the
official Myanma News Agency reported on Friday.

The agency said Win Aung would visit Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and
Thailand from February 15-20, in his first overseas tour since his
appointment in November.

The agency did not give the purpose of his trip, but ASEAN and the European
Union are currently at an impasse over Myanmar's participation in a meeting
of foreign ministers of the two regional groups, scheduled for late next
month in Berlin.

Win Aung is legally barred from visiting the European Union because of
Myanmar's human rights record, but ASEAN has insisted all of its foreign
ministers be allowed to attend the meeting.

EU diplomats say Win Aung will not be permitted to enter the community
unless there is ``significant progress'' to improve Myanmar's human rights
record.

Human rights activists estimate that from 1,000 to 2,000 political prisoners
are currently in custody in Myanmar.

Diplomats in Yangon contacted from Bangkok said they considered ``credible''
reports from pro-democracy groups based in Thailand that some 270 political
activists had been sentenced last month to prison terms ranging from seven
to 52 years.

Last year, the government detained hundreds of members of Nobel Peace Prize
winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
after it called for the convening of a parliament elected in Myanmar's last
election in 1990.

The NLD won the 1990 election by a landslide, but the military has refused
to honour the result.

On Thursday, the government said it had freed ``on humanitarian grounds'' a
dissident writer it jailed in 1993 for distributing anti-government
leaflets.

Ma Thida, 34, a close associate of Aung San Suu Kyi, was sentenced to 20
years jail in October 1993 under Myanmar's Emergency Provisions Act.

An EU diplomat in Bangkok said this single release when so many political
prisoners remained in custody could not be considered the significant
progress the EU was looking for.