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SCMP-Gestures ridiculed



Monday  February 15  1999
Burma

Gestures ridiculed

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok
Burma's junta is living in a dream world if it thinks merely releasing two
political prisoners will polish up its image, critics said yesterday.

The authorities said at the weekend writer Nyi Pu Lay had been freed after
serving 10 years in jail for links to anti-government groups.

Writer Ma Thida - a friend of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi - was
released last week after serving five years of a 20-year sentence.

"They release a couple of high-profile prisoners. The reality is that a
fortnight earlier about 200 people were sentenced to a total of 3,440 years
in jail," the co-ordinator of the Alternative Asean Network on Burma, Debbie
Stothard, said.

European diplomats said the latest gesture would not be enough to enable
Burma to attend next month's EU-Asean summit in Berlin.

"They are very grudging. Often they only release political prisoners when
they have been intimidated into shunning the opposition," the justice
minister of the exile government, U Thein Oo, said.