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UN aid talks aim to end impasse (Si (r)



Subject: UN aid talks aim to end impasse (Sidney Morning Herald)

BURMESE INTRANSIGENCE

UN aid talks aim to end impasse (Sidney Morning Herald)
Date: 29/05/99


By CRAIG SKEHAN, Herald Correspondent in Bangkok

The United Nations is negotiating with Burmese authorities on prospects for
talks in Rangoon as early as August, aimed at exploring scope for
dramatically increased aid and loan assistance.

A senior Western diplomat said it was possible a representative of the World
Bank would join the United Nations' special envoy on Burma, Mr Alvaro de
Soto, in Rangoon.

Last October Britain hosted an international gathering to discuss the
political impasse which resulted from the military's quashing of 1990
elections.

A proposal was floated linking potential annual international assistance of
$US1billion ($1.53billion) to a restoration of civil and political rights.

Earlier this month the ruling Burmese military regime said publicly that
national sovereignty was "not for sale".

However, diplomats in Rangoon said yesterday that although the Burmese had
ruled out June and July for talks with the UN, they were discussing dates
for a visit by Mr de Soto "some time after that".

One senior United States official said that last year he had put the
prospects of international assistance breaking the Burmese political
deadlock at about 10 per cent.

Now he believed the probability of success had fallen even lower because of
an intensified crackdown on Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD).

A foreign diplomat in Rangoon said: "What's the alternative? The world has
been pretty tough on Burma for the past 10 years, but there has been no
major shift by the military."

Ms Suu Kyi is opposed to increased international development assistance for
Burma unless there are concrete concessions such as the release of more than
1,000 political prisoners and freedom for the NLD to engage in political
activities.

However, frustrations are building among foreign diplomats about the lack of
any movement on the domestic political stage.

One compared the situation in Burma to the film Groundhog Day, in which the
characters repeat the same sequence of events day after day.

Another foreign observer in Rangoon said: "The way things are going, Suu Kyi
will be an old lady in a rocking chair and still nothing much will have
changed."

Many foreign diplomats based in Burma believe that in the face of the
military regime's intransigence Ms Suu Kyi will need to be more flexible.


Attempts by the Burmese military regime to consolidate its membership of the
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) advanced incrementally this
week, but not without elements of farce.

At a Bangkok meeting between the representatives of ASEAN and delegates from
the European Union, members of the Burmese contingent were banned from
talking. This was the result of a compromise to break a two-year delay in
holding the meeting because of EU objections to Burmese involvement.

And a dilemma remains as to whether Burma may take part in a planned
EU-ASEAN meeting on narcotics trafficking, even though Burma is the region's
biggest heroin producer.

Such manoeuvrings, though, and the attempts to use international aid as a
carrot to kick-start reforms in Burma, will mean little unless there are
fundamental attitudinal changes in Rangoon.