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Bangkok Post (8/6/99) (r)



<center><bold>junta denes claim

</bold></center>Suu kyi's suggestion counter-productive

Rangoon,AFP

Burma's military rulers on Sunday denied what they called an
"appaling"claim by Aung San Suu Kyu that hundreds of prisoners had been
transferred from a notorious jail before a Red Cross visit.


	

The opposition leader said last week that imprisoned menbers of her party
had been banished to provincial jails before a pioneering visit by
delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] last
mouth.


Without mentioning Aung San Suu kyi by name,a government statement
condemned her comments as "counter productive" for prisoners and their
family.


The statement said it was "appaling but unfortunate that irresponsible
statements and groundless allegations have been launched from certain
quarters to attack and belittle the coooperation between the Myanmar
government and the ICRC.


Red Cross delegates had been allowed into Insein prison in Rangoon
"purely on humanitarian grounds" the statement said.


Many prisoners in Insein jail have emerged with grisly tales of appalling
conditions and said they were tortured or held in solitary confinement.


Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview published in the Financial Times on
Thursday that hundreds of prisoners had been shipped out of Insein to
provincial jails far from their families before the Red Cross inspection
on May 6.



She also criticised the ICRC for not consulting her before accepting a
government offer to visit Burma's jails.


This created tremendous hardship,she was quoted as saying,adding that
many prisoners depended on family visits for food and medicines.


This kind of transfer is a matter of life and death for our party
menbers.


The ICRC said on Thursday that consulting Mrs Suu Kyi would have drawn it
into Burma's political battle. 

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