AP-Myanmar Regime Wants ``Cooperati

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Subject: AP-Myanmar Regime Wants ``Cooperation''

Wednesday July 14 5:11 PM ET

Myanmar Regime Wants ``Cooperation''

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The military government in Myanmar urged the
embattled pro-democracy party on Wednesday to be more ``pragmatic'' and
dissolve a committee designed to symbolically represent a democratic
parliament.

The military government reminded the National League for Democracy, lead by
Aung San Suu Kyi, that the alternative to ``cooperation'' was incarceration
in ``guest houses,'' according to information the government sent to news
groups in Bangkok.

The veiled warning came a day after Suu Kyi, in an opinion piece published
in a Bangkok newspaper, called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
to pressure the leaders of Myanmar, a member state, to move toward
democracy.

The military has ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1962. In 1990,
Suu Kyi's party won democratic elections in a landslide, surprising the
generals.

The military refused, however, to allow the parliament to convene.

Last year, Suu Kyi's party formed a committee intended to symbolically
represent the parliament, marking the 10th anniversary of protests that
vaulted the Suu Kyi to the forefront of public life.

The government reacted harshly, rounding up hundreds of party members not
already in jail, or so-called ``guest houses,'' and freeing them only when
they renounced party membership.

Wednesday's demand that the party dissolve its symbolic committee is the
first indication of what the government requires in exchange for interacting
with the party.

There was no immediate response from the party.

Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, renewed her appeal for
negotiations to resolve the decade-old political deadlock, but said, ``The
government doesn't really want a dialogue because they think that dialogue
would be the beginning of the end for them.''

A European Union delegation visited last week in efforts to facilitate a
settlement. The EU has imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions in Myanmar
to pressure the government to improve human rights.