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NEWS - Myanmar junta says it won't



Subject: NEWS - Myanmar junta says it won't tie aid to UN envoy's visit

Myanmar-UN
   Myanmar junta says it won't tie aid to UN envoy's visit
   
   YANGON, Aug 20 (AFP) - Myanmar's military rulers said Friday they
would not 
demand World Bank aid in exchange for allowing a United Nations special
envoy 
to visit the country next month.
   The UN is believed to be considering offering the junta World Bank 
assistance as a carrot to prompt talks with opposition leader and Nobel
peace 
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
   But Foreign Minister Win Aung told AFP no conditions had been placed
on the 
visit of special envoy Alvaro de Soto.
   "We don't have any conditions, whether he brings any proposals from
the 
World Bank or not is not of any concern to us," Win Aung said.
   The international community has suspended all non-humanitarian aid to 
Myanmar because of widespread allegations of gross human rights abuses
and 
Yangon's refusal to recognise 1990 elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's 
National League for Democracy (NLD).
   De Soto last visited Yangon in October, when one billion dollars in 
non-humanitarian aid was reportedly floated as a way of breaking the
political 
deadlock and bringing the junta to the negotiating table.
   But the foreign minister said the NLD would need to adopt a more 
conciliatory attitude if it wanted to take part in political change
inside 
Myanmar.
   "We will move forward with or without the opposition because we want
a 
mature democracy, an endurable democracy, a democracy that will not
collapse," 
he said.
   Win Aung said human-rights issues would not be off limits during
talks with 
de Soto, who is due to arrive here in early September.
   "If they want to talk about human rights, we will answer their
human-rights 
question -- we are also human beings and we respect the rights of human 
beings," he said.
   Win Aung said a visit earlier this month by Australian human rights 
commissioner Chris Sidoti demonstrated the junta was prepared to accept 
foreign scrutiny of its human-rights record.
   He noted that in July, a four-man team representing Finland,
Portugal, the 
European Union secretariat and the European Commission traveled to
Yangon to 
hold talks with powerful junta First Secretary Khin Nyunt and Aung San
Suu Kyi.
   Win Aung said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had
also 
been allowed to inspect conditions inside Myanmar prisons.   
   "We are pragmatic people, practical people ... if we have something
to hide 
we would never allow the ICRC to go and visit our prisons," said Win
Aung.
   The ICRC was forced to strongly defend its visit to Yangon's
notorious 
Insein jail after Aung San Suu Kyi claimed the junta had transferred
hundreds 
of prisoners ahead of its May inspection.
   Despite his conciliatory tone, Win Aung warned that the junta would
not 
respond to pressure from its foreign critics, and would introduce
democracy to 
Myanmar at its own pace.
   "The country is not in a chaotic situation because of this
government, the 
country is still stable and moving forward, and whether people pressure
us or 
not, a democratic government will come out surely because that is the
path we 
have chosen," he said.
   Win Aung's comments come at a time of rising tension inside Myanmar,
with 
dissidents and exiled students calling for a mass uprising on September
9, or 
9/9/99.
   This month saw the 11th anniversary of a popular uprising on August
8, 
1988, or 8/8/88, in which hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were
gunned 
down and a junta took power from dictator General Ne Win.
   The activists say the junta has launched a crackdown ahead of the
planned 
uprising, arresting 150 people in the past month.
   But the junta says only 37 people have been detained in connection
with the 
planned unrest.
   Despite the calls for a mass uprising and ongoing Western
condemnation, Win 
Aung said the situation inside Myanmar was much better than in many
other 
nations.
   "We don't have any mass graves, the people are not disappearing in
masses, we don't have a mass exodus, and you know there are other
countries where there are human-rights violations; we don't have that,
we don't have ethnic cleansing."
   agr-gw/jit

NOTE: There are no mass graves because many were thrown into the river,
left in the Jungle to eaten by animals and incerated.  Boy, What A Joke
!!!!