NEWS - Myanmar junta seeks rapproch

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Subject: NEWS - Myanmar junta seeks rapprochement, but no "monkeys" to West

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Myanmar-politics,sched
   Myanmar junta seeks rapprochement, but no "monkeys" to West criticism
   by Philippe Agret
   
   YANGON, Aug 26 (AFP) - Besieged by foreign criticism, sanctions and a 
ramshackle economy, Myanmar's ruling generals are well aware of the need
to 
bridge the gulf with their opponents to achieve progress -- but insist
it be 
on their own terms.
   "We are not monkeys," said Brigadier-General David Abel, a minister
in the 
office of the chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, and
one of 
the junta's top figures.
   "You don't give us bananas," he says of moves to link international
funds 
to concessions to the country's political opposition.
   "We know that isolation is not desirable, we know that we should not
be 
isolated anymore. But to be dictated, and dominated and bullied, that is
not 
our trend of life."
   United Nations special envoy Alvaro de Soto is due to visit Yangon
early in 
September, likely with a World Bank representative, to discuss with the
two 
camps the possibility of a gradual resumption of UN aid to Myanmar.
   The UN initiative is believed to be aimed at coaxing humanitarian 
concessions and talks with the pro-democracy opposition from the ruling 
military, using the "carrot" of international aid. Press reports have 
mentioned the overall figure of one billion dollars from the World Bank.
   "We don't move with a carrot and a stick," Abel told AFP.
   "We are very flexible. But, with our national pride, we are not
anybody's 
puppet."
   As evidence of its willingness to be flexible, the junta points to
its 
allowing visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross to
detainees. 
They also point to the landmark visits in August by Australian human
rights 
commissioner Chris Sidoti and a European troika in July.
   "That shows our flexibility," Abel said.
   "They came with a positive stance. Therefore we accepted them with
our 
hands outstretched, 'come and see for yourself.'"
   Western ambassadors in Yangon note what one European diplomat called
"an 
air of cautious optimism" over prospects for improved relations between
Aung 
San Suu Kyi and the junta, despite the authorities' "extreme
nationalism."
   "If the international community is only for Daw (Eds: honorific) Aung
San 
Suu Kyi, not (aware of) the reality of what we are trying to do, and
they have 
this conception that only Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can build the nation,
then it's 
wrong," said Foreign Minister Win Aung.
   Junta members are still obsessed by fears of national desintegration
after 
more than forty years of ethnic insurgency which followed hard-won 
independence from colonial master Britain in 1948. 
   Bred on decades of non-alignment and isolationism, they claim that 
"Tatmadaw" (the army) is the only force strong enough to hold the
country 
together.
   But says opposition National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi: 
"Patriotism is the last refuge of inefficient government."
   Myanmar's military watched with dismay the fall last year of veteran 
Indonesian president Suharto, whose leadesrhip they had seen as a model
for 
their own country.
   Western intervention in Yugoslavia has also riled the military, who
are 
accusing the international community of trying to turn Myanmar into the 
Yugoslavia of Asia.
   "That is a case where a small country is hit by many big countries in
the 
name of human rights and democracy," said government spokesman 
Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Min.
   "This is a sovereign state where without the mandate of the UN, all
these 
countries are bashing this small country," he added, repeating the junta 
mantra that foreign might will cannot change Myanmar's course.
   "We have our own principles. We are not going to trade the country
for 
anything."
   He said Myanmar's military was working towards a "multiparty
democratic 
system" that was not a "carbon copy of Western countries", but which
would be 
suitable to its culture and national security.
   "We have put the country on this proper path, but when all these big 
countries are pushing, pulling and giving us too much pressure from
outside, 
we have to be very careful how we move forward because we could get
derailed."
   But foreign analysts warn that a political solution to the stand-off 
between the military and the pro-democracy opposition is the only way to
put 
Myanmar on the track to economic recovery.
   agr/kf/de/rob