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Myanmar will be a 'democracy'



David Abel,
You said you and your gang are going to give the Burmese people with
Burmese type of Democracy and Burmese norms.  
Let me ask you only one question.  Do you have a Burmese name with a
Burmese style and norms?  What is your name David Able means in Burmese?
Give me a break!

Htun Aung Gyaw


At 12:16 PM 10/04/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>JUNTA SPELLS OUT STAND / NLD'S WEAKNESS EXPOSED, SAYS MINISTER
>
>Myanmar will be a 'democracy'
>
>By P.S. Suryanarayana
>
>The Hindu newspaper (New Delhi)
>4th Oct., 1999
>
>SINGAPORE, OCT. 3. Noting sarcastically that "the Gig Bang" of a push
>for democracy in Myanmar on September 9, a planned campaign which made
>international news, "didn't materialise," a top Myanmarese Minister,
>Brig, Gen. David O. Abel, has described it as "a sign of weakness" of
>the protagonists for an immediate political change.
>
>In an interview with The Hindu here, Brig. Gen. Abel, an influential
>Minister in the Office of the Chairman of the State Peace and
>Development Council (SPDC), said: "We won't say that the NLD (The
>National League for Democracy led by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi) is already
>finished."
>
>Speaking on the sidelines of the conference of the Economic Ministers of
>the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the related
>meetings which concluded here yesterday, Brig. Gen. Abel Said, "We did
>say we are going to be democracy. But it is going to be (a democracy)
>with Myanmar norms, Myanmar style."
>
>Without explicitly referring to the issues raised by the pro-democracy
>Myanmarese gunmen who seized Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok last Friday,
>Brig.. Gen. abel, speaking before the crisis was resolved, said: "The
>election (held in 1990) by the military rulers) was not to hand over
>government (to the poll winner). The election was to have a formal
>Constituent Assembly (set up)." The NLD today condemned the seizure of
>the embassy.
>
>Reminded of the line adopted by the NLD and its supporters in the West
>and also elsewhere that the military junta could have given the green
>signal in the early 1990s for the drafting of Constitution under the
>aegis of and elected government headed by Ms. Suu Kyi who had won the
>poll, he repeatedly asked, "How can (that be a solution)?" The prime
>point, in his view, was that the poll, kept in international focus to
>this day by the NLD, was not a government-ushering exercise.
>
>Nothing that the Constitution-making National Convention was presently
>working apace on organising its fourth session, the Minister said: "Once
>that (fourth session) foes off OK, the (new) Constitution would have
>been already spelt out. .... The majority of the people want a new
>Constitution. .... They want their rights, not promised by (word of)
>mouth, but in the Constitution."
>
>About the prospects of Ms. Suu Kyi and the NLD being allowed to contest
>the elections under such a new Constitution, he said: "I don't know.
>That will depend on what is written in Constitution and what the
>National Convention feels about them. They were represented by the
>largest number of people. They walked out, thinking that the rest of the
>groups will follow. .... They thought if they walked out the whole thing
>(the Constitution-making exercise) will collapse. But it didn't."
>
>
>
>Ties with India improved
>
>"Myanmar's relations with India have (recently) improved a lot after
>some turbulence in 1988," Brig. Gen. Abel said, referring to the alleged
>activities of the Myanmarese" dissidents" on the Indian soil in the late
>1980s and to the latest meetings between the Foreign Ministers of the
>two countries as also the visit to Yangon by the Indian Foreign
>Secretary.
>
>Expressing deep satisfaction over India's latest offers of economic help
>to Myanmar regarding information technology and other spheres, Brig.
>Gen. Abel, however, said: "your Defence Minister, Mr. Fernandes, spoke
>of Myanmar giving territory to the Chinese to build a naval base. We
>invited him to come, have a look. He didn't. .... Our relationships both
>with China and India have been very proper. We have not overstepped our
>limits."
>
>Discounting the chances of a marginal cordiality in the ties with the
>U.S., he said: "We have not mended our fences with the U.S. We showing
>hostility towards us. That is a very big difference. .... The single
>superpower should not be making statements at random and criticising
>countries in their own internal policies."