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JT-Japan urged not to extend aid to



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: JT-Japan urged not to extend aid to Myanmar junta

The Japan Times - Oct 29, 1999.
Japan urged not to extend aid to Myanmar junta
By HIROSHI YAMAGIWA
Staff writer

The visiting leader of a group of ousted Myanmar legislators in exile called
on Japan Thursday not to resume full scale economic aid to the governing
military junta.

 "'We are concerned about ODA (official development assistance)," said Sein
Win, head of the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union
of Burma. "We know it is not much now, but we are concerned if a large
amount of aid will go in.

Substantial aid would delay democratization by giving the military junta a
sense of security, he warned.

NCGUB was formed in 1990 by a group of legislators from the National League
for Democracy, which won a landslide victory in an election held earlier in
the year. The military, which had staged a coup in 1988 and put opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989, annulled the election.

Japan suspended fresh economic aid to Myanmar after the coup. But since the
release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in 1995, it has been more
flexible in providing aid.

In March 1998, Tokyo partially lifted its ban on ODA to Myanmar and promised
to give the country ¥ 2.5 billion in ODA to help rebuild Yangon's airport,
Sein Win stressed that Japan cannot use economic aid as a "carrot" to get
the junta to open dialogue with the NLD.

"There is no reason why they should follow (a promise) if they got aid," he
said. "Aid alone will not change either a political or economic situation."

Sein Win is visiting Japan for the first time since 1996. On Thursday, he
met with Foreign Ministry, officials and several Diet members.