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Mizzima: India urged to play active



Mizzima News Group
http://linux.glen.org/hk/mizzima
http://www.srld.com/mizzima

India urged to play active role in Burma: Dissidents write to Indian
Prime Minister

New Delhi, May 27, 2000
Mizzima News Group

India should play its part in concerted international pressure to
restore democracy and human rights in Burma with whom it has had close
historical, cultural and political connections for centuries.

In commemorating the tenth anniversary of National League for
Democracy's election win in Burma, democracy activists based in India
sent an open letter to the Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
requesting India to play active role in the efforts of international
community in urging the Burmese military leaders to enter into dialogue
with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD party.

"More than ever, the military generals in Burma need to know that there
is no alternative to entering negotiations towards a peaceful transition
to democracy", said the letter received today.

The NLD party led by Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won 392
of the 485 parliamentary seats in the general elections held on May 27
ten years ago. The military junta, however, continues to ignore the
result. Instead, it has stepped up its crack down on opposition
political activists and members of NLD party. London-based Amnesty
International said that more than 1,000 political activists were sent to
prisons last year alone.

"Since 1988, the international community at large has been putting
political and economic pressure on the military rulers in Burma for
democratic changes?While we greatly appreciate the support that the
international community has rendered to the Burmese democratic movement,
we expect much more visible support from India", said exiled Burmese
activists.

It was clear from the letter that Burmese activists are disappointed
over the present India's policy towards Burma.

"(W)e would like to express our disappointment over the role of a mute
spectator India is presently playing on the brutal persecution being
carried out by the military junta against its political opponents in
Burma", writes the dissidents to Mr. Vajpayee.

It further said that the Government of India "has lately kept aloof and
stayed away from the international condemnation against the junta".

India was the first neighboring country, which criticized the military
junta during the 1988 events and it allowed the Burmese political
activists to take shelter in India after the military crack down in and
after September 1988 in Burma.

About 500 political activists from Burma have been taking shelter in
India since 1988.

India, however, decided to mend fences with the government in Burma in
1994 and bilateral relationship between the two countries has been
improving since then.

Burma's opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in a conversation with
Indian journalists in December 1995 in Rangoon, said that she expects
India to help the movement for democracy in Burma.

She said that both India and China continued to have friendly relations
with the junta in power. China was not a democracy, she said, but from
India she expected greater assistance for her National League for
Democracy.