UPI: SLORC Feels Shine With the ASE

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Subject: UPI: SLORC Feels Shine With the ASEAN Dress

SLORC Feels Shine With the ASEAN Dress   
By JOHN HAIL

   JAKARTA, July 22 (UPI) -- Burma's foreign minister Monday defended the
human rights record of his country's ruling military junta and exulted in
its new-found respectability as a prospective member of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
   Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw said ASEAN's policy of "constructive
engagement" toward Burma's rulers had been successful despite objections
from the United States and other countries which have tried to isolate the
regime.
   The Burmese foreign minister was speaking at a press conference two days
after his country was officially accepted to ASEAN as an observer, an
important step toward the regional grouping's stated objective of accepting
Rangoon as a full member by 2000.
   "You are witnessing the result of the success today," Ohn Gyaw said. "We
are already observer status (in ASEAN) and now we are on our way to be
integrated as a full member. There is no better proof than this."
   ASEAN, founded in 1967, currently includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. During its just-concluded
ministerial meeting, ASEAN also agreed to accept Cambodia and Laos as full
members in 1997.
   "We are ready now," for full membership in ASEAN, Ohn Gyaw said.
   He justified the brutal suppression of Burma's pro-democracy movement in
1988 on cultural and historical grounds, saying the country was on the
verge of disintegration.
   "The armed forces is the only disciplined institution," Ohn Gyaw said.
"In 1988 (the country) collapsed. That was the reason why the armed forces
had to come in."
   He said the maintenance of "law and order" justified the military's
refusal to hand over power when the National League for Democracy, led by
Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory in the election of 1990.
   Without naming them, Ohn Gyaw lashed out at the United States and other
Western countries for blocking loans to Burma from the World Bank and the
Asian Development Bank.
   "The big powers, if they do not like a country, they can manipulate
certain restrictions on development projects," he said.
   The U.S., Australia and several European governments have restricted
trade with Rangoon in order to put pressure on its military rulers to free
political prisoners and curtail the use of slave labor.
   Ohn Gyaw also defended his government's "black list" of journalists it
will not allow in the country, saying it has a right to bar newsmen
critical of the regime.
   "If there is not good will, why should they come in and write bad
things?" he said.
   The Burmese foreign minister scoffed at concerns expressed by several
European governments about the recent death of Leo Nichols, an Anglo-
Burmese who died after he was jailed in Rangoon for owning telephones and
fax machines without government permission.
   Nichols had been employed as an honorary consul for the governments of
Denmark, Norway, Finland and Switzerland.
   Ohn Gyaw claimed Nichols died because of the rich foods he ate while in
prison.
   "Because of the excessive fats and the richness of the food, it was not
compatible with his health. Then he collapsed and was sent to hospital and
he passed away," Ohn Gyaw said.
   A recent article in the government-run New Light of Myanmar in Rangoon
described Nichols as a "crook" and a "bad hat."
   "It's not the government saying that he was a crook," Ohn Gyaw said. "We
never say anybody's a crook, even though he may be a crook."
   
   
 
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