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Wednesday February 2 3:44 PM ET
Suu Kyi Seeks Myanmar CooperationBy GRANT PECK Associated Press Writer BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Myanmar's long-standing ethnic problems cannot be solved by cease-fires or terrorism, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said in a videotaped interview, but only through political cooperation. The Nobel Peace Prize winner also expressed concern about God's Army, a small rebel group led by 12-year-old twins now being pursued through the jungle by government troops. In the interview made available Wednesday to news organizations in Bangkok, Suu Kyi said she wanted to know more about Johnny and Luther Htoo, whose followers say they have magical powers in battle. ``I would like to know what their lives have been like, why they are doing what they are doing, why they believe and what they believe they should be doing,'' Suu Kyi said. The fringe Karen group and their radical student allies tried to secure a retreat into Thailand by seizing a Thai hospital and taking hundreds of captives. The gunmen were killed by Thai commandos. ``We don't think that terrorist activity really achieves anything positive,'' Suu Kyi said in Monday's interview. ``I understand that the group that took over the hospital were quite young, that these people were quite unaware of the fact that a place like a hospital should be sacrosanct.'' The twins were not involved in the hostage-taking. Their camp near the Thai border was taken by Myanmar troops two days after the siege ended. They are believed to be skirmishing with Myanmar forces and trying to link up with the Karen National Union, the main ethnic Karen group. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is the main legal organization opposed to military rule in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The party overwhelmingly won national elections in 1990, but the military never allowed parliament to meet and continues to rule, rejecting a dialogue with Suu Kyi. In the past decade, the government has reached cease-fires with most rebel groups, gaining a certain stability that allowed its army to concentrate against stubborn groups like the Karen. But, Suu Kyi said, ``A cease-fire is not peace. Unless there's a settlement of peace made through political means, there will always be a danger that violence will break out again.'' Wednesday February 2 10:17 AM ET UNICEF Cites Myanmar Kids PovertyBy MATTHEW PENNINGTON Associated Press Writer YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Children in Myanmar are condemned to live in poverty and despair unless foreign countries end an aid boycott and the military regime spends more money on health and education, the UNICEF representative here said Wednesday. One in 3 Myanmar children under the age of 5 is malnourished and half of all children get almost no education, said UNICEF's Yangon office head, Juan Aguilar Leon. Foreign aid is severely restricted by a boycott protesting the human-rights record of the military government, which came to power after a bloody crackdown on a nationwide uprising for democracy in 1988. Myanmar is also known as Burma. Yet Leon said the onus lies with the government, which allocates just 2 percent of an already tiny gross domestic product to the social sector. ``Not acting decisively, primarily on the side of the government on one hand, and the international community on the other, will condemn entire generations of children to live in poverty, misery and despair,'' Leon said. ``Not acting is both ethically and morally unacceptable.'' Leon made the comments in an unusually blunt speech to Myanmar officials, aid workers and diplomats at the launch in Yangon of the annual UNICEF global report, ``The State of the World's Children.'' Leon said that out of 1.3 million children born every year in Myanmar, 92,500 die before they reach their first birthday. About three-quarters of children enroll in primary school, but only one in four teen-agers makes it to high school. Myanmar, a country of 48 million people, has been ruled by soldiers since 1962 and has gone from being one of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia to one of the poorest. According to independent estimates, as much as 40 percent of the national budget is spent on the military. |