EBO
News Summary:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
2. After
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japan to freeze new aid to Myanmar
over Suu Kyi
as the junta has continued to detain
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, a foreign ministry official said
Wednesday.
"We have decided to stop providing
new ODA (overseas development
assistance) for
said.
"We are going to tell them that we
cannot help but step up pressure on the
country unless they release Aung San Suu
Kyi," he said. "As one of the largest
donor countries, we will use financial
pressure."
Visiting UN envoy Razali Ismail, who met
the Nobel peace laureate on June
10, held talks with Japanese Foreign
Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to inform her
of Suu Kyi's conditions, the ministry
official said.
Razali, a former Malaysian diplomat, told
detained in a "small, concrete hutch"
located in a
said she was kept in "poor
surroundings."
The two agreed that
immediate release of Suu Kyi," the official
said.
Razali later told reporters that the
United Nations was now losing patience
as the
the past two weeks, according to Jiji Press.
Razali also said Suu Kyi's detention must
be a factor for
in formulating its policies toward the
country, Kyodo News said.
"Whatever policy
would have to take into account what has taken
place," the envoy was quoted by
Kyodo as telling reporters.
---------------------------------
After
The
By FRED HIATT
Almost everyone who opposed the U.S.-led
war in
agreed that Saddam Hussein was a monster.
''We're glad the dictator is gone,''
they say now. “But war was the wrong way to
unseat him.''
Fair enough. But then, what is the right
way? Aung San Suu Kyi might like to know.
In case you haven't been following the
news from the other side of the world,
she is the leader of pro-democracy forces in
Buddhist nation of
Prison, the terror center
outside
converted to torture cells, and prisoners are
forced to beat each other bloody
for the entertainment of guards.
If Saddam Hussein's rule was monstrous,
the regime of
Ethnic cleansing, rape as an official tool
of repression, heroin and HIV/AIDS as
primary exports, a vast security apparatus
spreading fear throughout society,
slave labor --
But
In
people loved him. You could scoff at the claim,
but you couldn't absolutely prove
it false. In
is illegitimate: It lost a 1990 election to
the National League for Democracy, which won
82 percent of parliamentary seats even
though its leader -- the same Aung San
Suu Kyi -- was under house arrest then.
Those elected were never permitted to
take their seats. Quite a few, in fact, ended
up in Insein.
Given all that, you might ask why regime
change is not on the world's agenda.
Last week the United Nations General
Assembly adopted a $2.17 billion budget
for the coming year for peacekeeping
operations. Why nothing for democracy-keeping?
It's accepted, now, that the
''international community,'' as we call it when no one
wants to take responsibility, would have been
justified if it had violated
sovereignty to prevent genocide there -- that is, it
was morally remiss, in fact,
in failing to do so. Many nations supported
the violation of
to save the people of Kosovo.
The people of
humanity that just unfold in slower motion than
permitted to shield themselves behind a sovereignty
that does not legitimately
belong to them. Leaders around the world go on
receiving their ambassadors
and embracing their foreign ministers.
Is it fanciful to dream of a
democracy-keeping force that would liberate the people
of
or
of the absence of consensus, George Bush
would see no issues of national security
to justify the use of force. But then, what
would they do?
Sen. Mitch McConnell has one suggestion, and
he persuaded 96 other senators
to go along: a ban on imports from
have little effect, or end up hurting poor
workers more than rich generals.
But for a couple of reasons,
itself the State Peace and Development Council
-- controls most of the economy
and so would be immediately affected.
for most Burmese goods sold in this country,
became so disgusted by the child labor
and other coercive practices of the regime
that, through their trade association,
they actually endorsed an import ban before
the Senate voted.
Amartya Sen, the Nobel
Prize-winning economist and development expert, said Friday
that sanctions ''are more likely to be
effective there than almost anywhere else
I can imagine'' -- provided other
countries join in.
With which McConnell agrees. ''Our actions
will not be truly effective until our European
allies and
And that brings us back to all those
politicians who bowed to no one in their disdain
for Saddam Hussein -- but who insisted that war
could never be the answer.
They have a chance to show that another
way might work. Aung San Suu Kyi is waiting.
###
If you do not wish to receive this daily newsletters, please reply
with your e-mail address and the "cancel" in the text section.
With many thanks,
Euro-Burma Office
Square Gutenberg 11/2
1000
tel: 32 2 280 0691/280 2452
fax: 32 2 280 0310
e-mail: [email protected]