Wired News on March 11, 1995

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on March 11, 1995
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Burmese leader meets Vietnamese president   

    HANOI, March 11 (Reuter) - Burmese military leader Than Shwe met
Vietnam's head of state, President Le Duc Anh, on the third day of an
official visit on Saturday. 

    Than Shwe, chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC) and prime minister, held talks with Vietnamese prime minister Vo Van
Kiet on Thursday and met Vietnam's top leader, Communist Party General
Secretary Do Muoi, on Friday. 

    The Burmese leader, accompanied by several other SLORC members and
ministers, was due to fly to Ho Chi Minh City later in the day after the two
governments signed agreements. Details of the accords have not been
announced. 

    Muoi accepted an invitation from Than Shwe to visit Rangoon, the official
Vietnam News Agency reported. 

    The 78-year-old party boss has travelled to several Southeast Asian
countries in the past two years as Vietnam has built up its regional links
prior to joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

    Vietnam is due to become ASEAN's seventh member next July, joining
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. 

    Burmese Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw, accompanying Than Shwe to Vietnam,
said in a newspaper interview that Burma also wanted to join ASEAN. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-11 02:25:19 EST
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Dhaka hopes to send back all refugees by 1995   

    COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, March 11 (Reuter) - Bangladesh expects to send
home all Burmese Moslem refugees by end of the year, officials said on
Saturday. 

    ``We are hopeful of completing the repatriation by December if everything
goes well,'' one official told reporters. 

    Nearly 180,000 refugees, called Rohingyas, have returned home since
September 1992, including 3,710 on Friday, officials said. There are still
some 80,000 refugees in several camps, mostly along the Bangladesh-Burma
border. 

    The Rohingyas fled from west Burma's Moslem-majority Arakan state in
early 1992 to escape alleged military persecution. Repatriation started in
September that year under supervision of the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-11 03:47:01 EST
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