Japan envoy to convey aid condition

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Subject: Japan envoy to convey aid conditions to Burma 



 Japan envoy to convey aid conditions to Burma 
 07:04 a.m. Jun 12, 1997 Eastern 

 RANGOON, June 12 (Reuter) - A visiting Japanese envoy will
 remind Burma that normalising aid flows will depend on the military
 government's easing of restrictions on opposition activities in the
 country, a Japanese diplomat said on Thursday. 

 Japan's ambassador to Rangoon, Yoichi Yamaguchi, said envoy
 Hiroshi Hirabayashi would convey Tokyo's position on aid when he
 meets Secretary One of Burma's ruling State Law and Order
 Restoration Council (SLORC), Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, later
 on Thursday. 

 Political analysts said Hirabayashi's visit might help improve
 Burmese-Japanese ties, which have been strained since Tokyo froze
 all aid except debt relief grants to Burma after the military crushed
 pro-democracy protests in 1988. 

 Yamaguchi said Hirabayashi, Japan's cabinet chief councillor for
 external affairs, would also discuss Burma's pending membership in
 the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in late July. 

 ``Aid resumption will go ahead in conformity with the development of
 the democratisation process,'' he told Reuters. 

 Hirabayashi met Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw on Thursday
 after arriving on Wednesday for a three-day visit. Japan has long
 urged the SLORC to engage in dialogue with the opposition National
 League for Democracy (NLD) led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
 Kyi. 

 The military government has kept a tight lid on the party's activities. 

 Burmese analysts said the SLORC showed no sign of budging from
 its policy of not negotiating with the NLD while it was led by Suu
 Kyi. The party won a landslide election victory in 1990 but SLORC
 refused to recognise the result. 

 ``Nothing and nobody can force the SLORC to sit at the negotiating
 table with the NLD if it is led by Suu Kyi,'' one analyst said. ``If Suu
 Kyi is not included, it may be another case. Holding dialogue with the
 NLD without Suu Kyi might be acceptable to SLORC but it is
 something the NLD won't do.'' The analyst said Rangoon would
 express its appreciation that Japan had not followed the United
 States in imposing economic sanctions on the country. 

 Washington, citing ``severe repression'' in Burma, imposed the
 sanctions last month over the SLORC's human rights record and
 treatment of democracy activists. ^REUTER@