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Activist 'scheming for US green car



Subject: Activist 'scheming for US green card' 

South China Morning Post
Tuesday  August 26  1997

Burma 
Activist 'scheming for US green card' 


WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok 
The ruling junta's Minister for National Planning, Brigadier-General David 
Abel, has accused Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of scheming to 
obtain an American "green card".

The accusation - blurted out to a Thai reporter - is part of the regime's 
continuing campaign to denigrate its key opponent. Rangoon-based diplomats say 
the campaign is bound to fail.

The powerful intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt claimed last 
month that Ms Aung San Suu Kyi had received US$80,000 (HK$618,000) in 
under-the-table support from the United States, part of a long-running ploy to 
tickle Burmese chauvinism.

"She is using her position, her present situation, to obtain a green card from 
America," General Abel told The Nation.

"Her allegiance is not to our country. Her allegiance is to another country. 
She does not care anything about Myanmar [Burma]."

One diplomat said such attacks on Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's integrity gave the 
game away: "What they fear most is the knowledge that is almost universal in 
Burma that Aung San Suu Kyi can't be bought. That she has already paid a very 
heavy price for her country."

The failure of the open-door investment policy - after an initial flurry of 
activity in the early 1990s - to revive a now stagnant economy, is putting 
increasingly pressure on the junta.

Instead of softening their policies, the generals have become more 
intransigent as the power of the hardline army chief General Maung Aye has 
grown.

General Khin Nyunt held talks with representatives of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's 
National League for Democracy last month as a sop to fellow club members of 
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council has repeatedly attacked the 
opposition leader as a "destructive force" despite a rare consensus in 
diplomatic and opposition communities that she has a special ability to charm 
Burmese of all ethnic origins after decades of bitter civil war.

General Abel, the council's most articulate spokesman who rigidly follows the 
party line, inadvertently confirmed Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's importance when he 
claimed that only her voice really counted in the opposition leadership.

"The opposition's central executive committee cannot make decisions on their 
own. Will you say that is a democratic party?" the general said.