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Kopie von: No ODA for Burmese milit



---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ----------

Von:    Nwe Aung, 101564,2652
An:     Prime Minister Hashimoto, INTERNET:akira.chiba@xxxxxxxxxx
Datum:  3/11/98 10:58 AM

Betreff:Kopie von: No ODA for Burmese military dictators

Your Excellency Ryutaro Hashimoto
Prime Minister of Japan
Fax: 0081 3 3502-5827
                                                                           
                                                                         
Germany, March 11, 1998 

Your Excellency Prime Minister Hashimoto, 

We are very much annoyed to have unfortunately known the recent Japan's
intention to grant or resume a 
2.5 billion yen loan as ODA (Official Development Assistance) to the
Burmese illegitimate military rulers for 
technical issues. 
We, the Burmese community in Germany and world-wide, do oppose strongly the
resumption or granting of 
the ODA to the Burmese military dictatorship, which has been frozen due to
the military's cold-bloodedly massacre of students, monks and opposition
leaders in the nationwide uprising of 1988. 
Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, which won landslide in 1990 multiparty elections (
but never allowed to form a civil government ), has appealed to 
the international community to halt assistance and investment to Burma
until the military clearly demostrates 
a genuine return to democratic civil government.
The Clinton administration called the planned resumption of the ODA to
Burma " inappropriate at this time ". 
The US and Canada have imposed unilateral sanctions against the Burmese
military, while the European 
Union revoked the trade privileges for the Burmese military. The World Bank
and the IMF froze all financial 
assistance to the military dictators. The US, EU and Canada have expanded
the ban on entry visas for the 
military rulers. The European Parliament, in its recent resolution from
Feb.19, 1998, concerning deeply at the 
continuing and extremely serious human rights abuses committed by the
military authorities in Burma, calls 
on the European Council to respond Aung San Suu Kyi's request for EU
economic sanctions against the military by ending all links between the EU
and Burma based on trade , tourism and investment in Burma by 
European companies. 
We strongly urge the Japanese Government and the authorities concerned to
respect its own ODA charter and basic principles in granting ODA, which
state that, firstly, full attention should be paid to efforts for promoting
democratisation and introduction for a market-oriented economy, and the
situation regarding the 
securing of basic human rights and freedom in the recipient country, and
secondly, full attention should be 
paid to trends in recipient countries' military expenditures, their
development and production of mass destruction weapons and missiles, their
export and import of arms, etc., so as to maintain and strengthen 
international peace and stability, and from the viewpoint that developing
countries should place appropriate 
priorities in the allocation of their resources on their own economic and
social development. 
The Burmese military regime is entirely and definitely not in line with the
Japanese ODA charter and guiding 
principles according to successive UN-resolutions, EU/EP-resolutions and
UNHRC-resolutions. We, therefore, strongly call on the Japanese Government
and the authorities concerned to seriously reconsider 
the plan to resume or grant the ODA to the notorious, infamous Burmese
military regime. By granting the 
ODA to military dictators, your Government would be blamed for responsible,
when the military agressors 
expand their military actions in repressing its own people in a country of
no freedom of press, opinion and 
international monitor. 
We are very much looking forward to your serious and positive response. 

Yours sincerely,


Nwe Aung                                                             CC:
Japanese Foreign Minister
Burma Bureau Germany                                            Japanese
Embassies
Fax: ++49 2173 907334                                            
International News Media
Fahlerweg 08
D-40764 Langenfeld
Germany