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Myanmar tells U.N. keep out, opposi



Myanmar tells U.N. keep out, opposition wants help
09:29 p.m Sep 30, 1998 Eastern

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 30 (Reuters) -Myanmar's foreign minister told the
United Nations on Wednesday that the world had no right to interfere in his
country's internal affairs when the military government had chosen the path
of democracy.

But as U Ohn Gyaw addressed the 53rd General Assembly, Denmark sponsored a
news conference of the country's democratic opposition which warned that
``time was running out'' for the junta and called on the United Nations to
combine global sanctions with diplomatic mediation.

``We will not be sitting down and taking it easy just because we are calling
for a dialogue,'' said Dr. Sein Win, prime minister of the provisional
government in prime minister in exile of Myanmar, formerly Burma.

``We will not wait. We will do what has to be done to convene the Parliament
in Burma,'' he said. ``The situation is very explosive and it may happen
that we cannot control it.

There may be an uprising.

Ohn Gyaw, in his address, spent little time defending Myanmar's polices,
which have been the subject of annual
General Assembly resolutions on human rights abuses. Instead he spoke mainly
about regional and  international issues.

He said, however, that ``we are much distressed that there are those who
would like to use the United Nations to intervene in matters that are
essentially within our domestic jurisdiction.''

``We, in Myanmar, have chosen the path of democracy,'' he said, adding that
the government would not submit to political pressure to transplant a
foreign form of democracy.

The minister said the United Nations had too many responsibilities to
intervene in Myanmar, when its  government had restored stability from a
``state of chaos and anarchy.''

The United States and European nations have been in the forefront of
international condemnation of Myanmar, whose military refused to give up
power after the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a May 1990 general
election.

Its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was put under six
years of house arrest, until mid-1995, and is still forbidden to play a
political role.

Sein Win charged that the country's economy was in a state of collapse
except for the heroin trade protected by the junta.

Universities remain closed because the generals feared intellectuals, AIDS
continued to spread because the regimedid not even acknowledge the threat
and forced labour was exacted ``on a massive scale'' from the elderly, women
and children

In recent days, he said, the military has arrested more than 900 students,
some as young as 14, to keep them from assembling in an NLD congress.

Dr. Thaung Htun, his colleague in charge of U.N. affairs, said
Secretary-General Kofi Annan should formulate a road map for a transition to
democracy, offering U.N. mediation services and setting a time frame.

If the government refused to cooperate, the U.N. Security Council should
impose global diplomatic and economic sanctions.

He said the General Assembly should impose a voluntary arms embargo and U.N.
relief agencies should make any assistance conditional on human rights and
military spending.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Myanmar, the European Union has
suspended aid and Japan has sharply curtailed its assistance although it
paid for some projects amounting to more than $1 million.