First junta official to visit Japan (r)

[soewin@xxxxxxx]

Japan Times: 7 January 1999, Thursday.

PROTESTS SEEN FOR MYANMAR JUNTA OFFICIAL

By HISANE MASAKI
Staff writer

A top Myanmar military intelligence official will visit Japan later this
month at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry in efforts to strengthen
dialogue between Tokyo and Yangon through personnel exchanges, ministry
officials said Wednesday.

Brig. Gen. Kyaw Win is to arrive in Tokyo on Jan. 20 for a 10-day stay,
during which he will meet with leaders in political, economic and other
circles for an exchange of views on relations between the two countries,
the officials said requesting anonymity.

Kyaw Win's visit is expected to draw criticism from human rights groups
-- both in Japan and abroad ? denouncing the Myanmar military regime for
violations of human rights and democratic principles. Although many
other high-level regime officials have visited Japan, they have done so
only at the invitation of the private sector, mainly businesses.

Kyaw Win is believed to be a right-hand man of Lt. Gen. Khin Nuynt, the
regime's intelligence chief and No. 3 man. Kyaw Win is a deputy director
general of the Myanmar Defense Ministry's Office of Strategic Studies
established three years ago. The office is headed by Khin Nyunt.

The Office of Strategic Studies has a uniformed staff of about 40 and is
intended to function as a think tank for the commander in chief of the
defense services when a civilian government is eventually formed.

The military took power of Myanmar in a 1988 coup and put opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989. The military then
annulled the results of a 1990 election, in which Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy won a landslide victory.

Originally called the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the
regime renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council in
November 1997.

Although Myanmar was admitted to the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations in July 1997, it is still shunned by large parts of the
international community for shortcomings in human rights and democracy.
The United States and industrialized European nations have even
toughened economic and other sanctions against Myanmar in the past few
years due to the SPDC's continued crackdown on the prodemocracy movement
led by Suu Kyi.

Although Japan suspended fresh economic aid for Myanmar, except that for
humanitarian purposes, after the coup, it has staunchly advocated a
policy of "constructive engagement" with the SPDC to encourage favorable
changes in Myanmar.

Japan is widely believed to have played a key role behind the scenes in
persuading the military regime to release Suu Kyi from house arrest in
the summer of 1995.

Japan has had a long and amicable relationship with Myanmar. Aung San,
Suu Kyi's father, a revolutionary hero for the country, received
training in Japan during World War II. "We have maintained personnel
exchanges with Myanmar even since the 1988 coup. We need to further
strengthen channels of dialogue with the NLD as well as with the SPDC
all the more because the Myanmar situation is now deadlocked," one
Foreign Ministry official said, also requesting anonymity.

Defending the ministry's decision to invite Kyaw Win, the official said
it will be significant for such a key Myanmar figure to see firsthand
how Japanese feel about the SPDC.

"There are various opinions in Japan about the SPDC. Some people are
sympathetic to the SPDC but others are critical of it," the official
said. "But Japanese people who visit Myanmar usually do not make any
remarks that make the ears of SPDC officials burn. This leaves them with
an inaccurate impression that no Japanese people have bad feelings
toward them."

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