World Bank mulling Myanmar visit to

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Subject: World Bank mulling Myanmar visit to resume talks

World Bank mulling Myanmar visit to resume talks
12:03 a.m. Jan 23, 1999 Eastern
By Rajan Moses

BANGKOK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The World Bank is considering sending a team to
Myanmar to resume talks with the military government and study the country's
needs, a senior bank official said.

The bank, one of the world's lenders of last resort, cut off financial ties
with cash-strapped and politically isolated Myanmar last September and said
it would not consider giving the government any more money because it had
failed to make repayments on past loans.

A decision on whether to make the visit, however, hinged on the views of the
bank's major donors, the bank's vice president for East Asia and the Pacific
region told reporters late on Friday.

If the visit was approved, bank representatives would most likely plan to
visit Yangon in March or April, Jean-Michel Severino said.

``We have found in the past that isolation of countries, like in the case of
Myanmar or North Korea, never works,'' he said.

``That is one of the reasons behind our consideration of a plan to visit
Myanmar to resume discussion with the government and all concerned people.''

Severino said World Bank representatives would also seek to meet Myanmar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, which is at odds with government.

He said the visit was not in any way connected to news reports late last
year that international donors and western nations might consider giving
Myanmar $1 billion in aid in return for government reconciliation and
dialogue with the opposition.

``This is not connected with those reports. It is just that we feel that
there may be growing social and structural needs for the Myanmar people that
need to be looked into,'' he added.

Myanmar's military government has been isolated by western nations for its
poor treatment of the pro-democracy opposition.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council has harassed the NLD, curbed
its political activities and detained and later released thousands of the
party's members. Suu Kyi and the opposition criticise the government for not
fostering democracy and ruling the country with an iron hand.


Critics of the military, which seized power in a bloody coup in September
1988, want it to recognise the results of a 1990 general election which the
NLD won with a landslide victory.

The military government has refused to do so and rejected NLD calls for the
convening of a Peoples Parliament of elected representatives from the 1990
poll.

The country has been buffeted by the Asian economic crisis, with high
inflation and rising social needs among its people.

The World Bank said last September that Myanmar's loans and credits had been
placed on a ``nonaccrual'' status, meaning the government would not be able
to borrow money from the Washington-based multilateral lending agency.

Myanmar could only borrow again after it had cleared its arrears, estimated
in September at $14 million.