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SCMP-Aung San Suu Kyi warns aid cou



Subject: SCMP-Aung San Suu Kyi warns aid could bolster 'despotic regime' 

South China Morning Post
Wednesday, June 16, 1999

MEKONG REGION

Aung San Suu Kyi warns aid could bolster 'despotic regime'
BURMA by WILLIAM BARNES

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has warned that international aid could
backfire if it props up a "despotic" regime.
The alert comes as the United Nations is poised to send its political
secretary Alvaro de Soto back to Rangoon in August to use the carrot of
financial aid and technical assistance to try to win political concessions
from the military government.

Other agencies, such as Britain's Oxfam, are also edging towards entering a
country that only the junta denies has huge social problems.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, in a paper to a recent Johns Hopkins University
conference on Burma, said anyone offering even humanitarian aid should
liaise with her National League for Democracy (NLD) to ensure it did not
give succour to the military.

This is a tough requirement for anyone hoping to work in a police state.

In January, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi clashed with US congressman Tony Hall over
her right to veto aid.

The All Burma Students Democratic Front, a group of exiled students, said in
Bangkok yesterday that the Burmese military abducted two of their leaders
from China.