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SCMP-Junta 'willing to change but r



Subject: SCMP-Junta 'willing to change but refuses to be bullied'

South China Morning Post
Friday, August 27, 1999
BURMA

Junta 'willing to change but refuses to be bullied'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Rangoon

Besieged by foreign criticism, sanctions and a ramshackle economy, the
ruling generals are well aware of the need to build bridges to their
opponents to achieve progress, but insist it be on their own terms.
"We are not monkeys. You don't give us bananas," government minister
Brigadier-General David Abel said of moves to link international funds to
concessions to the country's political opposition.

"We know that isolation is not desirable, we know that we should not be
isolated anymore.

"But to be dictated to, and dominated and bullied, that is not our way of
life," Brigadier Abel, minister in the office of the chairman of the State
Peace and Development Council, and one of the junta's top figures, said this
week.

United Nations special envoy Alvaro de Soto is due in Rangoon next month,
accompanied probably by a World Bank representative, to discuss possible
gradual resumption of UN aid to Burma.

The UN initiative is believed to be aimed at coaxing humanitarian
concessions and talks with the pro-democracy opposition from the ruling
military, using the carrot of international aid - reportedly as much as US$1
billion (HK$7.74 billion) from the World Bank.

"We don't move with a carrot and a stick," Brigadier Abel said. "We are very
flexible. But, with our national pride, we are not anybody's puppet."

Government spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Min added: "We have our own
principles. We are not going to trade the country for anything."

As evidence of its willingness to be flexible, the junta points to allowing
the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees, and to this
month's visit by Australian human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti and
July's talks in Rangoon with European Union diplomats.

Western ambassadors in Rangoon are optimistic about improved relations
between pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the regime, despite what
one called the authorities' extreme nationalism.

"If the international community is only for Aung San Suu Kyi, not [aware of]
the reality of what we are trying to do, and they have this conception that
only Aung San Suu Kyi can build the nation, then it's wrong," Foreign
Minister Win Aung said recently.

Colonel Hla Min said Burma's military was working towards a "multi-party
democratic system" that was not a "carbon copy of Western countries", but
was suited to its own culture and national security.

"We have put the country on this proper path, but when all these big
countries are pushing, pulling and giving us too much pressure from outside,
we have to be very careful how we move forward because we could get
derailed," Colonel Hla Min said.