Interviews with ambassador Dr Kyaw

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Subject: Interviews with ambassador Dr Kyaw Win

Comment on interviews with ambassador Dr Kyaw Win
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By: S.Wansai

U Kyaw Win is very naive to state that the people of Burma did not
understand democracy and that it needed more time to educate the population,
before multi-party politics could be developed.

The well functioning democratic system was in place, before the Burmese
Military staged a coup in 1962. It had worked for more than a decade and the
"Federal Proposal" was well on its way to be discussed and resolved in the
Parliament, when the military intervened in the name of "national unity". On
top of that, the
Burmese Military abolished the existing Union Constitution and in effect,
dismantled the Union of Burma. In a legal-constitutional sense, the union is
now defunct and the Burmese Military is an occupation army encroaching on
all non-Burmans' territories. This act had transformed the Burma Proper or
Burmese state from "partner" to "aggressor" nation.

U Kyaw Win spoke of the right to food and shelter to be basic, before
democratic aspiration could be addressed.

The point is that the military regime has been doing just the opposite. Just
take into account that the 600,000 or more forced relocated people in the
Shan States, Karenni State and Karen State have to abandon their farmlands
and flee to Thailand, hide in remote places or jungles, or submit themselves
to live in concentration camps created by the Burmese military, where they
live as sub-human or slaves to service the military. These are well
documented and there is no point to deny the SPDC's crime committed against
humanity.

It is astonishing that the military likes to believe that it is trying to
preserve "national unity" , when in reality it is just doing the opposite.
Perhaps, it never cross its mind that harmonious living with one another
could only be achieved voluntarily and not coercively.

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Friday, September 24, 1999 Published at 06:49 GMT 07:49 UK

World: Asia-Pacific

Burma: 'Give democracy time'

Tim Sebastian interviews ambassador Dr Kyaw Win

Burma will not be ready for democracy until its people understand how to use
it, the Burmese ambassador to the UK has told the BBC.
Speaking on BBC World's HARDtalk, Burma's ambassador in the UK Dr Kyaw Win
said people needed to be educated and the country stabilised before
multi-party politics could develop.

Dr Kyaw Win is Burma's ambassador in London
"You think once they are free to do anything they want, they understand what
democracy is all about?" he said. "Democracy is a very delicate flower, it
doesn't grow easily anywhere and is not easily transplantable." he said.

Dr Win was on the programme to defend his country's human rights record.
Burma, or Myanmar - the name chosen by the military regime -, has come into
the spotlight this month with the imprisonment of two young British
protestors who publicly declared support for the country's democracy
movement.

A Foreign Office report in London has accused the government in Rangoon of
presiding over a system of summary executions, torture, rape and detention
without trial.

But Dr Win dismissed this report and a United Nations report that has also
condemned Burma's human rights record, as a simple cultural difference
between east and west. He accused "certain western-based organisations" of
having vested interests.

"The UN is controlled by a few countries that are more powerful than the
rest," he said. "There is a geographical divide in the understanding of this
problem.

Jailed Britons

Earlier this month Rachel Goldwyn, 28, was jailed for seven years for
chaining herself to a lamppost in Rangoon and singing pro-democracy songs,
while 26-year-old James Mawdsley was jailed for 17 years for distributing
anti-government leaflets.

Dr Win described Mr Mawdsley as "a chronic, recurrent violator". In the case
of Rachel Goldwyn he said there was every chance she could be released after
an appeals process, but he stood by Burma's legal system.

"It wasn't singing," he told HARDtalk's Tim Sebastian. "She came in, she
shackled herself to a fence and this was part of a big scenario they were
trying to create on 9-9-99. Everybody knows.

"The laws are laws. In the face of laws the opinions of individuals do not
count. It is the laws that count."

"This girl is going to get a proper appeals process and her parents will be
going there and making appeals with the lawyers. It's is a judicial process,
this is not a political process. You people are politicising it."

"They were not just there to hand out leaflets and sing songs. They wanted
to cause this particular uprising and they wanted to lend their support to
it."

The government that Dr Win represents came to power in 1988 as a
transitional government before democracy was to be set up.

In 1990 elections, Burma's main opposition party, the National League for
Democracy, won 82% of the vote. But the country's military leaders ignored
the results and the NLD leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi spent almost six years under
house arrest.

But Dr Win said basic rights to food had to come before democracy could be
put in place

"We in developing countries, first of all have to have the basic rights to
sufficiency of food, shelter and other basic needs as a priority, he said.

"Political rights will come when the time is right."