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U.S. warns Burma of possible dow



Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: U.S. warns Burma of possible downgrading   

    By Jim Wolf 

    WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United States has warned Burma's ruling
military junta of possible further downgrading of ties to protest its lack of
political reform, slow progress in counternarcotics and what Washington
regards as its abysmal human rights record. 

    In a speech in New York Wednesday night, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Thomas Hubbard said the junta had failed to take ``even the modest
steps needed to merit a modest improvement in bilateral relations.'' 

    ``We will continue to urge other nations to join us in exerting pressure
for change. In the absence of progress on human rights and democracy, the
second path of further restrictions in U.S.-Burma relations remains a real
possibility,'' he said in a prepared text. 

    The text, made available by the State Department, did not discuss how the
United States might carry out such a threat. 

    But a department official told Reuters that among the possibilities was
downgrading relations so that Burma's ambassador to Washington would have to
be withdrawn. 

    Currently, the United States maintains full diplomatic ties with Burma,
though Washington has not had an ambassador in Rangoon, the capital, since
1990. 

    Instead the United States is represented by a charge d'affaires ``ad
interim,'' a temporary arrangment that leaves open the possibility of
appointing an ambassador any day. 

    If it chose to downgrade, the United States could re-designate its
current representative in Rangoon so that ties would no longer be at
ambassadorial level. Burma, in turn, would have to pull out its ambassador to
Washington. 

    A department official said any such action might be delayed until after
July 20, when Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi may have to be
released from house arrest under one reading of Burma's law. 

    Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has been under
house arrest for five and a half years. A co-founder of the National League
for Democracy, which swept 1990 elections, Washington has campaigned for her
release. 

    The junta, which calls itself the State Law and Order Restoration
Council, or SLORC, ignored the election results in which the oppposition won
80 percent of the vote, and jailed thousands of pro-democracy campaigners. 

    In November, Hubbard led the most senior U.S. delegation to visit Burma
since 1988. He laid out a series of steps the SLORC needed to take on human
rights, democracy and counternarcotics to clear the way for better ties,
including naming an ambassador and restoring anti-narcotics cooperation. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-09 17:47:17 EST