Wired News on March 28, 1995

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on March 28, 1995
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Burma hints at July release for Aung San Suu Kyi

      By Deborah Charles 

    RANGOON, March 28 (Reuter) - A senior Burmese official said on Tuesday
the military government would not hold Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi under house arrest permanently, and hinted she might be released by
July. 

    Colonel Kyaw Win, a member of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) information committee, would not give a specific date for Suu
Kyi's release but did not deny it might be in July, as apparently stipulated
in Burmese law. 

    ``It is not the intention of the Myanmar (Burmese) government to restrain
her permanently,'' Kyaw Win, who is also deputy director of the directorate
of Defence Services Intelligence, told a rare news conference with foreign
journalists. 

    ``I understand that she will be released in accordance with the law, but
I do not know when this will occur.'' 

    When pressed by a journalist who said he understood the Burmese law to
mean Suu Kyi should be released by July, Kyaw Win answered: ``My
understanding is the same as yours, that is to say she will be released in
accordance with what is stipulated by the law.'' 

    Suu Kyi, the daughter of the architect of Burma's independence from
Britain, General Aung San, has been detained in her Rangoon home since July
1989 for ``endangering the state.'' 

    The previous year she had emerged as the hugely popular leader of a
pro-democracy uprising which was finally put down when the military killed
and imprisoned thousands. 

    According to Burmese law, a person can only be held under house arrest
for five years. But Kyaw Win told reporters last year that Suu Kyi's first
year in detention was an ``arrest period'' and her term did not begin until
July 1990. 

    Despite two highly publicised meetings with top SLORC officials late last
year, she has not been released. Kyaw Win said on Tuesday she has not made
any renewed requests for further talks. 

    ``Any time she wishes to have talks a request can be made,'' he said. 

    Suu Kyi said through a message delivered by her husband in January that
she would not make any secret deals with the SLORC to secure her freedom and
wanted to consult her political colleagues. 

    Burma has been under intense international pressure to release Suu Kyi,
who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1991. 

    Rangoon-based diplomats said they do not expect to see her released any
time soon, despite recent rumours that she might be set free as a gesture to
mark Burma's 50th Armed Forces Day on Monday. 

    After a visit to Burma earlier this year, then Thai foreign minister
Thaksin Shinawatra said SLORC officials told him Suu Kyi would not be
released until the government had written its new constitution. 

    A new plenary session of the constitutional convention, which began its
task in January 1993, will begin in Rangoon on Wednesday. 

    Diplomats and other observers say, judging by the pace of the proceedings
so far, they do not expect to see a conclusion in the near future. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-28 10:02:09 EST
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Burma says Khun Sa faces death penalty if caught

      By Deborah Charles 

    RANGOON, March 28 (Reuter) - The Burmese government branded opium warlord
Khun Sa a ``narcotic trafficking terrorist'' on Tuesday and said he faced the
death penalty if captured. 

    Senior officials using maps and pointers told foreign journalists the
Burmese army was making progress in a month-old offensive against Khun Sa and
his Mong Tai (Shan State) Army (MTA) in northeast Burma. 

    ``If we can catch Khun Sa he will be put on trial. We have a law that
says every drug trafficker who carries more than three grams is liable for a
death penalty,'' Colonel Kyaw Thein of the country's military intelligence
said. 

    ``So we can do what even the United States government can't do - we can
give him the death penalty because we know he is a drug smuggler and a drug
kingpin ,'' Kyaw Thein added. 

    The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has identified Khun Sa as
one of the world's foremost traffickers, operating out of the lawless Golden
Triangle area which produces much of the heroin sold in the United States. 

    Khun Sa, the half-Chinese, half-Shan commander of the MTA, says he is
fighting for the independence of Shan state, and only taxes drug traffickers
who cross his area of control. 

    ``In the past month there has been an offensive by the armed forces
against the drug smugglers of Khun Sa,'' Colonel Kyaw Win, deputy-director of
the Defence Services Intelligence, told the rare news conference for foreign
journalists. 

    Officials said at least 18 major battles had taken place since March 14,
in which about 50 Burmese soldiers had been killed and 200 wounded, while MTA
casualties were given as 60 killed. 

    Kyaw Thein said three or four of Khun Sa's strongholds were still to be
captured. 

    He also and made it clear that Burma hoped for international recognition
for its anti-narcotics campaign. 

    ``We would like to expect some positive reaction, not only from the
United States, but all over the world,'' Kyaw Thein said, adding that Burma
wanted international assistance for its narcotics programme to be resumed. 

    The United States has said Burma must make progress towards democracy,
release political prisoners and show its determination to wipe out the
narcotics trade before Washington will consider changing its hardline stance.


    The U.S. government estimates Burma's opium poppy production at between
2,000 and 2,500 tonnes per year. Burmese officials say it is much lower but
provide no figures. 

    Kyaw Win rejected the linkage by some Western governments of politics and
narcotics in Burma. 

    ``We see the narcotics suppression campaign as something that is
different from the political activities,'' he said. ``We have sacrificed a
lot of blood and sweat to continue this campaign against Khun Sa.'' 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-28 10:06:35 EST
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-------------------------------------------------------END.