Reuter: Euro envoys to press Burma

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Subject: Reuter: Euro envoys to press Burma on consul's death

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BC-BURMA-DEATH
Euro envoys to press Burma on consul's death
    By Steve Weizman
    COPENHAGEN, June 25 (Reuter) - Diplomats from Denmark,
Norway, Switzerland and Finland will go to Burma this week to
press military authorities for a full accounting of the death in
prison of honorary consul Leo Nichols.
    Danish Foreign Ministry sources said that Bangkok-based
ambassador Joergen Reimers was expected to travel to Rangoon on
Friday with his Finnish and Swiss counterparts to probe the
death of Nichols, 65, a friend of pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi, and attend a memorial service at the weekend.
    Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ingvard Havnen told
Reuters in Oslo that Morten Paulsen, deputy head of Norway's
Singapore mission, would fly to Rangoon on Thursday.
    James Leander "Leo" Nichols, a businessman of Burmese and
British descent represented all four countries. He died on
Saturday of a heart attack, diplomats said, a short way into a
three-year prison term for operating telephones and fax machines
at his house without permission.
    Diplomats and opposition sources believe he was arrested
because of his long-time friendship with Suu Kyi and his
financial assistance to her National League for Democracy, which
is at odds with the Burmese authorities.
    Indignation at his death was fuelled on Tuesday when
London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International
said that his heart condition and diabetes may have been fatally
aggravated by deprivation of sleep during long interrogations.
    "We are calling for a thorough and prompt investigation. We
are concerned that an ill man was not receiving adequate medical
treatment," Amnesty's Burma researcher Donna Guest told Reuters.
    Danish newspapers quoted New York-based Human Rights
Watch-Burma as voicing similar concerns.
    There has been no official confirmation of Nichols' death by
the ruling Burmese State Law and Order Restoration Council.
    Norway asked the Burmese authorities on Monday for Nichols'
medical report. No reply had been received by Tuesday, Havnen
said.
    "We are trying to find out everything, everything we can,"
he said.
    In Denmark, the main opposition Liberal Party joined the
right in calling for a tougher government line toward Rangoon.
    "If we dare not react when our own representative is
harassed -- in this case with death as the result -- when will
we do so?" Bertel Haarder, member of the Danish and European
parliaments asked in the daily Berlingske Tidende.
    The right-wing opposition Danish People's Party has called
for a hearing on Thursday by parliament's foreign affairs
committee and a pressure group chaired by a brewery workers'
leader has threatened action against beer giant Carlsberg if it
goes ahead with plans to build a brewery in Burma.
    Carlsberg says it shelved its Burma plans after earlier
talks with the group.
    The Danish Confederation of Industry on Tuesday condemned
the threat of a boycott and industrial action against the brewer
as an attempt to make it a political hostage.
    "Criticism of the political situation in Burma should be
aimed at the authorities in Burma and not against Danish
companies. You don't alter the political reality in Burma by
trying to frighten Carlsberg away from that country,"
confederation chief Hans Skov Christensen said.
 REUTER
1549 250696 GMT