Reuter: Only SLORC Can Control Mino

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Subject: Reuter: Only SLORC Can Control Minorities in Burma

 SLORC SAYS ONLY WE CAN CONTROL MINORITIES IN BURMA

    RANGOON, July 10 (Reuter) - A senior official of Burma's military
government said on Wednesday it was illegal for democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi to write a constitution to rival a pro-military charter being
drafted.
     "That is not acceptable and is illegal," Lieutenant-General Kyaw Ba, a
member of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), said
in an interview.
     "The constitution must be drafted by all kinds of people, all ethnic
groups and different levels of people," Kyaw Ba said when asked about Suu
Kyi's plans to draft a democratic constitution.
     A SLORC-organised national convention has been meeting since January
1993 to draw up a charter that will guarantee the military a "leading role"
in politics.
     Suu Kyi pulled her National League for Democracy party out of the
SLORC convention last November, and in May said she and other party leaders
were drawing up a rival charter.
     If Suu Kyi took power Burma could become like the former Yugoslavia,
with the country's many disparate minorities pushing for independence, Kyaw
Ba said. "Only we can control them (the minorities) and not let the country
disintegrate like... Yugoslavia."
  REUTER
KT
ISBDA