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Canadian Aid to Burma



CANADA MAY SOON RESUME AID TO BURMA IN SPITE OF ABUSES

Burma News - BC: April 22, 1998

VANCOUVER -- Canada is considering resuming foreign aid to Burma, according
to the lead article in today's edition of the country's only national
newspaper, the Globe and Mail.  

The surprise disclosure was made by Diane Marleau, Ottawa's Minister for
International Co-operation in an interview with Rod Mickleburgh of the
Globe's China Bureau during a two-week tour of inspection of developments
projects in Bangladesh, Thailand and China.

Asked why Canada provides assistance to projects in China but not in Burma,
when both countries are guilty of well-documented human-rights abuses,
Marleau replied that consideration may soon be given to resuming some form
of aid to the country.

"We're not quite ready yet, but we're monitoring it very closely. We
realize that there's much there that needs to be done," the minister said.

Marleau's comments appear to represent a major shift in Ottawa's policy to
Burma. Last summer the Canadian government withdrew Burma from its list of
countries eligible for preferential tariffs and put in place new
restrictions requiring a permit for all exports to the country.  At the
time, Lloyd Axworthy, the country's Foreign Affairs Minister, said that the
measures underscored Canada's concern over the human rights situation in
Burma.

Earlier in April, John Donaghy, director of  the Southeast Asia Division of
the Foreign Ministry told leaders of the Burmese exile community in
Vancouver that deteriorating respect for human rights in Burma remained a
focus of  Canada's policy.  

"We assure you," he wrote to representatives of the Mon and Karen
organizations in Vancouver, "that Canada will continue to express its
concern to the military regime (in Rangoon) until it enters into a
meaningful dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and the democracy movement and
demonstrates a genuine commitment to reform." 

In Ottawa Christine Harmston, national co-ordinator for the Canadian
Friends of Burma, expressed skepticism about the apparent change in
national policy and pointed out that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently
urged that both trade sanctions and aid restrictions against Burma be kept
in place as long as repressive measures continue to be enforced by the
country's military regime. 

"All development aid to Burma is linked to the government, " she told
BurmaNews - BC in a telephone interview this morning. "It hardly seems
possible that Canada would get involved in direct assistance to development
projects of the military government, and the Canadian International
Development Agency is going to have to look a long time before it finds any
credible NGO that is able to work on its own in doing development aid work
in the country."

Harmston said that aid projects that the United Nations Development Program
co-operates with in Burma have run into trouble because of corruption and
lack of accountability.

This coming weekend the Canadian Friends of Burma is hosting a national
consultation on Burma in Ottawa at which the country's prime minister in
exile, Sein Lwin, is expected to deliver the keynote address.  

On Monday, Lwin is scheduled to have a private meeting with Axworthy and
the following Tuesday he will address the Canadian Parliament's Standing
Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development.