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GREAT NEWS - Australian Opposition
Australian Opposition Promises Myanmar Sanctions
Reuters
15-SEP-98
CANBERRA, Sept 15 (Reuters)- Australia's Labor opposition
promised on Tuesday to impose political and economic
sanctions on
Myanmar if it won the October 3 general election.
Labor foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton called
Myanmar's
military government an "odious regime" and said Labor would
discourage Australian trade with Myanmar and tourist visits
there.
A Labor government would also suspend issuing visas to
Myanmar
officials and others linked to the military government.
"Sanctions by Australia would send an important political
message...and would be a significant contribution to
international
efforts to bring about respect for human rights and
democratic
freedoms in Burma (Myanmar)," Brereton said in a statement
accompanying Labor's foreign policy launch.
Australia's conservative Liberal-National government also
issued a
foreign policy statement on Tuesday, saying it had already
applied
pressure on Myanmar to improve human rights.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last week said Australia
was
disturbed by increasing arrests of members of Myanmar's main
opposition party, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San
Suu Kyi.
Labor also pledged on Tuesday to appoint an envoy to work
towards a
lasting settlement in strife-torn East Timor.
Brereton said a Labor government would spend A$22 million
(US$13
million) over three years in financial aid to the disputed
Indonesian
territory and seek the immediate release of resistance
leader Xanana
Gusmao.
Indonesia is Australia's nearest northern neighbour and
Australia is the
only foreign government to recognise its rule there after
Jakarta
annexed the former Portuguese colony in 1976.
"The controversy in the events in East Timor have come at a
very
considerable moral price for Australia," Brereton said.
Brereton described an Indonesian offer of special status for
East
Timor as encouraging, but believed no permanent solution was
likely
without East Timorese self-determination.
(A$1- US$0.597)