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SCMP-Junta sets face against compro



Subject: SCMP-Junta sets face against compromise 

South China Morning Post
Wednesday  December 16  1998

Junta sets face against compromise
by WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok


Burma's shadow parliament is busy erecting an alternative power structure
even in the face of severe repression.

And if the challenge is essentially symbolic, it underlines the
determination of the military junta's leading opponents to reject any
thoughts of an easy compromise.

The committee representing the "People's Parliament" - created when the
regime detained many MPs to stymie plans for a full assembly - has announced
the formation of 10 parliamentary committees. These will "to the best of
their ability" examine ethnic affairs, the economy, education, foreign
affairs, defence and other issues.

These hollow committees, some with just a chairman, will be reconstituted
when the regime convenes the parliament elected in 1990, the National League
for Democracy (NLD), which won the polls by a landslide, said.

It described the junta's failure to accept the multi-party elections in 1990
as "a very big misdeed indeed".

"The regime has said it will release all the detained MPs when the People's
Parliament is dissolved. [These committees] are a strong response to that,"
said one Rangoon-based diplomat.

The junta that has run the country for a decade - continuing military rule
since 1962 - has claimed it is willing to deal with a co-operative,
presumably supine, opposition.

By saying all detained MPs and supporters "will be honoured and will have a
place in the annals of our history", the opposition is slapping down any
notion that it will ever compromise over a democratic future.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her senior colleagues in the NLD have been criticised
even by some sympathisers for failing to spell out what they would do if
they were in power.

The usual response by the Nobel peace laureate has been to argue that these
are questions for a democratic government to answer.

Her ability to draw up a detailed alternative policy agenda has anyway been
made difficult by the authorities' continued harassment of her supporters.

The Government has admitted that 200 MPs elected in 1990 and 651 supporters
were detained in "guest houses" on September 6 after Ms Aung San Suu Kyi
threatened to convene parliament.

A junta spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Min, claimed the move was
necessary to stop "misguided activity and forestall violent confrontation".

He said earlier this month that 67 MPs and 321 supporters who had promised
to behave themselves had been allowed to go home.

A vigorous campaign is under way in a bid to dismantle the NLD's
street-level organisation. Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Min claimed that in recent
weeks 1,259 party members had resigned "voluntarily" and that many party
offices had closed down.

The workings of the committee to represent parliament have been given a new
edge by reports that the United Nations, with the West's backing, has tried
to wave some financial carrots at the regime.

But the US charge d'affaires in Rangoon, Kent Wiedemann, denied last week
that any proposal had been put on the table or that any conditions had been
set.

He said the initiative was still being "conceptualised" and was part of the
UN's efforts to promote dialogue and democracy in Burma.

The state-controlled media took the opportunity to claim that accepting the
alleged US$1 billion (HK$7.73 billion) offer was "beneath the country's
dignity".

Nevertheless, UN envoy Alvaro de Soto is expected to return to Burma in the
new year to continue pushing the two sides closer together.

This will clearly not be easy: the generals loathe any criticism, yet the
opposition praises the "courage and sacrifice" of its detained heroes.