NEWS - Suu Kyi Says No Deal Struck

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Subject: NEWS - Suu Kyi Says No Deal Struck for World Bank Aid to Myanmar

Suu Kyi Says No Deal Struck for World Bank Aid to Myanmar

            AP
            05-JAN-99

            BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung
            San Suu Kyi has denied she endorsed a deal for the World
            Bank to provide a grant of $1 billion to Myanmar if the
            military government opens a dialogue with her. 

            In a speech made to party members on Dec. 4 and which
            was smuggled out of Myanmar and posted today on the
            Internet, Suu Kyi questioned reports of the deal and the
            rationale of any such agreement. 

            "That this aid will be given if an agreement can be reached
is
            also an assumption by the media people," Suu Kyi said. "Let
            me tell you that this news is without any foundation." 

            The World Bank's lending window to Myanmar, also known
            as Burma, has been closed since 1990, when the military
            government refused to honor the results of a free and fair
            election in which Suu Kyi's party, the National League for
            Democracy, won 82 percent of the seats in parliament. 

            Myanmar's current crop of generals came to power in 1988
            by brutally crushing a nationwide democracy uprising. More
            than 3,000 protesters, including Buddhist monks, were
            gunned down by soldiers. 

            Suu Kyi's attempt to convene parliament in September of last
            year roused the government into arresting nearly a thousand
            members of her party and refusing to release them until they
            resigned. 

            The unwillingness of the regime to negotiate with Suu Kyi
            and the deepening chasm between the two sides prompted
            the World Bank to approach Suu Kyi and the generals about
            the conditional aid offer, the International Herald Tribune
            reported late last year. 

            Suu Kyi questioned what the grant would be used for and
            the wisdom of giving the generals, who have driven
            Myanmar's resource-rich economy into the ground, access to
            vast pools of money. 

            "If an irresponsible government does not use the money for
            the benefit of the people but uses it as a means to
            perpetuate their hold on power, our country will be in great

            distress," Suu Kyi said. 

            Her opinion was echoed by Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar
            scholar from Rutgers University, in a column published in
            Bangkok's The Nation newspaper today. 

            The World Bank "acts as though the military rulers were
            rational, reasonable and humane and could be reasoned
            with. Sadly they are not," Silverstein wrote, while noting
that
            a dialogue must include ethnic minorities, a position Suu
Kyi
            has endorsed. 

            "Sadly too there are international businesses, organizations
            and spokesmen ready to defend and enrich the (military
            government) members in exchange for economic benefits
            which will not help the people or the nation," he wrote. 

            Myanmar's government has been condemned repeatedly by
            the U.N.General Assembly for rampant human rights
            violations, including forced labor, torture of dissidents
and
            ethnic cleansing campaigns against the country's minorities.