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Myanmar Movement Moot



<bigger>Asiaweek

April 16, 1999

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Myanmar Movement Moot

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The plan for the United Nations and the World Bank to rustle up some
$1billion of aid in exchange for substantive political reform in Myanmar
is dying a slow death. U.N. special envoy Alvaro de Soto was scheduled to
return to Yangon in March, but the trip was canceled due to a lack of
progress in pre-meeting negotiations. The U.N. then suggested the second
week of April, but that is Songkran, a three day national holiday in
Myanmar. And there are other problems. The U.S. Congress vetoed a plan
that de Soto be accompanied by a senior World Bank official, while the
suggestion that a retired Bank personality attend was dismissed as giving
the mission too little authority. As it now stands, a junior-level
functionary will go, along with some UNDP and other U.N. officials. But,
so what? Are Yangon's generals ready to free all political prisoners and
allow political parties to operate? Asian officials who have met their
Myanmar counterparts in recent months (Brig. Gen. Kyaw Win was in Japan;
Senior Gen. Than Shwe and Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt were in Thailand, and
Foreign Minister Win Aung has visited almost all the ASEAN capitals)
report that the Myanmar leaders express no sense of urgency to change
their present course. Time for a new idea.

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