Reuters-Reform and prosper, Myanmar

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Subject: Reuters-Reform and prosper, Myanmar junta told 

NOV 15 1999

Reform and prosper, Myanmar junta told


The World Bank tells the military junta that only major political and social
changes can deliver prosperity to the struggling country

BANGKOK -- The World Bank has told Myanmar's ruling generals in a
confidential report that the country's economic malaise is the result of
mismanagement rather than Asia's financial crisis.

The World Bank told the generals they had to undertake major political and
human-rights reforms to achieve prosperity on a par with neighbouring
countries, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The International Herald Tribune said the draft of a 109-page World Bank
report on Myanmar had been distributed secretly to top generals in the
ruling military council and to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
reflected a World Bank-United Nations initiative to break the political
deadlock between them.

The report, which the paper said was the bank's first on Myanmar in almost
five years, blamed the country's economic malaise on mismanagement rather
than Asia's financial crisis.

It concluded that current policies would exacerbate poverty, stunt human
development and devastate national social cohesion.

It said Myanmar's rich had gained disproportionately from economic
development compared with the wealthy in other Asian nations, and the
country had yet to achieve sustainable growth.

Child-malnutrition levels were high and death rates for children
significantly higher than in other Asian countries with similar gross
domestic products, the bank report said.

It also said many factors suggested child labour had risen since the early
1980s.

The newspaper said the report had been delivered to the generals by UN
Assistant Secretary-General Alvaro de Soto, who visited Myanmar last month
to try to promote dialogue between them and Ms Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel peace
laureate.

Last year Mr De Soto raised the possibility of World Bank aid if the
government initiated such a dialogue.

On Friday Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said the military
government had arrested the leaders of two allied ethnic parties who took
part in talks with Mr De Soto last month.

It said Mr Naing Tun Thein, 82, chairman of the Mon National Democratic
Front, and Mr Kyin Shin Htan, chairman of the Zomi National Congress, had
been arrested on Nov 3, both for the second time in two years.

It said no reason had been given for their detention.

Myanmar's military took direct power in 1988 by killing thousands to crush a
pro-democracy uprising.

It then ignored the results of the last election in 1990, which the NLD won
by a landslide.

The UN General Assembly, as well as Western countries led by the United
States and the European Union, has condemned Myanmar for failing to promote
democracy and for severe human-rights violations, including forced labour
and torture.

The generals have refused to negotiate with Ms Suu Kyi unless she disbands a
committee set up last year to represent the parliament they never allowed to
form.--Reuters