Military Leader Promises Democracy Will Come To Burma

A top Burmese leader has promised a group of American executives that a multiparty democracy will emerge in the military-controlled country and said he hoped relations with the United States would improve, official newspapers reported Sunday.

Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, a senior member of the ruling military council, was speaking to members of the Young Presidents Organization visiting Burma. The newspapers did not say when the meeting took place.

The general said a national convention drawing up guidelines for a new constitution had completed 50 percent of its work.

“The new government that will emerge according to the new constitution will lead the country to multiparty democracy and a market economy,” he said.

The convention, which began its work in 1993, has been in recess since March 1996. Draft provisions already completed would leave decisive power with the military, which has ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, since 1962.

Khin Nyunt told the group, made up of presidents and senior executives of American companies, the present strain in relations between Burma and the United States was temporary.

He expressed regret that the United States had imposed some economic sanctions on his country and said they had minimal impact.

The United States has strongly denounced Burma for human rights abuses and the repression of a pro-democracy movement led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.