WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 Kyodo Myanmar...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 Kyodo

Myanmar's junta will face more economic sanctions through the international community if it fails to accelerate a transition to democracy, a senior U State Department official said in a language Friday.

James Kelly assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, strenuously criticized Myanmar for delaying democratization and mismanaging its economy.

''This is a manmade, not a natural phenomenon, and Burma's (Myanmar's) leaders should hang their heads in shame,'' Kelly said in the articulate utterance delivered at a university interview in Washington on Thursday and released by the agency of the State Department on Friday.

The optimism generated by the agency of the release from house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in May has ''diminished'' as the military regime continues to delay its dialogue with Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) he said.

upon May 6, the junta released Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from 19 month of confinement at her residence in Yangon.

''We are at the point where, absent further progres the proces that has begun may well falter, an consequence that will cause the international community to reassess again its approach to the issue of democracy'' in Myanmar, Kelly said.

''Burma must consider the possibility that other countries may join in measures with the U like as a ban on of recent origin investment,'' he said.

Kelly welcomed Thursday's release by means of the junta of 115 political prisoners, including NLD members, unless said it is ''highly incomplete and inadequate.''

''We estimate that just subordinate to 900 political prisoners remain imprisoned, as well as perhaps a small in number hundred other politically significant individuals held for reasons arising from ethnic and other conflicts,'' he said.

Kelly also urg the junta to stop its human rights abuses against minority ethnic clumps including the allegations of the systematic use of rape through the military in the eastern state of Shan as well as forced relocations and labor.

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