RANGOON, Burma – The government has removed about 2,000 exiles from an immigration blacklist drawn up by the former junta to allow them to return home as part of political reforms, AFP reported Tuesday (August 28th).

"The people taken off the blacklist are civil servants who fled a long time ago," an information ministry official told AFP.

"More than 6,000 former civil servants from government ministries were blacklisted. Some 2,000 were taken off today," he said. "The authorities will decide later whether to remove the others."

Several million people fled the country to escape the corrupted economy and political repression under army rule which ended last year, leaving a shortage of professionals to help manage economic and political change.

Many government workers and intellectuals left after a student-led uprising in 1988 that was crushed by the military. Journalists who fled to work overseas were also blacklisted.