ASIA : Myanmar Faces Patchwork of Problems : Refugee exodus, repressive rulers and economic pressures cast a shadow on the nation’s future.

Since a military junta seized power in 1988--in a campaign that reportedly cost 3,000 lives--authorities here have grappled with a series of internal and external problems, many of them issues of grave international concern.

The closed, repressive nature of the regime has limited Western reporting, particularly of Myanmar official views. But the government in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, recently permitted some visits and interviews.

BACKGROUND: Diplomatic observers agree that Gen. Saw Maung, who stepped down this week as chairman of the ruling junta, has exerted iron-fisted control over Myanmar, formerly Burma. During his rule, elected opposition legislators have been jailed or oppressed. Human rights groups say 2,000 dissidents have been jailed, and nonpolitical prisoners have been forced to serve as army porters and have been made to walk ahead of government troops to clear land mines in insurgent areas.

Since the junta took control, thousands of Myanmar residents have crossed the borders to Thailand and Bangladesh, potentially destabilizing not just one nation but the region.

KEY ISSUES: Immigration, the economy, internal repression and external pressure to alter the military regime’s foreign and domestic policies are some central concerns for Myanmar.

* Immigration. Myanmar may take back up to 37,000 of the 200,000 Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh, if it can be shown that the refugees previously were legal Myanmar residents, Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw says.

But he has rejected U.N. intervention or international pressure to resolve what some call Myanmar’s persecution of ethnic and religious minority groups, but which he calls an immigration issue between his nation and Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh--before it seeks a Security Council resolution urging Myanmar to halt its alleged persecution of Muslims living in the western border state of Arakan--is awaiting the findings of Jan Eliasson, a U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian relief.

Dhaka says that up to 210,000 Muslim refugees from Myanmar have crossed the border into Bangladesh since December to escape persecution; Yangon denies that it persecutes minorities and contends that it has expelled illegal immigrants.

Ohn Gyaw said his government is processing a list supplied by Dhaka of more than 37,000 people who claimed to have legal residence in Myanmar. This figure matches Yangon’s own census, said Ohn Gyaw, who also asserted that up to half a million Bangladeshis had been living illegally in Myanmar.

There is some validity to Yangon’s assertion that many Muslims who have fled the country claiming oppression actually were illegal immigrants, analysts say. But Muslims who are Myanmar nationals and who call themselves Rohingyas are treated as second-class citizens in this predominantly Buddhist nation.

Diplomats who have visited the border area say they have independent confirmation of refugees’ reports of abuses, such as killings, rapes and robberies committed by Myanmar soldiers.

On another front, Myanmar’s troops have intensified the fighting around Manerplaw on this country’s eastern border, dislocating thousands of people, who have fled to Thailand.

* Domestic repression. The ruling military junta is showing signs of further repressing its opposition while continuing to insist that it is moving toward democracy.

The junta, for example, recently fired 15,000 civil servants in the latest purge of allegedly disloyal elements in Myanmar.

Diplomatic observers in the capital said they have counted 150 teachers in Yangon University and 72 in other educational institutions who have lost their jobs in recent months. And thousands of teachers have been sent to a “re-education camp” in Phaunggi, 25 miles north of Yangon, where they must undergo weeks of drills and lectures.

A senior academic who heads a think tank in Yangon and is a key economic adviser to the government confirmed the personnel actions, which he said were part of the regime’s unfinished business of consolidating its power.

Schools had been shut for three years until they were reopened in mid-1991; they were again closed indefinitely last December when students rallied in celebration of Aung San Suu Kyi’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, had led the opposition National League for Democracy, which in 1990 overwhelmingly won the National Assembly elections the junta refuses to honor.

* Foreign pressure and the economy. Ohn Gyaw said Myanmar will not bend to foreign pressure over the crackdown on the mainstream, pro-democracy political opposition.

Since the military junta seized power, the United States, the European Community and Japan have cut off all aid and imposed an arms embargo on Myanmar.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved Parker Borg’s appointment as envoy to Myanmar. But he will not be sent to Yangon until the political repression ends, U.S. officials say.

Ohn Gyaw dismissed U.S. pressure, saying, “Democracy is not their private property.”

Meantime, foreign analysts in Yangon say that Myanmar needs significant aid and foreign investment but that the country is far from collapse.

Indeed, a construction frenzy is under way in the capital, with hotels and shopping complexes going up.

Yangon has bought arms from China and Eastern Europe to make up for the loss of Western equipment. Analysts say Myanmar has bought about $600 million worth of Chinese jet fighters, tanks and patrol boats since 1988, paid for mostly through barter.

Polish-made helicopter gunships have been used to bomb Karen insurgents in the Irrawaddy Delta. Rebels have fought for autonomy for the state of Karen since Myanmar obtained independence from Britain in 1948.

OUTLOOK: Saw Maung had promised Myanmar a new constitution, to be drawn up by a national convention, obviously to be handpicked by the military.

Gen. Than Shwe, deputy chairman of the junta and army commander, replaced Saw Maung as head of the junta and was named prime minister on Friday. Officials also promised to release some political prisoners and insisted that the new constitution will become a reality.

But observers are skeptical about the extent of democracy that will be allowed. “It is fairly obvious there are military men who feel the politicians are not qualified,” a Western source said.

Tan, a Times special correspondent in Manila, recently was on assignment in Yangon.

What’s in a Name? Until June, 1989, Myanmar was known as Burma; Yangon was Rangoon. But military leaders decreed the name changes, saying they better reflected the nation’s ethnic diversity. “Burma” connotes “Burman”--the country’s dominant race--to the exclusion of ethnic minorities, they said. Historians say many Burmese place names had been corrupted during Britain’s 1862-1948 colonial rule. Just before the nation’s leaders changed its name to Myanmar, they had shifted it from “The Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma” to “The Union of Burma,” a designation that fast gave way to the current nomenclature.