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Myanmar must reform before 2006 ASEAN summit: Thailand

HONG KONG: Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Tuesday that military-ruled Myanmar must reform before it takes over the leadership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2006.

Thaksin put a positive spin on the country’s release last week of about 9,000 prisoners, saying it could herald more reforms even though pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest.

“One whole year, I think things may be changed. Now they have started to release the prisoners but not Aung San Suu Kyi yet.

“I think one year from now on, some things must be improved,” Thaksin told reporters after meeting Myanmar’s new premier Soe Win, a general appointed in a leadership reshuffle last month.

Thaksin said Soe Win could not confirm reports Monday that his government had extended the house arrest of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

The junta has never explicitly said she was under house arrest.

“I asked him: What is the true story? He said he has to check. He didn’t have any details yet,” Thaksin said after a 40-minute breakfast meeting on the final day of an ASEAN summit.

Asked if he had pushed for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, he said: “It is not easy to push Myanmar in terms of saying, oh, release Aung San Suu Kyi. That makes the target harder if you push on a particular point.”

Officials in Yangon responsible for Aung San Suu Kyi’s security confirmed an NLD announcement Monday that her third stint of confinement since taking up the democracy struggle in 1988 had been extended for a year.

The United States immediately expressed deep disappointment and said it would monitor how ASEAN would prod the junta. Most ASEAN members at the summit in Laos were silent on the issue but its biggest member Indonesia as well as the Philippines voiced concern over Yangon’s seemingly mixed signals about reform. afp

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