Share this story!            

Myanmar’s ASEAN pullback a hollow victory for Europe, US

* Analysts warn move may lead to Myanmar adopting more repressive and isolationist stance

BANGKOK: A successful campaign by the United States and Europe to persuade Myanmar to forego the 2006 chair of the ASEAN regional bloc could result in the military regime becoming even more repressive and isolationist, analysts say.

According to observers in Yangon, the fact Myanmar decided to back down after Washington and Brussels put heavy pressure on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations marks an illusory victory and won’t serve the cause of democratisation.

The Western threats to boycott regional meetings had the bloc been headed by Yangon, a renowned human rights abuser, risks disengaging the country from democracy. “What I fear, now that the issue has been settled, is that they will only do what they want to do,” said one Western diplomat.

“Maybe they are not unhappy; after all they’ll be left alone.”

“They will shrink inward in all aspects: the national convention, the ethnic minorities, the lady (detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi) and even NGOs and international organisations,” he predicted. Officially, the excuse made to their ASEAN partners to relinquish the chair next year was to “focus its attention” on the national convention - the constitution-drafting assembly that is step one in the junta’s self-proclaimed roadmap to democracy.

Also saying they were “too busy” with the national convention, Myanmar’s generals have refused since March 2004 to open their doors to Razali Ismail, the special envoy of United Nations chief Kofi Annan, or to the UN’s human rights special rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro since November 2003.

By renouncing the chairmanship, a function that would have allowed it to play a role in the region, Myanmar is effectively signaling it is not prepared to make the political changes asked of it and that it will go on holding Aung San Suu Kyi for as long as it sees fit. The Nobel peace laureate has been under house arrest for more than two years, and the military regime is still holding more than 1,100 political prisoners.

At the same time, the junta has shown signs of tightening the screws after then-prime minister Khin Nyunt, the most senior general to favour a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, was ousted in a purge in October last year.

“Perhaps it was a lost opportunity,” said a second Yangon-based diplomat. Myanmar’s decision to bow out, which pleased Europe and was welcomed by the United States, brought to a sputtering end months of tension and division over ASEAN’s leadership.

But shortly before the junta’s decision to pass on the chair was made public, the diplomat noted, East Timor’s foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta warned in Laos that he did “not believe that ... diplomatic isolation of Myanmar is going to help change the situation.”

ASEAN secretary general Ong Keng Yong said as much to AFP in June: “The downside... is that if Myanmar voluntary steps out of the chairmanship, it means for the next two to three years, the issue is out of the radarscope. “How are we going to leverage for the early release of Aung San Suu Kyi and whatever things we want in Myanmar?” The junta has been having steadily decreasing contact with the world community. afp

Home | Foreign

Share this story!