ASEAN-BURMA: Leaders Side-step Human Rights For Unity’s Sake

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis Yuli Ismartono and Teena Amrit Gill

JAKARTA/BANGKOK, Dec 3 1996 (IPS) - The one-day event was billed as an informal summit, and indeed there were no banquets, only a few speeches and very little protocol among the southeast Asian heads of state who met in Jakarta last weekend.

Indeed, there were no surprises. At the end of the meeting, the leaders announced they would admit Burma into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) simultaneously with Laos and Cambodia, although the date for their entry was left open.

The announcement may have come as a disappointment to Western nations that have been calling for a boycott of Burma for its human rights record. But it reaffirmed Asean’s united and independent stance on the issue of human rights, analysts say.

“The strong message they are sending is that they are united and independent, no matter the differences among themselves,” Dewi F. Anwar of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences told IPS.

Asean has stuck to a policy of “constructive engagement” towards Burma, also known as Myanmar.

By endorsing Burma’s admission into Asean, the leaders showed they would not be pressured by the West into isolating Rangoon, but by leaving the timetable for its entry open, Asean is also giving Burma time to improve political conditions at home, the analysts add.

For many political observers, the tactic was classic Asean style. While on one hand the group thumbed its nose at Western governments calling for a boycott of Burma, it did not on the other hand, commit itself to any firm date for membership, leaving plenty of room to manoeuvre in future.

But Asean leaders at the Jakarta summit denied that their failure to set a date for Burma’s entry is linked to the regime’s domestic political situation. “Burma’s internal political matters have never, will never and should never be a criterion for membership,” said Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, which was admitted only last year. Burma, Laos and Cambodia now have observer status in Asean.

Burma’s military regime, also known as the State Law and Order Council (SLORC), hopes to gain the international legitimacy it badly needs through its admission to ASEAN.

Its crushing of a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 has been widely condemned and its continuing crackdown on the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leader, Nobel Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is a sore spot in its human rights card.

Released last year due to international pressure after six years of house arrest, Suu Kyi continues to be subject to political harassment. Recently, the car on which she was riding was attacked by a mob.

Ostensibly the main opponents of the move to grant Burma immediate entry into Asean were Philippine President Fidel Ramos and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Both have expressed doubts about the country’s ‘preparedness’ to attain membership of the regional grouping.

“I don’t think Myanmar is quite ready in the near future to adopt all the obligations of being a member of ASEAN.” said Goh in an interview last October with a Finnish television station. Newly elected Thai prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyuth has also spoken of the need to ‘give Burma more time’ before it is admitted into the regional bloc.

But while Asean governments have opted for non-confrontation, private citizens have been less tolerant.

“While I support ASEAN’s position, I am concerned over its policy of not regarding human rights as a priority,” Anwar said. Like fellow academics in the region, she was worried that the reluctance to deal with issues such as human rights would result in ASEAN being seen simply as an elitist grouping representing only the interests of governments and not the people.

The tendency to put such issues on the back-burner is seen to be a weakness of ASEAN. “When are we going to allow the political situation to run its natural course? Repressing it again and again for the sake of regional stability is getting us nowhere,” said a frustrated academic in Jakarta.

Singaporean opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said that Asean should defer Burma’s admission next year, not because of demands from Western nations, but so that it can push the military junta to hold meaningful dialogue with Suu Kyi.

But others political analysts say a more strategic reason behind ASEAN’s support of Burma is the SLORC’S possible courting of Beijing should it feel isolated from its neighbours.

“The prospect of Myanmar turning to China for help and security is another reason why the ASEAN countries are continuing with their policy of constructive engagement with SLORC,” said an observer of regional issues.

China, which presently has border and sea lane disputes with a number of southeast Asian countries, is perceived as a possible security threat in the region.

Political analysts in Bangkok also point to the fact that Asean has a stake in Burma’s future because of the investments it has poured into the country. After the United Kingdom, Singapore has the biggest investments in Burma.

As of last May, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines had combined investments of 1.3 billion dollars in the Burmese economy, over a third of total foreign investments in the country, official statistics show.

With the Burmese economy witnessing unprecendented inflation — above 40 per cent, according to unofficial estimates — and other economic woes, including foreign exchange difficulties, Asean investors are undoubtedly worried.

Most of the Asean money has gone into the hotel and tourism sector, which has failed to take off because of political uncertainty, and a successful international tourism boycott campaign.

Apart from Burma, another message from the Jakarta meeting dealt with the thorny issue of East Timor. The leaders issued a statement expressing ‘concern’ over a European Union member’s persistent inclusion of East Timor at meetings between the two regional groupings.

Alatas named Portugal as the country in question and the official statement warned of ‘unwarranted aggravation’ if the topic was pursued at future meetings.

“Hence the statement of solidarity reinforces ASEAN as a regional block,” Anwar said.

The status of East Timor, once a colony of Portugal before Jakarta annexed it as it’s 27th province in 1976, is not recognised by the United Nations.

ASEAN’s declaration comes at a time when Indonesia is under public criticism over the East Timor issue following the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to prominent Timorese, Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and exiled opposition leader Jose Ramos Horta.

In the coming year, Indonesia also faces an uphill battle over its efforts to exclude East Timor from the United Nation’s agenda of meetings when Portugal takes its seat as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.

“This is what the meeting in Jakarta is all about, shoring up regional support for Indonesia’s diplomatic campaign over East Timor in the coming months,” a diplomat said.

Other analysts say that the meeting also projected a united ASEAN when they confront other regional blocs at the inaugural meeting of the World Trade Organization in Singapore next week.

Indonesia is being dragged onto a WTO arbitration court by Japan over its national car policy which Tokyo says has been discriminating against other cars in favour of vehicles produced by Jakarta’s own Timor Putra Nasional.

For all the solidarity when facing stronger adversaries, the question remains how Asean members, individually as well as collectively, perceive and treat human rights issues.

“On the one side we have Thailand and the Philippines who would like to see a more open attitude towards human rights, but then there is Malaysia and Indonesia who have their own interests to care for,” said one analyst in Jakarta.

Indonesia and to a certain extent Malaysia and Singapore, have their own political interpretation of democratic rights, which are often at odds with the popular and universal understanding of these principles.

In Indonesia, open political opposition is taken as anti- nationalist, as is the case with the supporters of ousted opposition party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, who were recently found guilty of inciting violence last July.