POLITICS: Calls Mount to Eject Burma from ASEAN

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

BANGKOK, Mar 30 2006 (IPS) - The 200-odd Burmese migrant workers, crowded into a small hall, gasped in horror as the photograph of a bloodied head was projected on a screen.

It was the head of Burmese political prisoner Thet Naing Oo who was beaten to death by police in Rangoon earlier this month. There were angry shouts from the audience as the image focused on the massive head wounds that Thet had suffered.

“This is what is happening to political prisoners in Burma,” said noted rights activist Irene Fernandez pointing to the screen. “This is what our ASEAN leaders have been silent about. This must stop. Enough is enough. ASEAN must consider sacking Burma as member.”

Fernandez’ demands were greeted with cheers from the migrant workers, many of them members of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). They were attending a conference on Burma, organised on the weekend, by TENAGANITA, a leading rights group.

ASEAN (Association of South-east Asian Nations), which groups together Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, has been engaged in ‘constructive engagement’ with military-ruled Rangoon – but this, evidently, has failed.

Last week, Rangoon snubbed ASEAN special envoy and Malaysian foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar who was sent on a mission to study the pace of reforms in Burma, but was forced to return abruptly and without meeting incarcerated pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

On Thursday, Ong Ken Yong, ASEAN secretary general, said Albar’s failed mission was a disappointment and suggested it was time that larger Asian neighbours China and India, stepped in to encourage democratic reform in Burma.

“We should ask China and India to be more persuasive,” Ong told reporters in an indirect admission of ASEAN’s failure in Burma.

Ong took the plea that ASEAN followed the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a member country and that there was ‘’very limited space for us to manoeuvre”.

But ASEAN is coming under increasing pressure from the United States and other Western countries, as well as from powerful human rights groups like TENAGANITA, to eject Burma from the grouping.

TENAGANITA is supported by the ASEAN’s Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), whose secretary, Teresa Kok, is a vocal Malaysian opposition lawmaker.

Kok has been demanding that ASEAN wake up to the horrors that the junta has been perpetrating on the Burmese people and act before more pro-democracy activists meet Thet’s fate.

Fernandez, who is executive director of TENAGANITA, says Thet’s case alone indicated the level of terror newly unleashed by the Burmese junta on democracy activists and political prisoners.

“The arrogance of the junta has reached new heights,” she said referring to the cold shoulder the junta gave Albar.

Fernandez said the failure of Albar to meet Burma’s opposition leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi , showed that the ‘’junta is unwilling to make any commitments to reform despite growing regional pressure”.

“Syed Hamid’s abrupt return is a major step backwards in engaging Burma to respect human rights and reform society,” said Lim Kit Siang, a leading member of the AIPMC.

Albar talked with Prime Minister Soe Win for 20 minutes before abruptly heading to the airport and flying back as global criticism of the junta’s rights abuses mounted in the aftermath of Thet’s killing.

Burma, which joined the regional grouping in 1997, agreed at last year’s ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur to allow a special envoy to visit and check on the progress of its “road map” to democracy and other reform measures. The summit picked Albar as the special envoy.

But the visit apparently suffered because Albar insisted on meeting Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace prize winner kept in jail or under house arrest for nine of the 16 years since winning a massive electoral mandate in 1990.

On his return, Albar told local newspapers that the junta told him Suu Kyi was no longer “relevant” and that the NLD had ”no more influence” and so there was no need to meet her or the others.

ASEAN foreign ministers will meet in Bali Indonesia in mid-April where Albar will submit a report on the dismal progress of reforms in Burma.

Many opposition parliamentarians and rights activists have their eye on the Bali meeting to see how ASEAN takes Rangoon’s snub.

“ASEAN should strongly consider at least suspending Burma’s membership. Otherwise they will show the world they are just a toothless tiger,” Lim told IPS.

Like Lim, Fernandez called for ASEAN to discard its meaningless policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states and take a more proactive stand. She also urged India and China, both arms suppliers to the junta, to add pressure on the junta to take steps to introduce democratic reforms.

The junta claims that it has a road map to democracy and has taken the first step by convening a conclave to draw a new constitution. However, it has kept the NLD out of the convention and refuses to release Suu Kyi and about 1,300 political prisoners, some of them elected in the 1990 elections.

In another snub to ASEAN and others, Burma put out a massive display of military might at its new capital Pyinmana, this week, with more than 12,000 troops taking part in a parade.

Head of state Gen. Than Shwe said the country needed a strong military during its move to what he called “disciplined democracy” where he claimed multi-party democracy could exist.

To break the stalemate, human rights activists say a fresh diplomatic initiative should be undertaken to pressure the junta to accept democratic reforms.

“The international community needs to prove that while taking a moral high ground on Burma’s crisis, it must also offer concrete ideas and approaches to advance democratisation and national reconciliation beyond the current policy of sanctions and boycott,” Fernandez said.

“A necessary step in that direction would be a new diplomatic initiative to persuade the junta to respect the 1990 election results and draft a new constitution with the participation of all stakeholders,” she said.

“The current situation in Burma is that the nation is on the brink of revolution. And if this happens, what we will see is a genocide,”Fernandez said.

+ Burma, a Burden at ASEAN Summit(https://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews31377)