Asia Times: ASEAN does 'the least' for Burma, says Suu Kyi



	June 23, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

ASEAN does 'the least' for Burma, says Suu Kyi
By Rosario Liquicia

RANGOON - Two years after it admitted the Burmeseregime into its fold, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) should realize its mistake and take a tougher approach onRangoon, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says.

''I think this non-interference is just an excuse for nothelping and we think that in our day and age, you cannot avoidinterference in the [internal] matters of countries,'' Suu Kyitold a group of visiting Southeast Asian women journalists andactivists here.

She said that while other countries are ''very active abouthelping the democratization process . . . I think you have to admitthat the ASEAN countries do least."

Already, Southeast Asian governments gave the Burmese militaryregime a measure of international legitimacy when it admitted thestate into ASEAN in 1997, despite strong opposition from the Westand from critics in the region.

But two years after ASEAN boldly threw its support behind the military junta in the hope that it could influence Rangoon to introduce political reforms, its policy of ''constructiveengagement'' seems to have fallen flat on its face.

The junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council(SPDC), has in fact tightened its grip on power and intensifiedits crackdown on the opposition, arresting and jailing opposition leadersand supporters, observers say.

For the Nobel Prize laureate leader Suu Kyi, it is time for ASEANto take a different approach.

She takes exception to the argument of some ASEAN governmentsthat ''democracy is a Western concept and that you've got to keepyour Asian value."

''They talk a lot about non-interference,'' she told her visitorslast Wednesday at the headquarters of the National League for Democracy(NLD), of which she is general-secretary. ''We cannot help feelingthat this somehow smacks of a conscience which is not completelyclear."

While ASEAN's policy of non-interference has been widely criticized bythe West and by human rights groups in Asia, it has allowedauthoritarian governments in the region to ignore repeated callsfor political reforms.

It also shows a lack of political will to address the issue ofhuman rights, all for the sake of unity in the ASEAN circle.

ASEAN groups together Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,the Philippines and also includes Vietnam, Laos, Burma andCambodia, which joined Southeast Asia's political club onlyin April.

The Philippines, Thailand and Singapore had initially expressedreservations against Burma's admission into ASEAN. They wanted theSPDC to initiate a dialogue with the opposition NLD.

The NLD won the 1990 general elections, but the junta has refusedto respect the result of the poll and has prevented its leadersfrom taking their seats in Parliament.

Efforts toward a dialogue between NLD and the SPDC have notbeen successful. Now, Suu Kyi, the symbol of Burmese struggle forfreedom, wants ASEAN to put more pressure on the military junta.

''We have made various compromises and we have been as flexibleas possible,'' she told the group of visiting women during a ''teaparty'' to mark Women's Day at the NLD headquarters in Rangoon.

''We have tried, we have bent backwards in order to make dialoguepossible. But the military regime does not want dialogue becausethey think dialogue is the beginning of the end for them,'' sheexplained.

''I think what we need is a new initiative on the part of ASEANmembers and I think it is time that ASEAN recognizethat the inflexibility is on the part of the military regime andnot on the part of the NLD,'' she declared.

The opposition leader said ASEAN, which will hold its annualministerial meeting in Singapore next month, should take a morepositive attitude toward bringing about a negotiated settlement inBurma.

Since Burma's brutal suppression of the 1988 pro-democracyuprising, the United States and other European countries haveimposed economic sanctions against the ruling junta, although somemultinationals with existing projects continue to operate here.

The U.S. has passed legislation prohibiting new investments inBurma and the European Union and other parties have levied mildereconomic penalties against the military government.

But this is hardly the case among ASEAN countries, which continueto pour millions of dollars in investments in infrastructureprojects across the country.

Critics say these foreign investments are what prop up theregime, enabling it to cling on to power.

''Many ASEAN countries are investing in Burma. Is that notinterference in our internal affairs? They are now involvedeconomically so how can they say that 'we are not going to getinvolved in the political side?''' said Suu Kyi.

(Inter Press Service)

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