Myanmar takes a stab at
ASEAN By Marwaan
Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Southeast Asian leaders
ended a two-day summit in the Laotian capital Vientiane
with a calculated political stab in the back from a
fellow member of their regional body, Myanmar, which is
scheduled to assume chairmanship of the grouping in
2006.
That Yangon's military rulers had the
sense of occasion to humiliate the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was evident by the
timing of their move to further oppress Myanmar's
pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. On Monday, a
senior member of the National League for Democracy
(NLD), the opposition party that Suu Kyi heads,
confirmed to the media that the junta had sent officials
to extend Suu Kyi's term of house arrest by another
year.
"This is clearly a slap in the face of
ASEAN," Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network
on Myanmar (ALTSEAN), a regional human-rights lobby,
told Inter Press Service. "It just shows how confident
the military regime is about ASEAN - that it will not
pressure Myanmar to free Suu Kyi nor push it towards
democratic reform."
Western nations have long
criticized ASEAN's non-interference policy when serious
issues should be addressed. But ASEAN members say its
policy of non-confrontation is more effective and in
tune with Asian cultural ways. Although individual
member states have been critical, the grouping has been
reluctant to tackle the issue as a bloc.
Moreover, ASEAN leaders often skirt sensitive
issues when it comes to their own countries. While Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra pressed for Myanmar to
be examined, he threatened to walk out of the summit if
other members confronted him over the recent violence in
Thailand's predominantly Muslim southern provinces.
On the eve of the summit meeting in Laos,
analysts speculated that Yangon's rulers would have to
explain the lack of progress on political reform in
Myanmar, the recent reshuffle of its appointed prime
minister and the situation of Suu Kyi to the other
leaders of the economic grouping. Yet Myanmar's military
leaders avoided any official mention at the summit of
their human-right violations, or failure to deliver on
promised political reform.
This meeting of ASEAN
- which includes Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam - also focused global attention to the regional
body after the signing of an ambitious agreement with
China to create the world's largest free-trade area,
comprising 2 billion people, by 2010.
But the
popping of champagne corks over that trade deal, signed
late on Monday, were spoiled by Myanmar's decision to
detain Suu Kyi further - a development that magnifies
the hardline stance of the military strongmen at the
helm, led by Senior General Than Shwe.
The State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is
officially known, appears to have no qualms about an
ASEAN backlash, said Aung Naing Oo, a research associate
at the Myanmar Fund - a Washington DC-based think-tank
of Myanmar academics in exile. "They are prepared to go
ahead with their own agenda even if it is plainly
stupid, as [was] this week's decision to detain Suu Kyi
further while the ASEAN summit was on," he told IPS.
Yangon has made it a habit of flaunting its
oppressive stripes in the face of ASEAN since it was
invited to become a member in 1997. Such a blatant
disregard for this regional body prevails despite
ASEAN's leading members, such as the Thai prime
minister, protecting Myanmar from critical barbs fired
by the British or United States governments.
The
unflinching and unrelenting assault on Suu Kyi and her
party have been a consistent indicator of Myanmar's
approach. The generals in Myanmar, known as Burma until
the junta changed its name to Myanmar in 1988, have
denied the NLD from staking a claim in the country's
political life, despite its landslide victory at a
parliamentary election in 1990. Suu Kyi was under house
arrest then, only to be released in 1995. She was
detained again for two years by the junta in 2000-02.
Her current detention followed an attack on her and
fellow party members by thugs linked to the military
regime in May last year.
In addition to Suu Kyi,
the junta has filled close to 39 jails across the
country with 1,400 political prisoners, who include
parliamentarians, writers, pro-democracy activists, and
Buddhist monks, among othes.
Myanmar's ability
to expose ASEAN for its lack of courage to stand up for
democracy and human rights is due to the group's
much-vaunted principle of non-interference on the
domestic issues of its member countries.
The
region's founders, who ruled during a time when ASEAN
was better known for its dictators and authoritarian
leaders, conceived and embraced this
see-hear-and-speak-no-evil principle. Those who
benefited from the non-interference principle were
former strongmen Suharto, Indonesia's former president,
Ferdinand Marcos, the former president of the
Philippines, and authoritarian leaders such as Mahathir
Mohamed, the former prime minister of Malaysia, and Lee
Kuan Yew, Singapore's former premier.
But now
the very principle that the region's leaders hold sacred
and have benefited from has come to haunt ASEAN, since
Myanmar is due to assume the leadership of the regional
body in 2006.
"ASEAN will be committing suicide
in terms of its international credibility, and its
achievements as a region will suffer a huge blow if the
Burmese generals take over," says ALTSEAN's Stothard.
"The next six months will reveal by just how much ASEAN
wants to hurt itself by letting Burma get away."
The prospect of Myanmar further lowering ASEAN's
significance on the global stage comes at a time when
this regional group is desperately trying to reinvent
itself after it was shaken to its roots - and relegated
to a marginal entity after years of economic glory -
following the 1997 regional financial crisis.
The consequence of such a dire scenario has not
been lost on some parliamentarians in the region,
resulting in an unprecedented political development led
by Malaysian legislators.
A bipartisan group of
Malaysian parliamentarians, with support from
legislators in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia,
Cambodia, and Singapore, have mounted a campaign to deny
Myanmar the chairmanship of ASEAN. "The chairmanship of
ASEAN cannot be awarded to Myanmar in 2006, without
undergoing systemic and irreversible change in its
governance," declared a statement released by the ASEAN
parliamentarians at the end of their four-day workshop
in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday.
The legislators
even hinted that the region would be better off if
Myanmar was stripped of its ASEAN membership. "We call
for the immediate review of Myanmar's membership of
ASEAN."
For members of Myanmar's opposition, the
meeting in Kuala Lumpur was a revelation. It suggested
the panic that has set in within Southeast Asia's
capitals of the burden ASEAN will have to bear if
Myanmar becomes the chairman. "The military is seeking
the chairmanship of ASEAN to enhance its legitimacy,"
said Aung Naing Oo, the researcher. "But will ASEAN
grant the military its wishes after this week's summit?"
Only time will tell.
