Global IssuesSOUTH-EAST ASIA: Leaders Look to UN for Help With Burma
South-east Asian leaders ended a summit here on Sunday by placing greater faith in the United Nations, than their regional bloc in dealing with a member - military-ruled Burma.
This decision by the leaders of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) to support the global body’s initiatives to bring political reform and improve the human rights situation in Burma was an admission of the 10-nation bloc’s weakness in dealing with its most difficult member.
The call to U.N. for help, particularly in the work of Ibrahim Gambari, a U.N. special envoy for Burma, came at the end of 14th ASEAN summit, where there was much fanfare about the determined push this regional alliance was making to become a stronger, rules-based entity by 2015.
The summit of leaders from Brunei, Burma (or Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam was the first since the coming into force last December of the ASEAN charter, a regional constitution that expects all members to be committed to upholding a common set of rules.
The promotion and protection of human rights in the region are recognised as a goal of the charter.
‘’The charter provides the legal and institutional framework for ASEAN to be a more rules-based, effective and people-centred organisation paving the way for realising an ASEAN Community by 2015,’’ revealed the closing statement by Thai Prime Minister Abhist Vejjajiva, the chairman of the summit held in this resort town south of Bangkok.
‘’We adopted the ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint which envisaged ASEAN to be a rules-based Community of shared values and norms; a cohesive, peaceful, stable and resilient region with shared responsibility for comprehensive security; as well as a dynamic and outward-looking region,’’ the chairman’s statement added.
But in the face of a test to live up to such lofty assurances on ‘the Burma problem ‘ ASEAN leaders let the agenda be set by the Burmese Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein.
‘’We underscored the necessity for and welcomed the Myanmar Government’s willingness to engage in active cooperation with U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy as well as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in order to address the international community’s concern about the situation in Myanmar,’’ added the closing statements where only Burma was singled out for a special comment.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi summed up ASEAN’s inability to deal with Burma during a post-summit press conference. ‘’The Myanmar prime minister said that they would like to deal with the United Nations and not ASEAN,’’ Badawi revealed. ‘’We (ASEAN) will not be the interlocutor.’’
This exchange, which took place during a closed-door leaders’ meeting here, saw other comments made regards Burma, a country that has been ruled by successive, oppressive military regimes since a 1962 coup.
‘’ASEAN can help by issuing a statement of support for Gambari’s mission,’’ Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong reportedly told other ASEAN leaders, according to official notes from the meeting seen by IPS.
But the Singapore premier was not in favour of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon making another visit to Burma, his second since May 2008, if nothing concrete can be achieved. ‘’We should not encourage U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to visit Myanmar unless there are concrete deliverables,’’ Lee reportedly told the other ASEAN presidents and prime ministers, the official notes added.
‘’A visit will raise unrealistic expectations that cannot be met, and would be counter-productive,’’ Lee said.
Gambari’s seven visits to Burma made little progress. His recent missions to the country, the last of which was in early February, has seen him being denied access to meet Burma’s strongman, the reclusive Senior General Than Shwe.
ASEAN’s policy shift towards Burma comes after the regional alliance tried to flex its own diplomatic muscle in recent years to express its frustrations and the lack of genuine progress towards genuine political reform in Burma.
Following the junta's harsh crackdown, in September 2007, of peaceful pro-democracy street protests, led by Buddhist monks, ASEAN issued a strong statement criticising its fellow member. That declaration of ‘’revulsion’’ was made by the alliance at the U.N. headquarters in New York.
Singapore was instrumental in shaping that blunt text, according to diplomatic sources.
The year before, in early 2006, the Malaysian foreign minister was tasked with leading an ASEAN fact-finding mission to Burma. But that April mission by the country that was heading ASEAN that year had to be cut short when the junta denied the visiting ASEAN team permission to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who is under house arrest.
ASEAN’s move away from such engagement with Burma to a hands-off stance is far from encouraging, says Debbie Stothard of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights body. ‘’It looks like they are back to square one, the way things were after Burma joined ASEAN over 10 years ago,’’ she told IPS.
‘’Then they did not want to get involved in influencing change and they refused to take responsibility for what was happening. Look what has happened since.’’
‘’But if ASEAN wants to wash its hands off Burma, they should stop shielding the regime at the U.N.,’’ she added. ‘’Voting to protect Burma at the U.N. like some ASEAN countries, during last year’s General Assembly over a human rights resolution, only goes to deflect pressure off the regime.’’
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service