IHT -- Nov. 15

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Burmese Specter in Jakarta
U.S. Failure to Tame Rangoon Mars Mood

International Herald Tribune, Nov. 15, 1994
Dateline: Jakarta
Byline: Thomas W. Lippman

JAKARTA -- For all the apparent harmony here as President Bill Clinton 
discusses economic cooperation and regional security with eladers of the 
major nations of East and Southeast Asia, a country that is not present 
serves as a reminder of Asia's determination not to take orders from 
Washington.

The country is Burma, an impoverished nation ruled by a military junat 
that Washington regards as so odious that the Clinton administration made 
it a target last spring of an intimidation campaign aimed at reducing it 
to pariah status.

The goal was to bludgeon the junta, known as the State Law and Order 
Restoration Council, or SLORC, into relaxing its grip on Burma's 
long-suffering citizens and to stop cooperationg with the heroin 
producers whose output is flooding the United States. But this did not 
work, mostly because other Asian nations -- including longstanding 
friends -- refused to follow Washington's lead.

Last month, the Clinton administration threw its towel and dispatched an 
envoy to open a new dialogue.

Asia was nearly unanimous in its rebuff to Washington's Burma policy -- a 
policy denounced in March after months of high-level review within the 
administration and of consultations with Congress.

Thailand refused to cut off commerce with its neighbour. China declined 
to halt arms sales. Japan extended foreign aid to Burma. Deputy Secretary 
of State Strobe Talbott was "shocked", one senior offical said, to learn 
that even Australia had rejected the U.S. effort.

Result: a 180-degree turn in U.S. policy, with an effort now to reach out 
instead of stamp out.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard was dispatched to 
Rangoon in late October to inform the junta that "We wish to have more 
contructive relations in the future," as he put it.

The Burma issue is one of many, renging from the crucial to the trivial, 
on which Asian nations that maintain generally friendly relations with 
the United States are willing to defy Washington when it suits them. They 
may find Washington's ideas valuable, as appears to have happened in the 
Asian response to Mr. Clinton's efforts to turn the Asia-Pacific Economic 
forum into a permanent economic force. But they act in their own 
interests, often disregarding U.S. desires.

Singapore's insistence on caning a young American, Michael Fay, for 
vandalism was one example. Anothe was Thailand's recent rejection of a 
U.S. request to stockplie military supplies there -- a rejection 
applauded by neighboring countries. On Monday, President Jiang Zemin of 
China reminded Mr. Clinton that China, like may other Asian nations, 
rejects the U.S. view that individual liberty and political freedom are  
fundamental human rights that take precedence over stability and communal 
rights.

In the case of Burma, Asia's complete unwillingness to fall into step 
left the administration little choice but to change policy, a senoir 
official said, but he added, "we wouldn't have done it just because of that."

What made the move palatable, he said, was a modest gesture from the 
junta: opening discussions with Buma's best-known political dissident, 
the Nobel Peace prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

She is in her sixth year of house arrest in Rangoon and the junta has 
refused to release her, but has begun discussions with her that she 
apparently regards as useful, a U.S. official said.

"We had to be satisfied that there was a real change, not just cosmetic, 
and she told us she was satisfied that it is," the official said.

Mr. Hubbard's assignment was to tell the junta that the United States was 
prepared to respond proportionately to whatever such gestures Rangoon 
makes. He told reporters in Bangkok after his trip that the United States 
was ready to "move forward aggressively" to improve relations, but only 
in response to actions by the junta.

"It's up to them," an official who traveled here with Mr. Clinton said. 
"If they make small moves, we make small moves. If they go fats, we go fast."