Asean entry on track, opposition fe

[ausgeo@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Asean entry on track, opposition fears it will add to repression 

Friday  May 30  1997

Asean entry on track, opposition fears it will add to repression 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok and Agencies 
Thailand's Deputy Foreign Minister said yesterday he expected Burma, Cambodia 
and Laos to win admission into Asean this year, possibly in July.

Pitak Intravitayanunt made the comment as democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi 
called in a videotape smuggled out of Burma for Asean to begin talking with 
her National League for Democracy party.

"We see hope that we will receive the three countries this year," Mr Pitak 
said on the sidelines of a meeting in New Delhi.

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will 
meet in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to decide when to admit its final three members. 
It said last year they would be admitted together.

The videotape from Ms Aung San Suu Kyi was her first message to the outside 
world since the military launched its latest crackdown last week to prevent a 
congress of her political party.

Although the congress had been scheduled to end on Wednesday, the military did 
not pull back its troops yesterday, nor release any of the more than 300 party 
supporters it arrested. "If Asean is truly interested in constructive 
engagement, it should try to engage with both sides in Burma, with the 
[regime] as well as the democratic opposition," Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said.

She said admitting Burma to Asean under the military would be a risk to the 
group's stability and reputation, and that "what the people of Burma risk is 
that admission into Asean will make [the regime] more obdurate and oppressive 
than ever".

Diplomats in Bangkok say signs this week that Asean will delay admitting Burma 
would be a face-saving gesture by members of the grouping who had squirmed at 
the thought of embracing a regime with which the West is rapidly losing 
patience.

Insiders say Burma, Cambodia and Laos will be admitted by the end of the year 
- probably at the leaders' meeting in December.

"It has already been decided [to delay membership] - but only as a sop to the 
worriers," said a Singaporean diplomat.

"They are not terribly happy but what can they do they do?" said Kawi 
Chongkitavorn, the executive editor of The Nation in Bangkok and an expert on 
Asean. "They can't been seen to be giving in to Western pressure."

South Chian Morning Post.