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ASEAN: swaggering playboys of Burma



Subject: ASEAN: swaggering playboys of Burma....


			Opinion on ASEAN
			****************

[ASEAN's closer engagement with the swaggering playboys of Burma has 
done nothing to moderate their behavior.]

When the Association of South-East Asian Nations was formed in 1967, it 
was a modest partnership built in the name of economic development and 
cooperation. The real, mostly unspoken reason for its creation was the 
Vietnam War and fears of a communist surge.

As an economic and security alliance, ASEAN rewarded the ambition of 
its founders. As the communist threat withered, members boomed 
economically and the grouping helped cement peace between neighbours 
with different cultures and political systems and unresolved 
territorial disputes.

As ASEAN approaches its 30th anniversary, a new dynamic is working to 
castit in a new role; not that of peacemaker and unifier, but as a 
force of reaction confronting the aspirations of a new Asian generation.

The organisation that helped an emerging region find its voice is now 
acting to silence the clamor for those same freedoms it once claimed to 
defend.

The weekend decision of ASEAN foreign ministers to admit Burma as a 
full member next month - in defiance of the United States and many 
Western governments, and against the manifest wishes of the 
Burmese people - confirmed the grouping's status as an authoritarian 
club deaf to the forces of change gathering in the region.

The decision could seriously complicate ASEAN's relation with Europe 
and with the United States, the power which still underwrites regional 
security. It will undermine the credibility of ASEAN claims of 
commitment to democratisation and human rights, and impair its ability 
to speak with moral authority in international affairs.

In rushing the entry of Burma, Cambodia and Loas, ASEAN could also 
threaten its internal cohesion. Burma and Cambodia are politically 
unstable and, with Loas, are a long way from being capable of 
filfilling the association's commitments on free trade.

While it is hardly suprising that the likes of Indonesia and Vietnam 
have chosen to give comfort to a regime cast in their own totalitarian 
mould, the alacrity with which the ostensibly democratic Thailand and 
the Philippines have joined the bandwagon, sends a disturbing message 
about the future of political liberalisation in South-East Asia.

There are, of course, economic and political considerations that will 
dissuade any ASEAN member from rocking the boat. Thailand, which shares 
an unstable border with Burma, has a special reason to aviod 
antagonising its troublesome neighbour.

But the conspicuous failure of the Philippines to take a stand against 
the worsening repression in Burma - and the military's denial of the 
popular will expressed in Aung San Suu Kyi's landslide election victory 
in 1991 - is a betrayal of the spirit of the 1986 People Power victory 
over the Marcos regime, and all who cheered it across the region and 
the world.

ASEAN justifies its Burma decision on the grounds of regional security. 
It argues that the regime should be engaged rather than isolated, that 
the political situation in Burma is an "internal affair" and that 
through engagement the generals can be persuaded to reform.

But the latest wave of arrests of members of Ms Suu Kyi's National 
League for Democracy - on the eve of the foreign ministers' meeting - 
has made clear the regime's contempt for ASEAN's token criticism of its 
repression.

In defence of ASEAN's discredited policy of constructive engagement 
with Burma, the Thai Foreign Minister, Mr Prachuab Chaiyasan, said: 
"Even a playboy can become a good husband after his marriage, with the 
family's help. That's the Asain way."

The sad reality is that ASEAN's closer engagement with the swaggering 
playboys of Burma has done nothing to moderate their behaviour and has 
simply emboldened them in their trampling of the rights and wishes of 
their people.

The ASEAN decision to close ranks behind Burma while international 
sanctions are being stepped up has drawn widespread condemnation from 
human rights groups, political analysts and independent newspapers in 
the region. 

In perphaps the toughest newspaper editorial, Bangkok's Nation 
declared: "ASEAN will never be the same again. By embracing Burma as a 
member it has itself become a pariah organisation...the decision was a 
triumph of evil over humanity."

The only reaction still missing is that of Ms Suu Kyi. Back under 
virtual house arrest in Rangoon - her phone cut, approaches to her 
house barricaded by soldiers, and dozens more of her supporters in 
detention - the Nobel Peace laureate was stopped from adding her voice 
to the protests.

Instead, Burma's official New Light of Myanmar" newspaper - crowing at 
the diplomatic coup - stepped up its viriolic onslaught against Ms Suu 
Kyi, describing her as a "maggot" and insulting the memory of her 
father, General Aung San, the hero of Burmese independence.

Emboldened by the knowledge that its neighbours have no intention of 
trying to curb its behavior, the regime has fired broadsides at the West 
and "traitorous" elements within the country, caliming the time is 
approaching for "the downfall of hegemonism".

But, as the modern political history of Thailand and the Philippines 
has shown - and the recent violent election campaign in Indonesia has 
reaffirmed - the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people are not a 
regional aberration.

It is the leaders of ASEAN who now stand isolated and who, with their 
Burmese military cohorts, eventually will be swept aside by the 
inexorable march of history.

[Mark Baker, The Age's South-East Asia correspondent, 4 June 1997].

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