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Editorial of The Rangoon Post



Press Release:


These following articles are printed in editorial page of The Rangoon Post,
Vol.1. No. 5..


When A  Thug In The ASEAN Security Forum 

Every year, ASEAN holds a regional forum known as ASEAN Security Forum (ASF)
to discuss security, economy, and other social issues, except  human rights.
The association, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia,  Philippine, Singapore,
Thailand, and Vietna, this year invited the United States' State Secretary
Madeleine K. Albright, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, European
Union Deputy
Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jacques F. Poos, Canadian Foreign Affairs
Minister Lloyd Axworthy as well as foreign ministers from Japan, South Korea,
New Zealand, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and Russia. The ASEAN also invited
SLORC's bloody thug Foreign Minister Ohn Kyaw, two days after the association
had extended tow new members: dictators ruled Burma and Communists ruled
Laos. Since  Ohn Gyaw represented his regime in the forum for the first time,
the situations of the SLORC's  human rights violations were turned into a
total disaster, of which he said was the SLORC neither detained political
prisoners  nor violated human rights.

Amnesty International in 1996 report that more than 3,000 Burmese political
prisoners were detained in harsh prisons throughout the country. The use of
forced and slave labor to built roads and hotels to promote the tourism
industries in that country was evidently  reported  to U.N. Human Rights
Commission in Geneva last year. More than 300 members and elected
representatives from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD)
were arrested in May when the members were organizing their party conference.
 A peaceful student protest demanded to reorganize the official Student Union
in Burma in last December were brutally cracked down by the junta's heavily
 armed police. Since then all universities and colleges have been closed.
Very recently, a dozen of Suu Kyi's supporters, including her close
relatives, were arrested by the junta, accused of smuggling a video tape to
ASEAN's ministerial meeting in Malaysia. They were sentenced to ten years in
prison plus life sentence. Far Eastern Economic Review in July reported that
the SLORC was preparing a special cell furnished with a Western-style
bathroom in the notorious Insein Jail for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi  if she were
rearrested. Many Burmese leaders in exile believe that Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi
will someday be rearrested since the regime gained a membership in the ASEAN.

A statement following to the SLORC?s foreign minister remark of denying its
rights abuses, one of the ASEAN's foreign ministers who attended the forum
later told reporters that ASEAN was not blind,  that it observed Burma's
regime's repression on democratic forces, especially on the NLD, and he said
that was why ASEAN were silent when all criticized Burma. Ms. Albright
criticized Ohn Kyaw and his regime's repression on the democrats and allowing
the drug traffickers to do legitimate businesses in Burma.  Canadian foreign
minister Lloyd Axworthy was disappointed at the lack of progress in Burma and
later imposed an economic sanction on Burma's trade privileges. Mr. Downer
said he was very disturbed by Ohn Gyaw's denial of human rights abuses.  Mr.
Downer proposed to send an Australian envoy to Burma to meet with the junta's
leaders and the NLD's leaders,  including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to discuss
 Burma's future democratization.  Mr. Poos also said that EU would not extend
aids to and dialogue with ASEAN's new member Burma due to its human rights
violations and use of the forced labor.  Soft-spoken Japanese foreign
minister Yukihiko Ikeda also said he was irritated by Ohn Kyaw's explanation
of the drafting the new constitution at the meeting between the two leaders.
 Mr. Ikeda told Gyaw that he wanted to see more democratization in Burma and
said Japan would not resume another fresh aid to Burma until Burma changes.

Instead of gaining legitimacy through the ASEAN, the bloody mayhem  SLORC
 was faced and will be faced with more pressures. The world's powerful blocks
in fact cleverly turned Burma's burden as well as Cambodia?s onto ASEAN's
shoulders. That will harm all ASEAN's founding fathers. Prof.  Mohamed Ariff,
Executive Director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER),
told ASEAN's  roundtable in the first week of August in Jakarta that the
group would be "punished" for admitting Burma.  Singapore Foreign Minister
Shanmugam Jayakumar told ASEAN's member countries in the roundtable that a
"unique challenge"  had been posed by the entry of  Burma into the group.

However, the price for admitting the SLORC into the ASEAN, even though
Burmese democratic forces, Westerns, and Europeans opposed the inclusion, is
too high to pay by both the junta and the ASEAN.

                                                oooOoo


UNGA Is Still Ahead

Since 1991, shortly after the democratically elected representatives from NLD
formed a legitimate government in exile known as National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma (NCBUG) led by Prime Minister Dr. Sein Win,
the United Nations has passed a number of Burma resolutions through the
United Nations General Assembley (UNGA). The resolution calls the SLORC to
hold dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to honor the 1990 election
results. But the ruling SLORC ignored the calls and denied a visa to the UN
Under Secretary.  Is the UN a lipservice?
     The United Nations is not a lipservice when it implements its
resolutions effectively backed by Australia, Canada, England, France,
Germany, and the United States as well as the EU nations.
     At the right time, at the right place, and on the right idea, Burma's
problems will be solved through the UN. 
      The right idea that the Canadian Government last year put during the
meeting of ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference in Jakarta, of which Lloyd
Axworthy Minister of Foreign Affairs  proposed the establishment of a
"contact group" that would work with the United Nations Secretary General to
obtain compliance with U.N. resolutions. That is the only way to enhance
Burma's democratization and to build national reconciliation acted by a
broader level of international censure. An individual organization in terms
of a nation or association such as ASEAN, British, Canada, EU, and the United
States alone cannot achieve the UN resolutions. Only a unified body, the
contact group, is able to bring the resolutions into Burma.
     Sometime in September, all the world's leaders, including the Canadian
Foreign Minister, will gather in the UN in New York to amend the Burma-UN
resolution.  At this time, all should achieve the contact group and provide
some financial assistance to it.  It is a right time to do so.
                                         oooOooo

Editor

Nyi Nyi Lwin

Philip McCrecken. II