The BurmaNet News: June 18, 1998

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The BurmaNet News: June 18, 1998
Issue #1029

HEADLINES:
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BANGKOK POST: "NO ROOM" FOR TALK
SEC'Y OF STATE ALBRIGHT: TESTIMONY ON FOREIGN AID BUDGET
REUTERS: MYANMAR, OPPOSITION DISPUTE ON WOMEN'S DAY
THE NATION: BETTER TRY CONSTRUCTIVE INTERVENTION
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The Bangkok Post: "No Room" For Talk
17 June, 1998

Opposition calls for dialogue with Burma's junta are "political black
magic" and the work of the "superpower colonialist bloc," the Rangoon
junta's official media said yesterday. In a virulent dismissal of National
League for Democracy proposals for talks and for parliament to he allowed
to convene for the first time since its members were elected in 1990, the
New Light of Myanmar daily added there was "no room for co-operation."

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Sec'y Of State Albright: Testimony On Foreign Aid Budget
16 June, 1998

TEXT: ALBRIGHT BEFORE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Washington -- Secretary of State Albright has urged Congress to fully fund
the Clinton Administration's foreign operations budget request to insure US
leadership around the world. ASIA

In Asia, we are working to maintain stability by solidifing our key
alliances with Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines and
Thailand.

I had the great pleasure of visiting Japan last month to reaffirm the
strength and breadth of our bilateral relationship. The US-Japan security
alliance is a foundation of Asian stability. I took the opportunity, while
in Tokyo, to express US concerns about Japan's economic situation and the
need for efforts to promote domestic-led growth and deregulation.

I also had a chance in May to visit Korea, whose new President Kim Dae Jung
was in Washington for a state visit just last week.

During that visit, President Clinton made it clear that the United States
remains committed to South Korea's security and supports President Kim's
bold program of economic reform. We are also coordinating efforts to
facilitate a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, to be achieved through
a process of dialogue between North and South.

Obviously, the past twelve months have been difficult for many parts of
Asia. Our policy has been to promote economic and political reforms that
are essential to prosperity and human dignity from Bangkok to Beijing.

In Korea, the Philippines and Thailand, for example, democratic governments
have made progress in overcoming the Asian economic crisis in part because
their people were able to elect new governments, which started work in a
climate of openness and trust, and with the moral legitimacy to call for
shared sacrifice.

Indonesia now has a chance to achieve both democracy and stability, but it
also faces immense challenges from restoring growth, to preserving
religious tolerance, to building truly representative institutions.

Democracy can only be built by the people of Indonesia. But what America
says and does will matter, as it has in other critical periods in
Indonesia's history.

Our message is simple. America's interest lies not in who rules Indonesia,
but in how that immense and important country is ruled: whether it ends up
with a legitimate democratic government, or an unrepresentative,
unaccountable and therefore unstable regime.

The key is credible progress toward open, accountable government. Free
elections must be held in a timeframe and under rules acceptable to the
Indonesian people. Political parties and labor unions must be allowed to
form. Press freedoms must be respected. Political prisoners must be released.

America's interest also lies in standing by the Indonesian people now. We
will continue to provide humanitarian and development assistance and aid to
civil society. And if and when elections are held, we will stand ready to
help in any way we can.

As the world well knows, Mr. Chairman, President Clinton will leave next
week for a visit to China.

Although some have suggested that the President not make this trip, I
cannot imagine anything more consistent with his responsibilities as
President. For the President's purpose is to promote the security,
political and economic interests of the United States and to bring to China
a message of support for democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

Although the space for political discussion in China has clearly expanded
in recent times, the President will have the opportunity to say things that
the people of China cannot say, and have not heard. And the President's
presence in Tiananmen Square will ensure that the world does not forget, as
it must not forget, terrible suppression of peaceful political expression
that occurred there.

Moreover, the President's visit will create the chance for additional
progress towards a more constructive overall relationship with China. Mr.
Chairman, that process of engagement is not the same as endorsement. We
continue to have sharp differences with China on human rights, Tibet and
other issues, but we also believe that the best way to narrow those
differences is to encourage China to become a full and responsible
participant in the international system.

Steps in the right direction include China's security cooperation on the
Korean peninsula and very recently in South Asia, its commitment to
strictly control nuclear exports, its assurances on nuclear cooperation
with Iran, its continued economic liberalization, its positive role in
responding to the East Asian economic crisis, its agreement to pursue
cooperative activities with us to strengthen the rule of law, the release
of Wei Jingsheng and the remarkable Wang Dan, and its announced intention
to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In Cambodia, we are deeply engaged in a diplomatic effort to press the
Government to hold free and fair elections in which all elements of the
opposition can participate without fear of intimidation or threat.

In Burma, we are deeply troubled by the military's regime's refusal to
enter a dialogue with its democratic opposition, its continued repression
of dissent, and by its ties to leading drug traffickers.

I know that you are deeply concerned as well, Mr. Chairman. Indeed, it
seems we are both members of the "international colonialist gang" that the
regime's propaganda machine loves to complain about, since we both believe
that the Burmese people should have a say in running their country. I want
to thank you for helping develop a range of measures to ensure that Burma's
generals cannot realize their economic ambitions without heeding the
aspirations of their people.

As you know, Mr. Chairman we also have a small humanitarian aid program
designed to help the Burmese people survive without helping their
government endure. The people who receive our support realize that it comes
from the friends of Burmese democracy abroad, not from the junta that is
the cause of their suffering. Their needs are staggering; years of
government neglect and denial, for example, have left Burma with the
highest rate of AIDS infection in all of East Asia.

Let me assure you, Mr. Chairman, that we will not move forward in this area
or in the area of counternarcotics -- without consulting with the Congress.
And any efforts we undertake will only be designed with the support and
involvement of Burma's legitimate elected leaders.

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Reuters: Myanmar, Opposition Dispute On Women's Day
17 June, 1998

BANGKOK, June 17 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military junta on Wednesday slammed
plans by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to mark the
June 19 birthday of its party leader Aung San Suu Kyi as National Women's Day.

State controlled media said such plans to commemorate her 53rd birthday
were an insult to patriots and to her late father Aung San, who helped lead
Myanmar to independence.

Aung San's February 13 birthday is officially commemorated as Myanmar
Children's Day.

Newspapers dubbed Suu Kyi as the ``veto lady'' because of the autocratic
influence they said she held within the NLD. Her party won a landslide
victory in 1990 elections that were never recognised by the military.

``It will amount to an insult to the mother and father who slapped the face
of colonialists if attempts were made to designate the birthday of the Veto
Lady as Myanmar's Women's Day,'' said one newspaper.

NLD sources in Yangon said they were planning to celebrate Suu Kyi's
birthday and designate it as National Women's Day.

The newspaper added that recent interviews given by Suu Kyi to journalists
at her lakeside residence in Yangon showed that she was a working with
colonialists to destroy the country.

``I dare say that she is only a cohort of neo-colonialists who are
attempting to destroy Myanmar, to control her and to exploit the country's
natural resources,'' it added.

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The Nation: Better Try Constructive Intervention
17 June, 1998 by Amitav Acharya

To successfully bring Burma into the international community, Asean needs
the help of its Western friends

It is clear that a year of Asean membership has done little to improve
Burma's international image, particularly its standing with Asean's Western
"friends". Neither has it produced any recognisable domestic political
change in that country.

Ironically, much of the pressure for political change in the region today
concerns not Burma, but the older Asean member states, where regime
legitimacy has been undermined by the recent economic downturn. The latter
also challenges the credibility of Asean's 'constructive engagement' policy
towards Burma. In the meantime, there has been no change in Burma's
security links with China, the lessening of which was one of the ostensible
reasons for bringing it into the Asean fold.

The "policy" (for the lack of a better term) of constructive engagement was
conceived by Asean under circumstances that were vastly different from what
it, faces today. Then   it  was a self-confident Asean enjoying impressive
growth rates and basking in international limelight gained from its
diplomatic efforts to settle the Cambodia conflict, which insisted that the
way to deal with Burma was not through sanctions or isolation, but through
"gentle' persuasion that would presumably convince the Rangoon regime to
undertake political liberalisation. Today, Asean's image and
self-confidence has nosedived as a result of the region's economic crisis.
The crisis has exposed the Asean countries' precarious dependence on global
market forces and financial institutions, and caused the collapse of
internal order in its largest member state. Thus, Asean has less clout
today in selling its policy towards Burma to its friends in the
international community than in the past.

The constructive engagement policy has also been divisive for Asean itself.
Intramural differences surfaced in 1997 when Thailand and the Philippines
initially seemed reluctant to let Burma into Asean fold. They were
indicative of the increasing political diversity within Asean as a result
of the globalisation of human rights norms and the advance of the
democratisation process in Asia Pacific region.

Until recently, Burma, backed by some of its Asean friends, had claimed
that Indonesia's political system was a 'model' of military participation
in politics, which it could and should emulate. Now, the Indonesian
political system can hardly be seen as a model. Moreover, the economic
crisis has undermined the view that authoritarian political systems are
better able to create and maintain economic prosperity. Witness the
contrast between democratic Thailand and South Korea on the one hand, and
Indonesia on the other, in dealing with their national economic downturns.
Thus, continued authoritarianism in Burma, which has been partly
legitimised by Asean's constructive engagement policy, can no longer be
justified as a superior approach to economic growth and political order.

For Asean, accepting Burma as a full member has been politically costly.
Thai Deputy Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra once warned that
granting membership to Burma would make Asean appear as a "club of
dictators" before the international community. To some extent, this has
happened. Moreover, cross-border incursions by Burma's armed forces into
Thailand in hot pursuit of ethnic guerrillas threatens border peace in
Asean. The constructive engagement policy has also been challenged by a
vocal NGO community in Southeast Asia, thereby strengthening the image of
Asean as an association of governments and elites, rather than the anchor
of a genuine regional civil society.

But in the current economic and political climate, there are no easy
alternatives to constructive engagement. One promising course of action is
the idea of "constructive intervention", proposed a year ago by Malaysia's
Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. It called for a more pro-active Asean
role in encouraging, among other things, the development of civil society
and electoral reform in the economically weak and politically unstable
countries of Southeast Asia.

But the idea never received much support from the Asean governments,
largely because it seemed to undermine Asean's time-honoured principle of
non-interference. Moreover, constructive intervention requires resources
and political will, which was going to be difficult even in the pre-crisis
days. Today, with Asean's older members themselves struggling to maintain
their economic health and political stability, the idea of an
Asean-sponsored constructive intervention programme seems even more fact,
there is no reason why intervention should be any more applicable to
Indonesia, Asean's largest member.

To successfully bring Burma into the community, Asean needs the help of its
Western friends. In this economic crisis may the opportunity for a more
effort by Asean and the advancing political change in Burma.

Until now, Western countries have pushed for economic sanctions and
diplomatic isolation in dealing with Rangoon. But the effectiveness of
sanctions is questionable. Moreover, Asean will never go along with a
policy that uses sanctions to promote democracy in the region, not the
least due to what many in Asean see as Western double-standards in
championing human rights and democracy.

Asean and its Western friends should come to an understanding that
political liberalisation in Burma requires them to search for a middle
ground between a minimalist policy of constrictive engagement on the one
hand, and an all-out economic boycott and diplomatic isolation of Burma on
the other.

One lesson of the current economic crisis for Asean is that an open policy
is a basic requirement for regional stability. Asean should ensure that the
military regime in Burma does not abuse Asean's policy to perpetuate
itself. It should rethink the timetable and implementation of its
constructive engagement policy. The current approach continues to alienate
Asean's friends at a time when it needs the economic and political support
of the international community.

Asean should be more prepared to use pressure as much as persuasion in
dealing with the military regime in Burma. It should give careful thought
to developing aspects of the constructive intervention idea, especially
co-operative measures to advance electoral reform and strengthen the rule
of law in the region' This would require Asean to adopt a more relaxed view
of its non-interference doctrine.

In this undertaking, Asean should also be more welcoming of assistance and
involvement of its Western friends. For their part, Asean's friends should
be ready to commit ideas and resources in, developing a more positive and
collaborative approach to human rights and democracy. The Asean-PMC process
(rather than the ARF, which has become progressively hostage to Chinese
minimalism) could be used as a venue for, developing such a collaborative
effort.

AMITAV ACHARYA teaches international relations at the Joint Centre of
Asia-Pacific studies, York University, Ontario, Canada.

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