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Myanmar ready to discuss rights rec



Subject: Myanmar ready to discuss rights record with EU 

Myanmar ready to discuss rights record with EU

The Hindu (21 February, 1999)
By P. S. Suryanarayana

Even as Myanmar secured the backing of the ASEAN for Yangon's participation
in a proposed dislogue between the ASEAN and the European Union, the
Myanmarese foreign Minister Win Aung said, here he would be willing to
discuss the junta's human rights record with EU on the sidelines of the
meeting slated for Berlin next month. According to Mr Win Aung, the
prospects of the ASEAN-EU dialogue taking place were not bright at this
juncture. For some time now, the EU has been citing the alleged dismal
human rights record of the junta in Myanmar, a member of the ASEAN, as a
reason for not wishing to move forward to hold the dialogue.

Mr Win Aung, who met his Singapore counterpart, Prof. S. Jayakumar, secured
the city-State's banking for the principle of "non-discrimination" over the
issue of participation of ASEAN countries at "bloc-to-bloc meetings with
the EU." Later he said "We (the  governing State Peace and Development
Council in Yangon) have agreed to talk with them (the EU), to meet them..
for us (Myanmar rulers), there is no problem... And then (there are)
additional conditionalities (beyond a discussion of Myanmar's human rights
record). They would never end, if one condition after another were put on."
The visiting Minister did not, however, reveal in specific terms what the
EU's conditionalities were.

Mr Win Aung, who paid a courtesy call on the Singapore Prime Minister, Mr
Goh Chok Tong, said a consensus had been reached within the ASEAN that
"there should not be any discrimination against any member" of this
organisation.

Prof. Jayakumar during his talks with Mr Win Aung said the ASEAN-EU
dialogue was important to both sides. The latest impasse in the moves for a
regular dialogue  between these two organisations was, therefore,
regrettable, Prof. Jayakumar pointed out.

On the stalemate over EU's disinclination to sit with Myanmar at the same
table, Singapore made it clear that the Asean stand was both "principled
and consistent." the Asean, would need to adhere to its collective meetings
with other bloc." All Asean countries must be represented at such meetings
on an equal basis," the Singapore foreign minister emphasised.


Singapore and Myanmar agreed to support the efforts of Thailand, the Asean
coordinator for the proposed dialogue with both the EU and the European
Commission, to "find a way out of the current impasse and get the Asean-EU
relations back on track without compromising the Asean's principles." The
Thai foreign minister, Mr Surin Pitsuwan, has undertaken yet another round
of trouble-shooting diplomacy on this front.

Following Mr Win Aung's talks with the Indonesian foreign minister, Mr Ali
Atlas, in Jakata, the Habibie government said the Asean might even be
compelled to cancel the planned dialogue with the EU, if Myanmar could not
participate. After that, the Myanmarese junta commented in Jakata that
"there is no formula of Asean minus one or two."

European diplomats in this region told this correspondent that the option
for breaking the impasse was for Myanmar to be represented by a person not
belonging to the military establishment and the ruling SPDC. Any such
person could be delegated by Myanmar as its representative at these talks.
The objective was to avoid a direct diplomatic engagement with the rulers
of Myanmar who, in the EU's perspective, were the architects of human
rights abuses in that country.

According to diplomats, the Asean-EU dialogue should not be confused with
the talks under the umbrella of Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of the
Asean and the European Commission. The EC's dialogue in this format is
governed by its contactual obligations with individual members of the Asean
besides the Asean as a bloc.