ASEAN divided on what to do about Myanmar

ASEAN divided on what to do about Myanmar

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Southeast Asian nations admitted yesterday being divided over Myanmar after the latest military clampdown on the opposition, but ruled out any immediate change to their "constructive engagement" with Yangon.

Philippines President Fidel Ramos has already asked for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to review its dealings with Myanmar at its summit in Jakarta at the end of next month.

But Malaysia's Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi, new chairman of the ASEAN standing committee, said: "There has to be a consensus. We don't go by majority rule."

"Since President Ramos said he will raise it at the summit, we will leave it to the (ASEAN) leaders to discuss the issue," Abdullah told a news conference after opening the committee's first meeting in Kuala Lumpur to prepare for Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN in 1997.

He added that it had to be a decision "all ASEAN governments are comfortable with."

The Myanmarese military junta detained more than 500 members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League Democracy ahead of a planned congress by the opposition party last weekend in Yangon.

Britain is urging the European Union to take action and the United States also condemned the move. A lot of countries have been waiting for the reaction of Myanmar's neighbors.

Abdullah admitted that ASEAN members were concerned with latest developments in Myanmar, which was accepted as an ASEAN observer in July this year.

"We view with some concern on what is happening in Myanmar. But it is a little bit too early to speculate," Abdullah said, commenting on calls on ASEAN to delay Myanmar's formal admission.

"We still have a lot more time. After all we only received Myanmar's membership application in August," Abdullah added.

Malaysia has expressed its intention to admit Myanmar, along with Laos and Cambodia, as a full member when it hosts the ASEAN ministerial meeting next July.

ASEAN, grouping Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, prefers to use its "constructive engagement" policy to prod Myanmar into improving its human rights records.

It has rejected Western efforts to isolate the Yangon government.

Besides the Philippines, Thailand has discreetly supported a delay in accepting Myanmar's application.

The Philippine president said in Manila on Wednesday that although the military crackdown did not affect ASEAN plans to admit Rangoon "in due time," the regional grouping expected further moves towards democracy.

"The consensus (to engage Myanmar's military junta in a constructive dialog) is still there," Ramos said.

The Bangkok Post newspaper, which follows events in neighboring Burma closely, on Sunday quoted informed sources as saying ASEAN foreign ministers had agreed at an informal meeting in New York to defer Myanmar's admission as full member.

Meanwhile, an international trade union group said in Bangkok yesterday that Suu Kyi had urged the European Commission to adopt sanctions against the Yangon military junta for using forced and child labor,

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) said in a statement that Suu Kyi made the call in a filmed interview that was smuggled out of Myanmar to Brussels and shown at EC hearings on Monday.

The hearings could lead to Myanmar being denied access to the European Generalized System of Preferences, the Brussels-based ICFTU said.

Suu Kyi said in the interview that strong sanctions were needed to loosen the grip of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) on the nation.