ASEAN urged to unite against Yangon

ASEAN urged to unite against Yangon

Ivy Susanti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The road to democracy may be a fraught one, but for Myanmar's
pro-democracy activists, it is better to light a candle than to
curse the darkness.

In the past 15 years, Myanmar's pro-democracy movement has
been preparing for the time when the military finally decides to
call it a day, including the sharing of power between more than
100 ethnic groups, the form of government and the constitution,
which is more or less based on the Western concept of a
democracy, said Myanmarese activists Daw San San and Khin Ohmar.

The latest move came on Feb. 12, 2005, when 41 organizations
representing major ethnic groups signed an agreement on the
principles that would provide the foundations for the new
government.

"Within our democratic movement, the ethnic leaders, the
youths and women were able to come together, and helped shape the
vision of a future Burma. We agreed to form a coalition called
the democratic federal union of Burma.

"Only recently, we came up with eight principles for the
future constitution," Ohmar said without elaborating.

She added that this year's agreement was based on a number of
previous agreements. The first formal agreement was signed in
1996. "These are all on how we will shape the federal union, how
we're going to share the resources and how we're going to share
the power."

"It's not true that without the Army, the Union of Burma will
collapse. There has never been any ethnic conflict at the
community level. The ethnic groups are resentful of the system
and the Army's human rights violations," said Ohmar.

She admitted that the military government had entered an
agreement with 17 armed groups recently, but said that this was
merely an effort to shut them up and remove them from the
political equation.

San San, 73, is the secretary of Aung San Suu Kyi's Members of
Parliament Union (MPU). In July 2003, she left Myanmar for fear
of being arrested. She is now based in Mae Sot, Thailand.

Ohmar is the coordinator of the Peacebuilding and
Reconciliation Program of the Women's League of Burma (WLB) and
Policy Forum member of the Forum for Democracy in Burma (FDB),
also based in Thailand.

The two were testifying before the House of Representatives'
Commission I on Tuesday evening. Though they were the first
foreigners to testify before the House, they elicited little
attention as only three out of the 46 commission members attended
the meeting.

"We felt very encouraged (by the Indonesia's legislators
attention) ... They are elected representatives, I'm sure the
government will pay serious attention to the legislators,"
Ohmar said.

Some legislators from Indonesia are members of the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Caucus for Burma. The Caucus is a loose
grouping of legislators from Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The activists are due to
visit other caucus members in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as
part of their campaign to raise awareness among Southeast Asian
legislators and people to help put pressure on the Myanmar
government to give democracy a chance.

The Myanmar government outlined a "road map" to democracy in
August 2003 in response to international condemnation of the
detention of Suu Kyi and the lack of democratic reform by the
isolated regime.

San San and Ohmar said they wished that ASEAN government would
reach a consensus on Myanmar's chairmanship of ASEAN in 2006.
"There is no visible reform in Burma," San San said.

"The key is ASEAN," Ohmar added. "ASEAN wants to see a gradual
change, but the problem with Burma is they constantly buy time
from neighbors and the international community. So as to make
sure they can really hold on to power."

"Myanmar is not a civil society and the people have little or
no opportunities for economic development. Without intervention,
how Burma move toward change, albeit gradually?"