Barring Myanmar not productive: Malaysia

Barring Myanmar not productive: Malaysia

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia rejected demands on Thursday to exclude Myanmar from a
summit of Southeast Asian leaders next month if the military
government does not free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and initiate democratic reforms.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would "get nowhere" by freezing
Myanmar out of its annual summit in Bali, Indonesia, next month.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said two months ago
that Myanmar, also known as Burma, could eventually be expelled
from ASEAN as a last resort if the government fails to free Suu
Kyi, though such a decision would require consensus.

"Isolating them will not be productive," Syed Hamid told
reporters. "We should encourage them, in order for them not to be
sidelined or to be marginalized."

Malaysia's opposition Democratic Action Party urged the
government to pressure Myanmar to free Suu Kyi, who has been
detained at an undisclosed location since her arrest after a May
30 clash between her supporters and a pro-government mob in
northern Myanmar.

"The Malaysian government must play a leading role in ASEAN to
pressure the military junta ... failing which the Myanmar
military junta must be excluded from the ASEAN summit and its
membership in ASEAN be expelled immediately," the party said in a
statement.

Syed Hamid said on Thursday that ASEAN should support
Myanmar's newly appointed prime minister, Gen. Khin Nyunt, and a
"road map" that he has proposed for democratic reforms.

Khin Nyunt, who has sat in the supreme military councils
running Myanmar since a pro-democracy uprising was crushed in
bloodshed in 1988, has made no offers to hold talks with Suu Kyi
or given a timetable for promised elections.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party overwhelmingly
won elections more than a decade ago, but the junta refused to
yield power. Suu Kyi has spent much of the past 15 years under
house arrest.

Meanwhile, the United States took a new swipe at perennial
foes North Korea, Myanmar and Cuba on Wednesday, saddling them
with a fresh tier of sanctions -- to punish what it said was a
lack of effort in combating the modern day slave trade.

The three states, which rarely escape the U.S. doghouse, fell
foul of a U.S. survey on human trafficking, and the largely
symbolic measures will bar them from any U.S. military,
educational or cultural aid.

The "continuing failure" of Myanmar, Cuba and North Korea to
deal responsibly with human trafficking gave Bush no option but
to sanction them, said White House press spokesman Scott
McClellan in a statement.

Myanmar, which exchanges frequent verbal fire with Washington,
has also rejected the charges, and on Monday announced that it
had uncovered 223 cases of human trafficking this year.

Scores of youths from Myanmar, particularly girls, are
routinely swept into the sex trade, lured to neighboring
countries like Thailand.