Calling off of EU-ASEAN summit surprises few

Calling off of EU-ASEAN summit surprises few

By Stefan Klein

SINGAPORE (DPA): As if European Union representatives needed another reason to avoid sitting down with representatives of Myanmar's military regime, the masters of Yangon came along with another timely example of their inability to change for the better.

Instead of actually talking with their opponent, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, over a possible transition to democracy in the country, they have again reduced her freedom of movement.

She sat in her parked car for 10 hours last Friday to protest the junta's decision to prevent her from traveling to a meeting of her National League for Democracy the previous day.

It is this absolute inflexibility of the human rights violators which first put them on the track to confrontation not only with the EU but with the United States, as well.

There is, admittedly, a little bit of hypocrisy in all this: it is always easy to play the moralist when one has little to lose.

The Chinese government's human rights record is no better than that of the Myanmar generals, but China is handled with kid gloves because it is simply too important to foreign investors. The comparatively unimportant Myanmar and its "immoral, brutal leaders," as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has described them, is much easier to slap around.

On the other hand, the American and EU positions vis-a-vis Myanmar have long been known to ASEAN, yet it made Myanmar and Laos the club's newest members in July. ASEAN's existing member governments knew full well that would meet with displeasure in the EU, which had signaled its determination to have nothing to do with the Myanmar government by stopping its officials meeting those of the Yangon regime.

So the first conflict of the planned annual EU-ASEAN summits was pre-programmed. With the Asians refusing to back down, the EU decided it could not send its representatives to meet with ASEAN's at planned talks on customs and trade issues in Bangkok today, knowing a Myanmar official would be at the table.

Of course, the canceled meeting does not mean an end to cooperation between the two regional groupings. There have been other disputes in the past, notably over East Timor.

Still, this latest disagreement will doubtlessly dampen the enthusiasm expressed by both sides at the first EU-ASEAN summit in March 1996. At the time, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl lauded a "trusting, broad and long-lasting partnership" and celebrated Europe's growing interest in east Asia.

The next EU-ASEAN summit is planned for London in April. So there will be another feud over the pariah regime in Yangon by then at the latest.