Indonesia says Myanmar pledges to press reform

Indonesia says Myanmar pledges to press reform

Agencies, Santiago/Kuala Lumpur/Yangon

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said on Sunday he had received assurances from Myanmar's military rulers that they would move toward democracy despite sacking the country's prime minister, but he said those assurances could prompt skepticism.

"They assured us they would redouble their efforts and hope for concrete results but of course that is something which many would accept with skepticism," Wirajuda told Reuters in an interview in Santiago during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.

Wirajuda was the first senior overseas visitor to Myanmar, formerly Burma, after the military junta replaced Prime Minister Khin Nyunt amid corruption charges in October.

He said he met with Myanmar's foreign minister and new Prime Minister Soe Win on Nov. 12, but details of his visit have been slow to emerge.

Since that visit, Myanmar's military leaders, who have ruthlessly silenced opposition, made a mass release of prisoners but it was not clear whether this pointed to serious political reform.

The government change in October surprised Myanmar's fellow members of the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which have followed a policy of "constructive engagement" with a government shunned in the West for its human rights abuses.

The purge ousted a prime minister believed to be ready to at least talk to detained democracy figure Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel peace prize laureate has been under house arrest in one form or another since May last year and her detention is a focus of Western dissatisfaction with the military rulers.

"We felt that we and others in Asia are left in the dark about developments, that's why we in Indonesia tried to establish contact to get first hand information," Wirajuda said. He wanted to establish the level of commitment to a road map to democracy set out by Khin Nyunt last year,

"They assured us the road map and reconciliation policy were not just the former Prime Minister's personal policy, but this policy was made by the collective leadership and said this policy would be continued," Wirajuda said.

Wirajuda said the new leadership pledged to go ahead with a national convention early in 2005 to produce a new constitution.

He said he specifically asked whether Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which is boycotting that convention, would be allowed to join the election process that is on the road map after the new constitution is drawn up.

"They did not respond," Wirajuda said.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia says Myanmar should show "tangible" proof it is moving toward democracy to reassure an increasingly skeptical and frustrated international community.

If Myanmar does not address the problem, "then not only Myanmar is going to be affected, but the credibility and integrity of ASEAN as a whole is going to be affected," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told The Associated Press late on Sunday.

"ASEAN will always defend its fellow members. But they (Myanmar) must do justice to their fellow members ... in order to find the best way for us to convince the international community that Myanmar is moving on the right track," he said. "There must be something tangible," he said.

In the latest development, Myanmar's planned release of nearly 4,000 prisoners appeared to have halted on Monday with no sign of any easing of restrictions around the nation's most famous detainee, democracy leader Suu Kyi.

Families of political dissidents faced an anxious wait after one opposition MP expected to have been released was told he faced an additional 60 days in prison, according to his family.

Myanmar's military leaders on Thursday ordered the release of nearly 4,000 inmates they say may have been wrongly imprisoned by a now-dissolved military intelligence unit. The opposition said red tape meant the process could take a week.

Only several hundred have so far been released, among them a couple of dozen dissidents including the leader of 1988 student protests, Min Ko Naing, the country's number two political prisoner after Suu Kyi.

Media on Monday gathered close to the home of the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) amid widespread rumors of her release from house arrest but security remained at normal levels, according to an AFP correspondent.

The UN's special envoy for Myanmar, Razali Ismail, welcomed the "quite exceptional" number of detainees due to be released and said Suu Kyi wanted her freedom only after all other political prisoners.