Junta leader to attend A-A Summit

Junta leader to attend A-A Summit

Agencies, Yangon

The leader of Myanmar's ruling military government planned to
attend an Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta next week, days after
Yangon came under renewed pressure for its human rights record, a
diplomat said on Wednesday.

Myanmar has faced growing pressure not to chair the 10-member
ASEAN in 2006 after other nations in the regional grouping said
they were growing increasingly frustrated by Yangon's slow pace
of democratic reform and its treatment of political prisoners.

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations sidestepped the issue at a gathering in the Philippines
this week by postponing a decision on whether Myanmar should
chair the group.

Senior General Than Shwe would leave for the Indonesian
capital on April 20 to attend the summit on April 23, a senior
Indonesian diplomat told Reuters.

In a separate development, a Philippine presidential palace
statement said that President Gloria Arroyo is to make a four-day
trip to Indonesia from April 21 to take part in a summit of Asian
and African countries.

Analysts and diplomats in Yangon say Than Shwe is expected to
seek bilateral meetings with ASEAN counterparts on the sidelines
of the summit to discuss the issue of Yangon's chairmanship.

An ASEAN diplomat speculated Myanmar might press ahead and
assume the grouping's rotating chair, which is based on
alphabetical order. Malaysia is the current chair.

"So far as I can see, they will not give up the chair. They
will go ahead. I'm not sure whether they will yield to outside
demands," said the diplomat who asked not to be identified.

The United States and Europe have threatened not to attend any
ASEAN meetings hosted by Myanmar. Washington has also said it
might withhold funding to several development projects in the
region, particularly in poorer Southeast Asian nations.

Europe and the United States have shunned Myanmar and slapped
sanctions on Yangon since the military government's latest
detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, in May 2003.

ASEAN members want Yangon to put a timetable on its road map
to democracy and to free Suu Kyi.

Yangon-based analysts hold different views on the issue.

"They have three options: give in to outside demands and take
the chair, take the chair without doing anything, or give up the
chair on a reasonable pretext," a local analyst said.

"The first choice is most unlikely. They don't want to release
her (Suu Kyi) before they finish drawing up the constitution," he
said, referring to a drawn-out process to draft a new charter and
called a sham by the West.

"If they choose the second option, there will be some
complicated consequences for the whole group."

"We think they are likely to give up the chair, citing they
are very busy and preoccupied with implementing the political
road map," said the analyst in Yangon on Wednesday.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said on Monday it would
be better for Myanmar to make a decision soon to avoid dragging
ASEAN into Yangon's domestic politics.

Singapore and several other ASEAN members have shown signs of
impatience with Yangon's slow reform progress, in a rare breach
of the group's long-held principle of non-interference in
members' internal affairs.

Yangon has promised to bring the country back to democracy
through a series of reforms based on a seven-stage roadmap laid
out in 2003 by then prime minister Khin Nyunt, who was purged
last October.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.