Myanmar refuses to give up chairmanship

Myanmar refuses to give up chairmanship

Jason Gutierrez, Agence France-Presse/Mactan, Philippines

Southeast Asian foreign ministers begin their meeting in the central Philippines on Sunday with Myanmar playing hardball and rejecting international calls it relinquish ASEAN chairmanship next year.

Myanmar foreign minister U Nyan Win said the European Union and the United States had no right to force his country to abandon the alphabetically rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

"That is their attitude, not ours. We can decide ourselves because we are an independent country," U Nyan Win told reporters late Saturday as he arrived in the seaside resort island of Mactan.

Asked if he felt his country, with its bleak human rights record, had the right to chair ASEAN, he said: "This is our responsibility. This is all the ASEAN (members') attitude."

Calls to strip Myanmar of ASEAN chairmanship have gained ground in Asian political circles in recent weeks.

Its ASEAN colleagues Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam have been treading carefully over the diplomatic puzzle, but the issue has sown seeds of division.

ASEAN's newer members Cambodia and Vietnam have said they will support Myanmar's chairmanship. Laos is likely to back Yangon as well, while Thailand has said it believes in "constructive engagement."

The Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia however are pushing for a timetable to the junta's so-called "roadmap to democracy" and have repeatedly appealed for the freedom of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which won elections in 1990, has rejected the junta's democracy roadmap, which the U.S. and the EU have denounced as a sham.

The foreign ministers are expected to come up with a consensus on Myanmar's chairmanship, due in 2006, which analysts warned could alienate the 10-nation bloc from its western allies.

If Myanmar took over the rotating helm of ASEAN, it would host the annual summit of the Southeast Asian leaders and the foreign ministers meeting in 2007 as well as a major security forum traditionally attended by its dialogue partners including the EU and the U.S.

But both Brussels and Washington, which have imposed tough economic sanctions on Myanmar, have warned they would boycott ASEAN meets if the forum's policies were being steered by a country with a questionable track record.

ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong on Saturday said he believed the issue would not fracture the grouping, citing its long-held tradition of consensus-building and non-interference.

A Southeast Asian diplomat, formerly stationed in Yangon, said the military regime was prepared to draw out its stand-off with the West and would not succumb to pressure from fellow ASEAN countries.

"If they could make the United States kneel, how much more ASEAN?" he asked.

"If ASEAN really wants to pressure (Myanmar), they should have done away with constructive engagement a long time ago," he said.

ASEAN members would likely give Myanmar a light tap on the arm to show that something was being done, but, "if it was up to me, I'd give them a kick," he added.