Myanmar seen joining ASEAN despite protests

Myanmar seen joining ASEAN despite protests

By Bill Tarrant

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Myanmar will be duly sworn in as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year despite widespread criticism of its human rights record and U.S. opposition, analysts and diplomats said.

ASEAN will endure a potential rebuke from the United States and Europe over the decision because Myanmar is important to ASEAN for strategic and economic reasons, they said.

Washington last month banned new U.S. investment in Myanmar to exert pressure on the nation's military rulers who hold hundreds of pro-democracy activists in jail and have kept their leader Aung San Suu Kyi under virtual house arrest.

It stepped up pressure last Friday by openly opposing Myanmar's admission to ASEAN.

But ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, says Myanmar's membership is important for regional stability.

"We have all agreed not to leave Myanmar (Burma) behind," Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi said on Sunday. "Otherwise, the situation may deteriorate to a point that will jeopardize the stability of the region."

Southeast Asian nations, who were reluctant hosts to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees for years, do not want to see a similar exodus from Myanmar, analysts said.

Myanmar, which has long depended on China for arms, has kept a distance from the outside world for decades.

"It's important to have them in before they relapse again in isolationism. Right now they are too dependent on China," said Jusuf Wanandi, chairman of the supervisory board of Indonesia's Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

ASEAN also believes "constructive engagement" is the only way to reform Myanmar's military rulers.

"You give them a roadmap to help them out politically and economically," Wanandi told Reuters in an interview.

But western diplomats caution that Myanmar's entry into ASEAN could strain the group's vaunted unity, undermine the respect it has earned in the West and compound the problems it faces in creating an ASEAN Free Trade Area over the next few years.

It could also lead to a serious rift with the United States, the largest or second-largest trading partner and foreign investor with almost every one of the seven ASEAN nations.

Myanmar could be admitted as early as July at ASEAN's annual meeting. That could create a problem for U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is to make her first visit to Southeast Asia during ASEAN's post-meeting conference with major powers.

ASEAN last year decided to admit Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos as members at the same time. Malaysia, chairman at this year's annual meeting, has been adamant that Myanmar should enter ASEAN this year as the grouping celebrates its 30th anniversary.

ASEAN Foreign Ministers will meet in Kuala Lumpur on May 31 to decide whether to admit the three at the July meeting or at an informal summit in the Malaysian capital in December or later.

ASEAN officials and Western diplomats say there is little chance the admission will be postponed.

Some analysts have suggested that political and economic instability in Cambodia could allow the group to postpone Myanmar's admission while saving face.

But Wanandi said the need by Cambodia and Myanmar to develop their economies was all the more reason to admit them now.

"Our reasoning is opposite," Wanandi said. "If we do not make Cambodia a member we will never have a commitment to helping them out. That mess they are in would be better alleviated if they're in than if they're out."

ASEAN officials say the group would withstand pressure from the United States, which strongly backed ASEAN from its inception as an anti-communist Southeast Asian bulwark during the Vietnam war

"We don't expect any basic consequences from the decision," Wanandi said. "Of course we have to take in stride the criticism from Congress, the administration and public opinion."