RI assures Suu Kyi included in Myanmar democratization process

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Myanmar's opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the international community to be patient with the Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyut's administration, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said on Tuesday.

"She herself said that ASEAN should not push the new government too hard, because in the end it will only hamper the reconciliation and democratization processes," Hassan said.

He did not explain how he received information that Suu Kyi had changed her stance in regards her political rival.

"As a family, we continue to encourage them (Myanmar) to continue with the reconciliation process," he said, referring to the regional grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member.

ASEAN leaders had set a deadline that Myanmar should release Suu Kyi from house arrest before their annual summit in Bali last October, but Myanmar replied only that she could not leave her house due to her health, not because she was under detention.

After failing to pressure the Myanmar junta to release Suu Kyi from custody, the grouping tried to persuade the military regime and its prime minister, elected in 1990, to return to the negotiation table.

Hassan also praised the Myanmar junta for showing more flexibility and openness in facing its opposition, while declaring that he expected Myanmar to set a time frame for the reconciliation and democratization processes.

ASEAN diplomats recently disclosed that the regional grouping had decided to stop using harsh tactics because the junta had threatened to revert to a foreign policy of isolation.

"If Myanmar isolates itself, it will be a backfire for ASEAN," said a senior diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Hassan said ASEAN would not choose sanctions as a means to force Myanmar toward reconciliation.

"Maintaining its national integrity is a major problem in Myanmar ... it is pluralistic country with so many ethnic groups. We (ASEAN) are aware of the condition," he said.

The minister expressed his confidence that the junta would involve Suu Kyi in the country's ongoing reconciliation process, as was also stated by ASEAN in Bangkok in December, when it met with Myanmar on the sidelines of a 12-nation democratic talks and encouraged the acceleration of democratic reform in the country.

AFP reported at that time that Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung said the regime would hold a national convention to draft a new constitution in 2004 as a first step in the road map toward democracy.

Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest by the military government three times since 1988 for her pro-democracy, opposition stance. Although her National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in the military-sponsored general election in 1990, the junta refused to hand over its power to the daughter of Myanmar's founding father, Gen. Aung San.