Row over Yangon highlights rift in Asian, British values

Row over Yangon highlights rift in Asian, British values

By Nick Cumming-Bruce and Ian Black

BANGKOK/LONDON: In a setback for his human rights offensive, the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, received a rebuke from the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, Tuesday for refusing to invite Myanmar to next year's Asia-Europe summit in London.

European sanctions against Myanmar made its attendance "impossible", Cook insisted in Singapore after a tour of four countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Foreign Secretary lambasted Myanmar's military junta as a "deeply repressive regime" that was the world's biggest producer of opium.

But Mahathir, an often prickly protagonist of developing countries' interests, retorted Tuesday: "If there is discrimination against (Myanmar), it is a discrimination against ASEAN. You may find other countries in ASEAN also deciding not to attend."

British officials insisted they were neither perturbed nor surprised by Malaysia's support for Myanmar, which itself lashed out at Cook for what one official in Yangon called "the century's greatest hypocritical statement" and blamed Myanmar's drug problem on British colonial rule.

One diplomat said: "We have consistently worked for change in Myanmar and we want to work with ASEAN countries in bringing that about. The Malaysians see things differently from us."

Following Cook's high-profile tour, the British Foreign Office insists that despite the clash between "Asian values" and an active new British human rights agenda, the tightrope between the two -- which includes a precarious balancing act on British arms sales to Indonesia -- can be walked.

Yet Mahathir's angry response exposes a potentially awkward glitch for Cook. Part of the purpose of his trip was to polish Britain's credentials as a business partner, particularly as a bridge to Europe, emphasizing Labor's engagement in the EU.

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM summit) in April, during Britain's EU presidency, would bring to London the 16 EU heads of government along with China, Japan, South Korea and most of the nine members of ASEAN, and neatly fitted this bill. But expanding membership of ASEAN and the EU has opened up an issue Malaysia finds contentious.

Mahathir's comment was "a bit more blunt and in your face than we've seen up till now but it's consistent with what they've been saying for the past six months", one diplomat said.

Malaysia's hardline posture on human rights also augurs badly for next month's Commonwealth summit in Edinburgh, when difficulties are expected in achieving consensus on further action against Nigeria, still condemned internationally for its domestic repression and lack of movement towards democracy.

ASEAN admitted Myanmar in July as a full member of its influential regional club -- alongside Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- brushing off mainly Western criticism that Myanmar's generals would take this as tacit endorsement of their brutal suppression of the pro-democracy opposition.

In fact ASEAN countries also have their own problems with Myanmar but say they favor "constructive engagement" and shun interfering in their neighbors' internal affairs.

But Mahathir appears to have gone out on a limb in warning of ASEAN withdrawals from the London summit. Officials in Thailand, which hosted the first summit, point out that membership of ASEAN or the EU does not automatically bestow membership of ASEM, as Mahathir infers.

"Myanmar's elevation to ASEAN was a single ticket affair," said a spokesman for the European Commission. "Membership of ASEAN does not mean automatic membership of ASEM. It is up to the Asian members of ASEM to propose other Asian members and for the EU to approve their participation."

"You know Mahathir," said a senior ASEAN diplomat, "I think he's expressing his own view on this. There has been no ASEAN consensus on this issue."

-- The Guardian