Security forum highlights rift between Europe, Asia on Myanmar
Security forum highlights rift between Europe, Asia on Myanmar
HANOI (AFP): Asia's premier security forum adopted an upbeat
statement on the progress of political reconciliation in Myanmar
Wednesday sparking immediate criticism from the European Union.
European officials insisted the Regional Forum of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations should have taken a much
tougher stance towards the military junta in Yangon, highlighting
the differences between the EU and Asia on the issue.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers and their partners,
including the United States and Russia as well as the European
Union, "welcomed the encouraging developments in Myanmar"
following the release of a string of political prisoners in
recent months.
They "expressed appreciation" not only to the United Nations
special envoy who has been brokering talks between the military
junta and the opposition but also to the junta itself.
The forum's chairman and hosts Vietnam defended the statement
saying that it followed a briefing on "the progress that has been
made" by Myanmar Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Win Aung.
"We appreciate the developments there and we do hope that the
people of Myanmar will find a good solution," Vietnamese Foreign
Minister Nguyen Dy Nien told a post-forum news conference.
The Myanmar foreign minister told AFP Tuesday that the junta's
release of political prisoners showed that watershed talks with
detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained on track.
But he refused to give a timeframe for multi-party elections
or define the type of government that might emerge from a
breakthrough in the talks with the Nobel laureate opposition
leader.
But the current holders of the European Union's rotating
presidency, Belgium, immediately criticized the forum's final
statement as "rather weak."
"We have to show that there is more to democracy than just
releasing several political prisoners," Belgian Foreign Minister
Louis Michel told AFP.
The European Union's external affairs commissioner Chris
Patten echoed the criticisms of the EU presidency.
The prisoner releases and recent visits to Myanmar by both the
EU and the International Labor Organization (ILO) had been
"welcome progress but can't be said to be great strides," he
said.
The EU renewed sanctions against Myanmar, including a visa ban
on junta officials, for six more months in April.
Patten took issue with criticism from Australia of Europe's
tough line, saying it had been Myanmar and not the EU which had
prevented engagement.
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
secretary-general Bill Jordan said on Wednesday that Myanmar is
still the world's "biggest labor camp" despite the junta's claims
that the practice has been outlawed.
Jordan also dismissed ten-month-old talks between the military
regime and Aung San Suu Kyi as a sham, saying they had not
produced any substantial results.
"Burma is the biggest labor camp in the world," he said at an
international teachers' conference in the Thai capital, referring
to the country by its former name.
Despite the junta's claims that it is working to wipe out
forced labor, the practice "has not diminished in any way at
all," he said.
"Any serious investigation would show that the pronounced
initiatives are cosmetic measures for international consumption
and have not touched the people of Burma."
The talks between pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
the generals in Yangon have made the international community
cautiously optimistic that some sort of political change may be
in the offing in Myanmar.
But Jordan, whose organization has helped spearhead a campaign
against Myanmar in the International Labor Organization (ILO),
said the much-vaunted contacts had achieved little.
The ICFTU, made up of 216 trade unions in 145 countries, said
last year that nearly one million people were being subjected to
forced labor in Myanmar.