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.