Stand-off in Yangon

With the huge majority of those expected to attend under arrest as the weekend started, it seemed clear that the planned meeting of Myanmar's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) was doomed to failure even before it began.

Given the circumstances, one could ask what -- aside from sheer stubborn persistence -- could have driven the NLD under its leader Aung San Suu Kyi to defy the Myanmar military authorities and go ahead with the meeting "unless they make it physically impossible to do so"?

Some political analysts see the NLD stance as a calculated move to assert the party's legitimate political rights, which the authorities have denied it for the past six years. And given the background that led up to the present stand-off, such an assumption certainly makes sense.

The meeting was to mark the sixth anniversary of the 1990 general elections, which the NLD won by a landslide victory that should have given it 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats contested. The ruling junta refused to recognize the results and the NLD has since been pushed to the sidelines of Myanmar's political life.

The big concern now for the authorities in Yangon is that the conference, the first of a series of NLD meetings beginning yesterday, will not only put the NLD back on the country's political center stage, it would also remind people, both in Myanmar and in the world, of the fact that the NLD -- not the SLORC -- is the rightful representative of the people.

The fact that most of those who were arrested were NLD candidates for parliament elected in 1990 gives credence to reports that the party was planning to outline a new constitution for the country, which would amount to a direct challenge to the SLORC. It may be recalled that the NLD refused to take part in a national convention set up by the SLORC to draw up a new constitution last year.

A futile maneuver on the part of the NLD? Probably, if one looks at it as an attempt to alter the political picture in Myanmar. Still, whatever the outcome, one conclusion can be drawn from the present confrontation: The pro-democracy movement in Myanmar is far from dead, and both the people of Myanmar and the international community know this. The ironhanded actions taken by the authorities indicate this.

Strong reactions have already come from the United States, Japan and other countries. In the U.S. civic pressure is mounting against companies doing business with Myanmar. In both houses of the American Congress legislation is pending that could sharply restrict or even ban trade and investment in Myanmar.

So far, six of the seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have remained quiet because of their policy of "constructive engagement" with Yangon. Only Thailand, through a foreign ministry spokesman, has expressed concern over the crackdown, which Bangkok regards as "counterproductive to the democratization and national reconciliation process" in Myanmar.

We believe that the concern expressed by Thailand reflects the general feeling in all of the countries of ASEAN. Given the widespread support which the NLD, under the leadership of Nobel- laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, appears to enjoy both in Myanmar and throughout the world, we hope that both sides in the present stand-off in Yangon will see the wisdom of trying to jointly work out some kind of solution that could gradually lead the country to the genuine peace and stability which it deserves.

Hopefully national reconciliation can be achieved before Myanmar joins the Southeast Asian regional organization. It would be to the benefit of ASEAN to have a genuinely stable and internationally respected Myanmar join it.