What does constructive engagement add up to?

By David Jardine

JAKARTA (JP): What is noninterference in your neighbor's affairs? Is it always a value-free stance? These questions bear critically on the continued pursuit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) policy of "constructive engagement" with the military regime in Myanmar.

If we turn our attention back a little we can recall Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad in a collar-rubbing mood when Philippine President Joseph Estrada met with Anwar Ibrahim's wife and daughter.

At the same time as official Malaysia was venting its spleen on Estrada and U.S. Vice President Al Gore, the wily old Lee Kuan Yew was taking sides in Indonesia's turbulent politics.

The Singapore senior minister, no stranger to controversy and always the admirer of the smack of firm government, especially his own, not only thought the Soeharto family were not such a greedy bunch after all but went on the record to say so. And why?

Because, he seemed to say, Indonesia was better off with them than without. He also wanted it to be known that the Indonesian Military's dual function was a good thing. (The Jakarta Post, Nov. 20, 1999).

And this was at a time when the student movement was counting its dead after the still unexplained Semanggi shootings and the special forces-inspired abductions and murders of activists. The more politically aware students would have seen that Lee's stance was all of a piece with his very solid support for the Myanmar junta and his belief in so-called constructive engagement with this body, the very same junta that stole the 1990 general election.

Lee has let it be known that the so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is the best thing that the Myanmar people can expect. Never mind that they had voted overwhelmingly for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

Here we see one of the leading proponents of ASEAN's policy of constructive engagement adopting an insouciant attitude to state- directed terror in two neighboring ASEAN states.

But this is not about Lee Kuan Yew as such. It is about the rightfulness of commenting on what is going on in your neighbor's house or garden. If the smoke from your neighbor's fires is blotting out the sun or the screams of the tortured carry to you across the garden fence, is it right to remain silent? "How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just does not see?"

The Yangon junta will, of course, strenuously deny it but there is more than enough evidence to show that the Myanmar regime uses forced labor. The BBC, for instance, has clear documentary evidence of prisoners in chains working on a tourism- related project and of child labor at work elsewhere under the most obvious duress.

It is because of this type of proof that the International Labor Organization (ILO) in June gave Myanmar until Nov. 30 to bring an end to such abuses or face further international pressure for disinvestment by foreign companies. Singapore and Japan were among the countries that failed to prevent this becoming ILO policy.

ASEAN is thus faced again with a choice. Does it review its policy, which has clearly failed to mollify SPDC practice in this, as in many other areas, or does it ignore both the evidence and world opinion and adopt a willy-nilly business-as-usual policy?

Constructive engagement is predicated on the assumption that the SPDC can be persuaded to soften its lines if it is given sufficient incentives. But when it patently does not work, what then? If the policy itself is not intrinsically wrong then its continuation in the present circumstances must be seen as a form of taking sides against the NLD and the rest of the opposition. And taking sides is interference.

At this point I should declare an interest. I was twice in my youth arrested on antiapartheid protests in the United Kingdom and have never doubted that it was the morally correct thing to do to protest that odious system. Apartheid was an issue with universal resonance. Equally, when the Soviets sent their tanks into Czechoslovakia I was one of thousands who protested outside the USSR's Embassy in London and believe still it was the right thing not to turn away.

Constructive engagement has its parallels in the stance taken by the likes of Margaret Thatcher toward the apartheid regime. She and others believed they could continue to trade with Pretoria and that "nice" Mr. (B.J.) Vorster and that "nice" Mr. (Pieter) Botha would see reason. The leaders did not, and she had clearly taken sides with them. It was sanctions of various kinds that altered conditions in South Africa and finally forced F.W. de Klerk to release Nelson Mandela and go to the conference table with him.

What ASEAN cannot now do is to duck the Myanmar issue any longer behind the smokescreen of constructive engagement.

The writer is a freelance writer in Jakarta.