Burma is potentially damaging to ASEAN’s credibility

Tue, 2010-07-20 01:16 — editor
Article
By – Zin Linn

ASEAN's credibility is at stake unless it failed to support freedom of expression and other fundamental rights ahead of the elections planned in its military-ruled member Burma or Myanmar, Amnesty International said on 18 July.

"Southeast Asian nations should press the Myanmar government to protect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association throughout the elections period and beyond," the London-based watchdog said in a statement. Amnesty International made the comment ahead of annual talks by foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), beginning in Vietnam on 19 July.

Burma/Myanmar is situated at the juncture of three significant zones in Asia. It is bordered by East Asia's China, Southeast Asia's Thailand and Malaysia and South Asia's India and Bangladesh.

In March 1962, the late general Ne Win seized power from prime minister U Nu's civilian government and cleverly followed U Nu's foreign policies of strict nonaligned status and neutrality. Although Ne Win was responsible for countless human rights abuses, the international community took little notice during the cold war. At the time, Burma's Southeast Asian neighbors were unstable. Vietnam and Cambodia faced times of turbulence. But U Nu's foreign policies protected Ne Win running the country's economy into the ground under his Burmese Socialist Programme Party.

Despite considerable financial aid from countries such as Japan, Burma sank to the level of a 'least developed country'. Corruption and mismanagement decayed the country's potential growth.

Debts mounted up. Human rights abuses were out of control. Civil war spread out up to Burma's ethnic areas. Soldiers are experienced at warfare but are unable to manage economics. They made policy errors and unpalatable decisions, which ultimately brought about the 1988 prodemocracy people’s uprising. Ne Win’s namesake socialist regime was totally overthrown.

But, a new military junta, State Law and Order Restoration Council, emerged on 18 September 1988, with Ne Win continuing to pull strings behind the curtain. The regime refused to respect the results of the 1990 elections and while calls were made for a United Nations Security Council resolution on Burma, China and Singapore, Cuba and Mexico opposed the move at that juncture.

As Burma's security situation worsened, the junta took advantage to get protection by joining into ASEAN in 1997. Since then it has continued to discomfit the regional grouping. While activists called for ASEAN to act on Burma, members chose constructive engagement to try to encourage reforms.

The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, signed at the First ASEAN Summit in February 1976, declared that political and security dialogue and cooperation should aim to promote regional peace and stability.

Regional resilience was to be achieved through cooperating and the principles of self-confidence, self-reliance, mutual respect and solidarity.

But ASEAN started facing strong calls for action on Burma on May 30, 2003. The association was called on to address human rights concerns in the region, including allegations of grave human right violations at Dapeyin in Upper-Burma where Aung San Suu Kyi and her entourage were ambushed by the military thugs. Actually, it was a cruel plan to assassinate Aung San Suu Kyi, and there were enough evidences and eyewitnesses.

However, in 2003 summit, the ASEAN only issued a toothless statement calling for the early release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD members. Burma’s rogue junta disregarded the ASEAN’s calls as usual up to present day.

The most evil move is that without honoring the 1990 election result, the commander-in-chief of the junta has been planning to launch another election in this year. It’s a kind of immoral act insulting the whole nation and its people by scrubbing out the 1990 people’s ballots. The majority of the population who want valid change cannot forget the immorality of the Generals. The junta’s thoughtlessness toward the future of Burma obviously starts a civil strife in the poverty-stricken country since the unjust election laws released.

Currently, Burma is at a crucial political turning point. While the military regime wants to keep up its power via the proposed sham 2010 elections, the people, who long for real change, are demanding basic human rights such as freedoms of expression and association. But the junta seems as stubborn as a mule and is in no mood to allow civil liberty.

The military regime has intentionally barred pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running in the upcoming elections and forced her party to expel her under a new election law unveiled on March 10. This is causing serious political disorder in the military-ruled country. The Political Parties Registration Law made by the junta prohibits anyone convicted by a court of law from joining a political party and thereby disqualifies them as candidates. It also instructs parties to oust members who are “not in conformity with the qualifications to be members of a party,” a clause that may well force Suu Kyi’s exclusion.

Following the 18th ASEAN-EU Ministerial Meeting in Madrid on May 26, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations called on Burma’s military rulers to make sure that this year's planned election is trustworthy, transparent, democratic and inclusive.

In a joint statement, the EU and ASEAN ministers said they believed that the early release of those under detention, including the main opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, would contribute to making the election more inclusive and help bring about a peaceful political transition.

The EU and ASEAN ministers also encouraged the Burmese regime to continue to engage in a meaningful manner with the international community. But, in view of people of Burma, the said EU-ASEAN Joint statement is just a formal and powerless voice.

For, they have heard over thousand times such formal toothless joint-statements without any action. Both regional groups seem as if supporting the junta’s sham constitution and ‘namesake’ election in 2010. In fact, they must condemn and warn the junta in order to repeal its unjust and undemocratic constitution.

The key question is that the junta’s constitution and election laws not only prevent the participation of main opposition parties but also ignore the ethnic people’s political aspirations. Since, Burma is a member of ASEAN, it may be a crucial challenge to the grouping. It is required to pressure convincing its immoral member turning along the right path in line with the organization’s responsibility.

According to Amnesty International, the junta’s electoral laws blatantly violate freedom of expression, and the election commission has issued a vague ban on canvassing which harms "security".

Amnesty International also pointed out, more than 2,200 political prisoners continue languishing behind bars in Myanmar (Burma). It is double the number since the start of the mass peaceful anti-government protests of August-September 2007 - a huge indictment of the grim human rights situation there.

“Under Electoral Laws enacted in March, no political prisoner can take part in the elections, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The same laws also prohibit them from membership in any political party. ASEAN should unequivocally call for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience at the Ministerial Meeting, something they conspicuously failed to do at the organization’s summit in Ha Noi in April”, AI says in its statement.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers are to meet from 19 – 23 July in the Vietnamese capital of Ha Noi for the 43rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM). Discussions on ASEAN community building, the regional architecture and the implementation of the ASEAN Charter are on the agenda of the AMM on 19-20 July. The five-year Work Plan of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is also expected to be approved.

Unavoidably, this existing AMM is responsible to look into the situation of elections in the military ruled member country. ASEAN must especially urge Myanmar to respect freedom of expression, freedom peaceful assembly, and freedom association to be safeguarded for all citizens in line with international standard during the upcoming elections. It is not adequate for ASEAN to stand still on a wait-and-see position. ASEAN member countries must also be geared up to protest forcefully if individuals are under threat and detained for their peaceful political views and activities in the run-up to the elections.

It is essential that ASEAN has to get hold of this opportunity to strive towards the awareness of long unsettled human rights issues in Myanmar. Failure to sort out those human rights challenges, including electoral frauds, in Myanmar/Burma will ruin ASEAN’s international fidelity and image.

Zin Linn is an exile freelance journalist from Burma and vice-president of Burma Media Association which is affiliated with the Paris-based Reporters San Frontiers.

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