DAP welcomes ASEAN’s decision that it will not rush into admitting Myanmar as a member.
Indonesian Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas had said in Manila after attending the informal meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers ahead of the APEC Ministerial meeting that ASEAN had decided that it would not rush into admitting Myanmar as a member.
Alatas said Myanmar had to go through the normal “technical” process applicable to potential members. He said ASEAN was of “one mind” - Myanmar ought to join ASEAN ‘but the question is timing”.
This has come as a relief to international and ASEAN public opinion, as the statement by the ASEAN Secretary-General, Datuk Ajit Singh in Petaling Jaya last Saturday seemed to indicate that ASEAN would rush into admitting Myanmar as a member.
As Ajit Singh had recently visited Myanmar to study whether Myanmar should be admitted as an ASEAN member next year, the ASEAN Secretary-General should submit a report of his findings to all the ASEAN Parliaments to debate and study.
The APEC Summit of heads of governments of 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific in Manila should take a common stand and call for democratisation in Burma and to commit all countries to avoid actions which could be construed as condoning or encouraging repression, gross violations of human rights and slave labour by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC).
(22/11/96)