ASEAN leaders must take serious view of the latest SLORC mass arrests of NLD leaders and defer all consideration of Burma’s entry into ASEAN for this year to safeguard the good name and international reputation of ASEAN


Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya, Sunday): Yesterday, the official press of the Myanmese military junta, New Light of Myanmar hailed ASEAN solidarity behind the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and declared: "Asean-10 will soon become a reality, all of us being able to keep at bay any and all who would commit treachery to compromise regional peace, harmony and prosperity"

The editorial in the state-run newspaper also said: "Today, when the world must seek a new political order free from big-power hegemony, all emerging nations must unite in the kind of alliance that seeks friends yet give no breach for sinister designs and acts of subversion openly orchestrated and perpetrated."

The overwhelming majority of thinking and decent people of ASEAN nations must find this editorial obnoxious and revolting, for this SLORC newspaper was flaunting to the world that the Myanmese military junta had the unqualified support of the ASEAN governments for all its actions, including the repression and violation of the human rights of the people of Burma.

This implication that SLORC had the understanding if not the open support for its latest crackdown on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, with some 200 supporters reportedly detained ahead of a party function marking the seventh anniversary of the NLD’s 1990 general election victory, a victory that was never honoured by the junta, is a major slur and blemish of ASEAN’s international reputation.

ASEAN’s good name and international reputation risk being seriously compromised if ASEAN governments condone, whether explicity or tacitly, the latest crackdown against democracy activists in Burma.

It is time for opinion-leaders in all sectors of society in every ASEAN nation to make their reservations, unhappiness and downright opposition to the admission of Burma into ASEAN this year heard - loud and clear.

On May 31, Asean Foreign Ministers’ are scheduled to meet in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the timing of admission of Burma, Cambodia and Laos, which are expected at the annual Asean meeting in July or possibly at an informal summit later in the year.

The latest crackdown by the SLORC in Burma, in utter disregard of regional and international opinion that the Myanmese military junta should accept the basic norms of civilised national and international behaviour, has completely destroyed the myth that ASEAN’s constructive engagement policy had made any tangible progress in contributing to democratic reforms or national reconciliation In Burma. ASEAN nations must let SLORC rulers know in no uncertain terms that unless they co-operate with ASEAN governments to produce results in ASEAN’s constructive engagement policy on Burma, with visible progress in democratic reforms and national reconciliation, it is not in anybody’s interest for Burma to be admitted into ASEAN at this stage.

In this connection, the Singapore Straits Times must be commended for its editorial two days ago under the heading "Myanmar has to earn its keep", where it said:

It is time for all decent and peace-and-justice loving people of ASEAN to speak up to urge their respective governments to defer any consideration of admission of Burma into ASEAN this year unless and until SLORC proves its sincerity and seriousness in wanting to co-operate with ASEAN to make a success of the ASEAN constructive engagement policy on Burma with tangible progress in the fields of democratic reforms and national reconciliation.

The latest anti-NLD crackdown on the eve of ASEAN’s expected admission of SLORC into the regional organisation should open the eyes of SLORC’s strongest advocates and defenders in ASEAN that such an admission would send a completely wrong message as it would be interpreted as a victory for SLORC and would only encourage the Myanmese military junta to embark on a new and more serious crackdown against NLD, pro-democracy activists and the ethnic minorities.

Is this what the ASEAN governments want to encourage SLORC to do after Burma has been formally admitted into ASEAN either in July or November this year?

(25/5/97)


*Lim Kit Siang - Malaysian Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Democratic Action Party Secretary-General & Member of Parliament for Tanjong