Myanmar crisis to dominate ASEAN summit

The Jakarta Post

SINGAPORE (AP): Myanmar has often been compared to a relative of questionable character, an embarrassing intrusion at family get-togethers.

Bereft of friends and reviled by many, Myanmar is set to spoil the party again.

The recent crackdown by the country's military junta on peaceful pro-democracy protesters will figure prominently at an annual summit this week of Asian leaders, much to the chagrin of its colleagues inthe Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the region's main political and economic bloc.

After a series of ministerial-level meetings, ASEAN leaders will hold their summit Tuesday, followed by a tete-a-tete with leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand in the so-called East Asia Summit on Wednesday.

Host Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said the ASEAN leaders' informal dinner Monday will be "the critical meeting" for adopting a common position on Myanmar.

"That's a family dinner, there will be no officials present; there will be no closed-circuit television. It's just the leaders meeting among themselves. We expect Myanmar to be discussed at that meeting," he said.

The 10-nation ASEAN is under tremendous pressure from its trading partners, the U.S. and Europe, over Myanmar. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, who arrived Sunday for a meeting with ASEAN economic ministers, will underscore Washington's concerns overthe junta's "failure to make a serious commitment ... to civilian democratic rule," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

Southeast Asian leaders are hoping Myanmar will not completely overshadow the summit agenda and detract from key objectives: progress on free trade, controlling climate change, and formally transforming ASEAN into a legal entity by adopting the so-called "ASEAN Charter."

"ASEAN has deliberately set the expectations higher by talking about things like the Charter, the economic blueprint," said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

"They are deliberately trying to show the world that ASEAN can integrate among themselves," he said. But, he added, "Myanmar is the unexpected agenda, where ASEAN has also got to show it can work credibly."

Due to the efforts of U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari, Myanmar's junta has made unusual concessions in recent weeks, allowing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with executives of her party for thefirst time in three years. Gambari will brief the summit leaders on his efforts in Myanmar.

The junta also indicated it would start a dialogue with Suu Kyi, and allowed U.N. human rights investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro to visit the country after a four-year ban for interviewing political prisoners.

Many wonder if the ruling generals are sincere. They have made concessions in the past, especially before ASEAN summits, only to renege once the international pressure is off.

Josef Silverstein, an academic who has studied Myanmar for more than 50 years, said that as long as Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, the apparent concessions by the junta should be treated withcaution.

"Unless she is treated as a free woman and leader of the (opposition), her world is inferior to that of her dialogue partner and can be ignored," he said. "If she does not act as an equal ... the military will still control thought and action in Burma," he said, referring to the country by its old name.

Some observers say Myanmar's good behavior ahead of the ASEAN summit may not be all ploy, and could be the result of new pressure, including from China, its only Asian ally.

China's state media reported Saturday that the country's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi has called on Myanmar to speed up democratic reforms. It was an unusual call from Beijing, which traditionally has refrained from criticizing the junta.

Myanmar has already had an impact on the showpiece of the summit, the ASEAN Charter that will be signed by the leaders Tuesday.

The charter calls for setting up a regional human rights body. But it contains no punitive measures for rogue members violating human rights, which effectively lets Myanmar off the hook.

"I'm not sure if it will have teeth but it will certainly have a tongue," Yeo said. "It will certainly have moral influence if nothing else."

The charter's aim is to give the bloc a legal identity, a first step toward its goal of creating a free trade area by 2015 and a possible European-style union.

That remains a distant dream given how disparate ASEAN members are compared to the highly integrated EU members.