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When even the office of the chief of the United Nations is not respected, it shows the length of audacity displayed by a country.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who was seen to be the last bastion of liberation for Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi, was turned away from his request to meet her, crushing immediate hopes of those who had otherwise held dimmed anticipation of this.
Here, the term “opposition leader” is refrained because she would be more aptly be “prime minister-elect” since as far as nearly 20 years ago when her party, the National League for Democracy, won the election.
When it involves a country where a party that won an election with a landslide became outlawed but another – backed by the military – that lost became a dominant, hegemonic ruling party instead, the grain of logic is opposed and Myanmar’s defence of “non-interference” should no longer apply.
Therefore, the UN chief did not act in an inappropriate manner, for the person he had requested to meet was the supposed prime minister.
In my view, Myanmar, or formerly Burma, may have acted with impudence as such because it believes it is a member of ASEAN and has the latter’s backing.
Any ounce of economic benefit would be foremost enjoyed by members of the military government, which is the root cause of the problem in the first place.
To ASEAN nations, of which Singapore is one, inclusion rather than exclusion would increase the accessibility of engagement with Myanmar.
This approach is agreeable in principle.
However, when nothing can be achieved by way of inclusion, there is no longer any difference between inclusion and exclusion.
And Myanmar, along with Laos, has being a member of ASEAN since 1997.
For 12 years, the eight fellow ASEAN countries have not been able to change a single thing in Myanmar and have not proven to their citizens and the world that co-opting it into ASEAN brought about any positive outcome, except positive embarrassment.
Meanwhile, the dateline of the renegade country’s “Roadmap to Democracy” is expected to be as enduring as the endurance shown by its ASEAN partners.
In lieu of this, it may high time for them to contemplate the expulsion of Myanmar from ASEAN.
7 July 2009 at 5:37 PM |
Agreed. Myanmar is acting like its the emperor of its own country. Why bother attending Asean meetings when they don’t allow any ‘outside interference’? What’s the point? They don’t want to open up… then forget it.
10 July 2009 at 1:06 PM |
I believe it would be more worthwhile to explore a path that involves retaining Burma in ASEAN but with a stronger approach that involves financial sanctions by SEA states against key leaders of the junta.
One argument states that we cannot let Burma drift into the Chinese orbit, because that would create a potential beachhead for an arguably Chinese string-of-pearls strategy for their energy security that starts from Port Gwadar in Pakistan, down to the Burmese island/coastal waters and so on.. down to the Straits of Malacca .
I believe it is this assessment that is driving ASEAN to try and keep Burma engaged as an ASEAN state rather than a pariah backed up by a less-than-transparent superpower to be.
10 July 2009 at 2:35 PM |
Hi, that is quite a credible suggestion though I don’t quite agree… Myanmar would not accept any form of sanction as long as it is within ASEAN and I am of the view that it is in because it gains shelter out of membership and would pull out immediately otherwise.
I also do not think that poorly of China and that it wants to position itself respectably and there are a lot more “pariahs” it can embrace if it wanted to… it will leave less important matters it perceives aside.
Regards
11 July 2009 at 9:18 AM |
You may be right about the Chinese having more proxy states that could serve her needs, but as traditional understanding about Chinese foreign policy goes, they place states along their periphery as of higher importance, especially those that also straddle China’s key lines of energy security and maritime security..
Sad to say, the region around Port Blair and the Andamans may be a contested field in the future with growing Indian expansion and so on.. hence I view Burma’s position being a more important proxy than Central Asian states or even Pakistan.
11 July 2009 at 4:21 PM |
While that may be true, a further point is that there has been no historical linkage between Myanmar and China, unlike North Korea where both were Communist and the latter had been a vassal of the former once.
There are a lot more former USSR states that could fall within China’s ambit and are closer and more strategic. And other ASEAN countries appear to be courting China as well. Furthermore, China is a lot more compromising towards USA these days, although it flexes its muscles every now and then to show “something”.
Overall, international diplomatic relations are very fluid and whether Myanmar in or outside ASEAN it is 1) unlikely to compromise its position if the “inside” doesn’t change 2) could stray in spite of that.
Regards