ASEAN Bloc To Admit Burma

[ausgeo@xxxxxxx]

ASEAN Bloc To Admit Burma

By HARI S. MANIAM 
Associated Press Writer 
Saturday, May 31, 1997 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Resisting pressure to shun Burma's military 
regime, ASEAN decided Saturday to go ahead with plans to admit Burma to the 
regional forum. 

Although foreign ministers had agreed in principle to grant membership to 
Burma, no consensus had been reached until early Saturday on whether to 
include the country in July or wait until a leaders summit in December. 

Discussions surrounded the timing of Burma's entry to ASEAN focused on whether 
the human rights conditions would improve or deteriorate in the months to 
come, senior ASEAN officials said. 

Opposition groups and some Western nations were pushing the Association of 
Southeast Asian Nations to snub the Burmese regime until it improves human 
rights and allows greater democracy. 

The ministers also made Laos and Cambodia members. 

On Friday, the ministers questioned ASEAN Secretary-General Dato Ajit Singh on 
his report on the applicants' qualifications to join an ASEAN free-trade zone. 


``It's quite thick and that is why we took so long,'' Philippines foreign 
minister Domingo L. Siazon, Jr. told reporters. 

ASEAN, which is made up of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, 
the Philippines and Vietnam, wants to add all three new members at the same 
time. 

Human rights activists say that despite years of closer ties with Southeast 
Asia, conditions in Burma are deteriorating. 

On Friday, 10 protesters stood outside the Foreign Ministry with pictures of 
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and signs calling the Burmese 
leaders ``murderers, betrayers (and) drug-pushers.'' 

``By supporting the admission of Burma into ASEAN, the government is openly 
condoning the human rights abuses,'' the group said in a petition. 

But the ASEAN officials reaffirmed their intention to admit Burma. 

``The prevailing position among the foreign ministers is that the criteria 
must not be the internal system of government,'' said Foreign Minister S. 
Jayakumara of Singapore. 

Suu Kyi, leader of the party that won 1990 elections the Burmese regime 
refuses to honor, appealed to the ASEAN governments in a smuggled videotape to 
reconsider the plan. She made the tape as the military held 300 of her 
supporters under arrest and the police ringed her home. 

``What the people of Burma risk is the possibility that admission into ASEAN 
will make (the regime) even more obdurate and oppressive than ever,'' she 
said. 

Suu Kyi has appealed in vain in letters to ASEAN leaders to delay Burmese 
membership. 

Opposition parties in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines have also spoken 
out against admitting Burma. 

The European Union, meanwhile, pressed Burma's military rulers Friday to 
``immediately and unconditionally'' release political prisoners and begin 
talks with pro-democracy groups, including Suu Kyi's party. 

ASEAN was formed in 1967 as a bulwark against the spread of communism in the 
region. Its formal goal is to promote economic and social cooperation.