West to Press ASEAN on Burma Rights
International Herald Tribune
July 22, 1991
Michael Richardson

Despite strong resistance, Western nations will renew attempts to persuade non-Communist countries in Southeast Asia to be more active in opposing human rights violations in Asia, particularly in Burma, Western officials said Sunday.

The officials said that the United States, the EC, Australia and Canada would urge in talks this week with members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations that the Asians use their economic and political influence to persuade the ruling military junta in Burma to end abuses and hand power to civilians elected last year.

But ASEAN officials said they would strongly resist any Western attempts to impose human rights standards by intervening in the internal affairs of Burma, because this could create a precedent that might then be applied to other Asian countries.

Foreign ministers of the six ASEAN members - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - will begin annual talks here Monday with their counterparts from the United States, Japan, the European Community, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. The talks will end on Wednesday.

At a meeting with EC ministers in Luxembourg in May, ASEAN refused to cooperate in putting pressure on Burma.

Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek of Netherlands, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EC, said in an interview Sunday that the EC recognized that Burma was a sensitive issue for ASEAN members.

They should be primarily responsible for deciding what methods of persuasion were appropriate, Mr. van den Broek said.

But he added that the EC felt it was "imperative" for all 13 states taking part in the Kuala Lumpur meeting to discuss Burma to "see how each and every country can try to contribute to positive change there."

Asian officials say there is a fundamental divergence of view between ASEAN and Western countries over the definition of human rights and how standards should be applied in Burma and elsewhere in the developing nations.

The West maintains that all countries have an obligation to observe internationally accepted norms of behavior, and that gross abuses, such as those in Burma, should be countered by international pressure, including an arms embargo.

After shooting thousands of Burmese civilians to put down a nationwide uprising for democracy in 1988, the military allowed national elections to be held in May 1990.

The opposition National League for Democracy won a landslide victory. But the armed forces, ruling as the State Law and Order Restoration Command, refused to hand over power. Since then, the military regime has systematically suppressed the league and other critics.

ASEAN members, which are neighbors of Burma and have extensive trade contacts, insist that outside pressure on the Burmese regime will simply harden its policies, increase xenophobia and close off all chance of gradual change.

In response to repression by the Burmese military, many Western nations have agreed not to supply arms to Burma, to suspend all but humanitarian aid and to reduce trade to a minimum.

In a joint communiqué on Saturday, the ASEAN foreign ministers criticized attempts by some unnamed governments and lobby groups in the West to make observance of human rights standards a condition of aid and trade to developing countries.

Officials said that the ministers were referring particularly to the EC and the United States.

Mr. van den Broek said that although there were pressures from public opinion, the EC had not made its aid to, or trade with, developing countries conditional on "a positive outcome" of discussions about human rights violations.

But such a dialogue "certainly could deepen and enhance the quality of our relations," he added.

Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia said at the opening of the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting on Friday that peace, security, democracy, freedom and stability were "possible and sustainable only when people are free from economic deprivation and have a stake in national life."

ASEAN states, he said, had been right to place "a high premium on political stability by managing a balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of society as a whole."

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