KUALA LUMPUR, 25 March 2005 — Malaysia’s ultimatum for Myanmar to either pursue democratic reforms or be stripped of its turn to lead Southeast Asia’s grouping next year signals a long-awaited change in the region’s noninterference political stance, analysts and diplomats say. Malaysian government lawmakers announced Tuesday they would table a parliamentary motion calling for Myanmar’s chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to be suspended if political reforms are not undertaken.
Malaysia’s motion, seen as an unusually blunt move in a region where governments are reluctant to interfere in members’ internal affairs, was also hailed as a strong push for Myanmar to change or risk being ostracized by ASEAN. “Malaysia’s position has changed because clearly, Myanmar has fallen short of expectations,” said Abdul Razak Baginda, head of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center. While Malaysia was instrumental in fighting for Myanmar’s entry into the grouping in 1997, Yangon’s delay in exacting political reforms “embarrassed Malaysia’s earlier pro-Myanmar position,” he told DPA. Malaysia is due to assume the rotating annual chairmanship of ASEAN in July, and was to hand over the leadership to Myanmar in 2006.
As chair, Yangon would host a summit of the bloc’s leaders as well as key economic and security meetings with ASEAN dialogue partners, including the United States which slapped tougher sanctions on Myanmar after it detained opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003. Abdul Razak said ASEAN’s other members — Brunei, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and the Philippines — are likely to support the motion to suspend Myanmar’s chairmanship, setting a “crucial precedent” in the grouping’s stand on noninterference. “If Myanmar chairs ASEAN, there will be huge problems for the grouping, and the problems go beyond domestic affairs... This is where ASEAN counties would have to differentiate between interference in domestic affairs, and something that is way beyond that.”
Myanmar’s military junta had promised to set the country back onto the road to democracy, a plan that was formally supported by ASEAN in 2003. But the generals have failed to persuade its neighbors and the West that it is on course. “Myanmar has not complied and this has become not just an embarrassment, but has become problematic to ASEAN,” said a senior Malaysian foreign ministry official. “ASEAN will have to relook our definitions of nonintervention as certain issues affect all the other member countries.”
Suu Kyi is still under house arrest and Khin Nyunt, the prime minister who introduced the “road map” — which Western governments have derided as a sham — was purged late last year. The opposition leader’s National League for Democracy party has boycotted talks on a new constitution, which the junta insists will lead toward democracy but critics say will entrench military rule. The junta has released more than 14,000 prisoners since November last year, soon after Khin Nyunt’s ouster, but hundreds of political prisoners remain in detention. Razali cautioned that the motion for suspension, which would first have to be passed by Malaysia’s Parliament followed by all the other governments of ASEAN, may not come to pass. “The move may be successful, it may not be. The question remains if governments of ASEAN will take cognizance of the situation and firm up their positions in Myanmar,” he said.
However, the final decision on whether or not democratic reform would take place in Myanmar still rests in the hands of the military government, said Razali. “I’m on the side of democracy, and will always be hopeful.... But the decision still remains in the hands and will of the government of Myanmar.”
