Burma's post election implications for Southeast Asia

Monday, November 8, 2010
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation (Thailand)/Asia News Network

During the visit to Nayphidaw early last month, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva repeated to the Burmese leaders the ASEAN offer to dispatch a team to observe Sunday's election. They dismissed the idea outright emphasizing that Burma has lots of experience with the election. Then, at the Hanoi summit, Abhisit raised the issue once again urging Burma to work together with ASEAN to bridge the gap of expectation within the international community. Both Indonesian and Filipino leaders also echoed the Thai concerns by reiterating the same ASEAN plan but this time with the participation of Secretary-General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan to join the ASEAN diplomats inside Burma. That offer was turned down.

Ten days before the election, Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win also declared in Hanoi that the diplomats and U.N. agencies, up to five persons, could go anywhere they wished during the election day. As it turned out, several diplomatic missions including ASEAN, have difficulties in accessing certain constituencies, some of them even in Rangoon, citing security and logistics. Representatives of the United Nations and the U.S. chose to stay away from the regime-sponsored electoral visits while some EU countries decided to join.

Only the Thai delegation encountered no problem in visiting Shan State, Karenni State and Sagaing Region. Several ASEAN members are planning to issue a statement on the election pending the progress report from the field trips of their diplomats.

Judging from the ASEAN-Burma pattern of diplomatic engagements coupling with extremely high tolerance of noncompliance on the latter since the 1997 admission, ASEAN would have no other choice but to welcome the sham election and express the hope that it would represent the first stepping stone for further positive developments inside the country. Ironically, for the majority of ASEAN, it was a huge relief as the organization's biggest albatross has now been removed. ASEAN can now say what is going on inside Burma is the internal affairs.

ASEAN knows full well that Burma has never yielded to demands through peer pressure especially from the core ASEAN members. After all, it was the hush-hush decision of ASEAN to admit Burma on a fast track to counter China's growing influence.

When Nyi Nyi Thun, the former Burmese ambassador to Indonesia made a surprise announcement on 7 July 1995 at the ASEAN Secretariat that Burma was ready to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, ASEAN moved quickly to facilitate the admission thinking it would help end the country's isolation and political quagmire. Burma joined ASEAN two years later, shattering predictions that its admission would take at least five years. Cambodia was last to join in 1999.

After 27 years of no-contact, Burma's interest in ASEAN generated a flurry of diplomatic activities. But Burma was quick to establish the rule of engagement with ASEAN. The first test between ASEAN and Burma occurred on July 19, 1995 when an attempt was made for the opposition leader Aung Sann Suu Kyi, who was freed a week earlier, to meet with the Rangoon-based ASEAN diplomats.

Burma strongly protested and threatened to withdraw from the scheduled accession to TAC in Brunei on the same week. The plan was then quickly aborted. So were the subsequent efforts to have Suu Kyi directly in touch with top ASEAN officials. Later on, she wrote a letter — the only one—to the ASEAN foreign ministers to explain her role and inspiration for a democratic Burma but it was completely ignored until today.

ASEAN has learned from the incident that future engagements with Burma would not be easy. Nonetheless, the grouping's collective fear of China's southern expansion was so overwhelming that Burma's membership was expedient. In the past 13 years, ASEAN has repeatedly urged Burma to comply with the ASEAN norms and standards and protect its reputation. But Rangoon has never complied. Normally, the military junta leaders would rather ignore them completely or if necessary, they prefer to meet the demands halfway at the time of their own choosing.

For instance, during the 2005 tsunami tragedy, several hundreds of Burmese workers were killed and missing. But there were no attempts by the Burmese junta to show accountability following repeated requests from the Thai government to allow members of families and relative to help identify the Burmese victims. Until these days, nobody knew the exact number of victims as no claims were made both by the government and individual.

When the Nargis Cyclone hit Burma on May 1, 2008, the regime was slow in responding to the wide-spread calamity. At that time, there was no plan to accept international assistance or admit foreign relief officials. The junta leaders feared with outside help, foreign powers would interfere with domestic affairs and even topple them.

However, through strong interventions both from the Singaporean chair and Indonesia, which cited the ASEAN solidarity and the U.N. principle of responsibility to protect, the regime eventually agreed to allow foreign help but with restrictions. The U.N. and international relief and humanitarian agencies formed a tripartite group with the Burmese authorities and ASEAN Secretariat.

Sunday's poll again places ASEAN in an awkward position as it must be the first to endorse the outcome being condemned world-wide. It also comes at the time when ASEAN wants to expand its international role. The overall ASEAN bargaining power still rests on its continued high economic growth contributing to the global economic recovery.

ASEAN argues that Burma's full integration with ASEAN would help to sustain such dynamism due to its huge population and abundant natural resources. Eventually, it is inevitable that ASEAN would have to embrace Burma's post election with the concurrence to have Burma taking up the ASEAN chair in January 2014, after Brunei. It is a fait accompli.