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BurmaNet News: February 15, 1995 (r)
Received: by pilot.physics.adelaide.edu.au (5.61+IDA+MU/UA-5.23)
id AA03474; Mon, 20 Feb 1995 16:45:44 +1030
Subject: Re: BurmaNet News: February 15, 1995
To: reg.burma-l, BurmaNet, soc.culture.burma
Following is Mr Hawke's letter to the editors of Canberra Times
newspaper, February 9, 1995; reposted as have promised.
PRACTISE WHAT YOU PREACH
------------------------
IN KEEPING with your hypocrisy when reporting on me and my
activities, in your editorial of January 31, portentously
titled ``Our good name is not for sale'', you claim that the
media has the right to ``scrutinise'' my activities now that
I am out of public office and that I must show ``discretion''
and act according to the highest standards.
I do. I wish you and the media you are pleased to speak for
would practise the standards you preach. Recently a journalist
with the Telegraph Mirror faxed a request for me to list my
business activities in Asia. I replied by listing things such
as developing a university, schools, a hospital. But these were
ignored and references was made only to racing proposals, which
for a long period have occupied almost none of my time.
You imply that by visiting Myanmar I am selling Australia's good
name. Let me repeat the points I have made elsewhere. Before going
to Myanmar I received a written briefing from the Foreign Affairs
Department, which said, explicitly, that this policy neither
encouraged {\itelised nor discouraged} commercial contacts by
Australians with Myanmar.
If Australia had commercial contacts only with countries all of
whose policies we thoroughly approved we would make a mockery of
the national interest. Do we cease commercial contacts with
Indonesia because our Government and other in the community
disapprove of some of their internal policies?
In some instances the case is so overwhelming, as with apartheid
regime in South Africa, which condemned the vast majority to
degradation simply on the basis of colour, there is no question
about the moral imperative for sanctions.
Myanmar is not in this category.
And, make no mistake, one of the great issues of our time will be
the firmly held belief of governments in our region that the West
has no right to seek to impose its values upon Asia.
This does not mean that we should refrain from putting positions
to governments on particular issues where it is thought that
universal values are involved. It does mean that if we are to be
listened to with any respect we should be prepared to acknowledge
the positive features, achievements and intentions of regimes we
would criticise on other grounds. In the case of Myanmar there are
such positives, but would not know it from reading your paper or
listening to the critics of my visit.
I happen to believe that my capacity to have constructive discussions
with leaders in Myanmar in such a balanced way in the future will
follow from the course I have adopted. While Senator Evans says his
judgement would have been different, he made it clear he did not
doubt my integrity.
Neither does Conrad Black. The joint statement ending the contretempts
last year between Black and myself, read, ``.....eith regard to the
discussion between Mr Colson and Mr Hawke, Mr Black accepts Mr Hawke's
integrity and the sincerity of Mr Hawke's statement of his
recollections''. But in your editorial you did not reveal this to
readers; instead you quoted an allegation made at the first stage
of the disagreement between Conrad Black and me, an allegation made
at the first stage of the disagreement between Conrad Black and me,
an allegation from which Mr Black himself then resiled.
It would bee reassuring to think you too were capable of admitting
to error but, on your record, I will not be holding by breath.
R.J.L. HAWKE
Sydney
CANBERRA TIMES, Feb 9, 1995.
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