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Asean entry on track, opposition fe
- Subject: Asean entry on track, opposition fe
- From: ausgeo@xxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 23:52:00
Subject: Asean entry on track, opposition fears it will add to repression
Friday May 30 1997
Asean entry on track, opposition fears it will add to repression
WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok and Agencies
Thailand's Deputy Foreign Minister said yesterday he expected Burma, Cambodia
and Laos to win admission into Asean this year, possibly in July.
Pitak Intravitayanunt made the comment as democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
called in a videotape smuggled out of Burma for Asean to begin talking with
her National League for Democracy party.
"We see hope that we will receive the three countries this year," Mr Pitak
said on the sidelines of a meeting in New Delhi.
Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will
meet in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to decide when to admit its final three members.
It said last year they would be admitted together.
The videotape from Ms Aung San Suu Kyi was her first message to the outside
world since the military launched its latest crackdown last week to prevent a
congress of her political party.
Although the congress had been scheduled to end on Wednesday, the military did
not pull back its troops yesterday, nor release any of the more than 300 party
supporters it arrested. "If Asean is truly interested in constructive
engagement, it should try to engage with both sides in Burma, with the
[regime] as well as the democratic opposition," Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said.
She said admitting Burma to Asean under the military would be a risk to the
group's stability and reputation, and that "what the people of Burma risk is
that admission into Asean will make [the regime] more obdurate and oppressive
than ever".
Diplomats in Bangkok say signs this week that Asean will delay admitting Burma
would be a face-saving gesture by members of the grouping who had squirmed at
the thought of embracing a regime with which the West is rapidly losing
patience.
Insiders say Burma, Cambodia and Laos will be admitted by the end of the year
- probably at the leaders' meeting in December.
"It has already been decided [to delay membership] - but only as a sop to the
worriers," said a Singaporean diplomat.
"They are not terribly happy but what can they do they do?" said Kawi
Chongkitavorn, the executive editor of The Nation in Bangkok and an expert on
Asean. "They can't been seen to be giving in to Western pressure."
South Chian Morning Post.