EDITORIAL – Pressure on Myanmar

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations approved yesterday the passage of a constitution that will promote democracy in the region. The adoption of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration at the 11th ASEAN summit in the Malaysian capital aims to promote freedom, human rights and good governance in a region where autocrats once ruled, and where authoritarian regimes still thrive.

Though not binding on the grouping’s 10 member-states, ASEAN leaders hope the declaration will affect the ruling junta in Myanmar, which continues to resist pressure from the international community to implement democratic reforms. That resistance is already expected to cost Myanmar the revolving chair of ASEAN in 2006, with the chair to go instead to the Philippines.

Myanmar has been an embarrassment for the regional grouping, which had hoped that constructive engagement with one of the world’s most repressive regimes would speed up democratic reforms. ASEAN admitted Myanmar into the grouping despite protests from many democracies, which had feared that the military junta would regard membership as a stamp of approval for state repression.

Those fears have come true; the junta has not shown any sign of easing its firm grip on its people. Yangon controls the flow of information throughout the country, cracks down on dissent and refuses to release Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta controls all major trade and business deals.

ASEAN has a tradition of non-intervention in the internal affairs of member-states. The grouping, after all, was founded by autocrats including Indonesia’s Suharto, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and our homegrown despot Ferdinand Marcos.

But the new ASEAN leaders realize that in a global environment, what ails one country can adversely affect the entire neighborhood. ASEAN members including the Philippines have been pressing Yangon in recent months to speed up the pace of economic and political reforms, with little success. The Kuala Lumpur Declaration could increase the pressure, but the junta in Yangon has a long history of thumbing its nose at the world.