Malaysians celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday with calls for her release

Malaysian politicians, human rights groups and pro-democracy activists celebrated Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's 60th birthday on Sunday with calls for her release from house arrest.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent almost 10 of the last 16 years in confinement by the military-ruled government in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Suu Kyi's continued detention is an embarrassment to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, particularly because Myanmar is set to take over the rotating chairmanship of the group in 2006, opposition politician Theresa Kok told a gathering in Kuala Lumpur attended by about 50 people.

"ASEAN countries should not allow Burma to assume the ASEAN chair unless Aung San Suu Kyi, National League for Democracy leaders U Tin Oo and Hkun Htun Oo, and all other political prisoners are released," she said.

Richard Thong, a Myanmar pro-democracy activist, said coddling the junta in an attempt to get it to change its ways is a lost cause.

"So far nothing has worked to persuade them to give up power," he said. "And the ordinary Burmese continue to suffer more and more."

Malaysian human rights groups pledged to continue fighting for Suu Kyi's release.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is very close to the hearts of Malaysian NGOs (non-government organizations)," said Elizabeth Wong, secretary-general of the human rights group HAKAM. "We have been fighting for democracy and freedom in Burma for the past 10 to 15 years."

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, and the current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy uprising. It called elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's party won.

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The Star News 19Jul05
In Malaysia, human rights groups and Myanmar activists also demanded her release, and called on Malaysia's government to release 68 Myanmar nationals who were detained on Thursday for protesting outside the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Thursday's demonstrators were held for assembling without permission. 

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, dozens of Myanmar refugees rallied, with one child holding a poster of Suu Kyi with a message reading "Justice is a dream, but it is a dream that we are determined to realize.'' 

Thailand's Thammasat University awarded Suu Kyi an honorary doctorate as part of a daylong birthday tribute. 

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ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus meets in Singapore
Radio Singapore International June 2, 2005

Should Myanmar’s chairmanship of ASEAN be blocked because of its slow democratic reforms? Find out with me in the programme. Welcome to Connections. I’m Yvonne Gomez.

ASEAN accepted Myanmar into its fold in 1997 under a constructive engagement policy. This was meant to allow the military junta to gradually introduce democratic reforms, while abiding by conditions set by ASEAN for economic cooperation.

Since then, there has been frustration within ASEAN about Myanmar’s broken promises. These have included the failure to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and other political prisoners, to implement the roadmap to democracy and make constitutional amendments.

There is a sense of solidarity now among ASEAN members that the time has perhaps come to constructively intervene to bring about political transition in Myanmar.

Parliamentarians from across the ASEAN region have been deliberating the question of Myanmar’s chairmanship of ASEAN in 2006 in the absence of democratic reforms in the country.

The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus met in Singapore this week.

One of the roles of the Caucus is to serve as a tool for educating Asean as a whole on what is going on in Myanmar and what needs to be done to bring about democratic reforms.
 

(L-R) R Ravindran, Charles Chong & Zaid Ibrahim

Mr Zaid Ibrahim is Chairman of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus.

ZI: I think education is also correct, but it is also a pressure group in the sense that we want to impress upon our respective governments why a certain position should be taken vis-à-vis Myanmar. So in that sense we hope to persuade them to be more active, more pro-active and robust in our approach. We should not subscribe to methods or ways of dealing with the regime which obviously have not worked. We hope to prevail over that.

While the Singapore chapter of the Caucus does not represent the Singapore government or its parliament, it represents a group of Singaporean Members of Parliament that has an interest in developments in Myanmar, and want to express their views as parliamentarians to achieve dialogue with other parliamentarians.

Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC in Singapore, Mr Charles Chong, is a member of the Singapore chapter of the Myanmar Caucus.

CC: What we’d like to see is that Myanmar, as a part of Asean, to develop along the same lines with Asean, with more democracy, for a more representative government and so on. If the Myanmar government decides to proceed on its roadmap, this will be a good development, but the overall objective would be to see that all member countries of Asean proceed in a way that is acceptable with the norms of Asean.

Mr R Ravindran is another member of the Singapore chapter and Member of Parliament for Marine Parade GRC. He elaborates on the relevance of the Singapore chapter.

RR: As a group of Parliamentarians in the Asean region, we want to reflect the views of some of the feedback that we’re getting from the ground and from the people we mix with. One of the clear signals that we’re picking up from people we interact with is that what’s happening in Myanmar is not something that is to be tolerated by civilized countries and by civilized people. I think that is something that we’d like to reflect, and we want to see changes coming about in Myanmar. Asean governments have expressed their frustrations in driving home some of these messages to the Myanmar government, because of the culture in Asean, which is that we try to reac! h a consensus, we try to send the message behind closed doors. I think recently it’s become very clear by the various statements by the Asean Foreign Ministers, that they themselves are unhappy with the state of events in Myanmar, and they’re hoping to signal to Myanmar that they’re not happy with the situation in Myanmar by privately calling upon Myanmar to give up the chairmanship of Asean next year. We’re all watching with anticipation what’s going to happen in that respect.

Mr Ravindran continued that the concerns of individual MPs was evident when at a parliament sitting in Singapore two months ago, two MPs had enquired about Myanmar taking over the chairmanship of Asean without any real progress on the roadmap and what was expected under the constructive engagement or flexible engagement policy.

RR: What we hope to do, not only as individual MPs within Singapore, but also as a group of MPs in the Asean region, we hope to reflect the viewpoints of different groups of people at the grassroots, that we also want to see changes coming about in Myanmar. A caucus based in Singapore, I think, signals a sense of common ideals that is shared by many Asean parliamentarians, and that’s how we’ve come about organizing this Myanmar Caucus with some parliamentarians in Singapore, and we want to push on with this process to bring about change in Myanmar.

Mr Charles Chong touched on the effect the Singapore chapter will have on the government’s decision on how to approach the Myanmar issue?

CC: As far as we’re concerned, we’d also like to highlight to our respective governments in our own ways – I suppose each Asean country has its own circumstances and each parliament has to act differently. But I think it’s quite clear, to me anyway, that some of the methods used by our government – constructive engagement, flexibility, quiet diplomacy and so on, has not yielded the desired results. So we’d also like to get our governments to be accountable for what sort of achievements it has achieved in using the current methods, if not perhaps they should consider other methods. We have to do something and not nothing, otherwise the situation will never improve.

Resolving the situation does not require any new solutions.

Mr Zaid Ibrahim, Chairman of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus tells us why.

ZI: The answers are all there. The answers have even been offered by the military junta themselves. They said they will release Aung San Suu Kyi, they said they would have national reconciliation by way of drafting a new constitution; they said they would do all these things. We think that would be the first step. All we’re saying is “can you make sure you honour your commitments”. We’re not even offering a new formula. We expect our governments, as the more established members of the group, to make a firm stand, to tell Myanmar that if they want to belong to us, they must keep their word and honour those commitments. Otherwise, we’ll also lose our credibility.

What does the current attitude of Asean governments towards Myanmar say about their willingness to push Myanmar’s military regime to bring about political changes?
Mr Zaid Ibrahim gives his view.

ZI: We think that our respective governments should be more straightforward and forthright about this, and should not be too worried about saving face. If you look at the communiqués and the commitments made by the military, by the leaders of Myanmar since 1998 - at every conference and every summit in Bali, Vientiane, Bangkok – if you look at all those, what have they done? So we feel that other Asean countries should not, in trying to placate or please them, do nothing. We have to do something. But do “something” means perhaps we tell them that if you don’t do this, then maybe you shouldn’t chair us, for a start. If you can release Aung San Suu Kyi, then maybe you shouldn’t get too much of our investments. I don’t know, but there are many ways governments can prevail over this. But we must do something, that’s what I’m saying here. There’s always this public posturing on many things, but what our view is that they too, want change to take place. Although they may not be able to say certain things that we can say, I subscribe to the view that our leaders know what’s good for Asean and themselves and I think that what we’re doing will get their support, maybe tacitly, maybe quietly but yes.

This is the fifth meeting of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus and comes just before the 38th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Vientiane, Laos in July. Mr Zaid spelt out the future of the Caucus.

ZI: Whatever it is, this group will continue because we think it’s important for Asean’s credibility and strategic interests that member nations comply with some basic minimum standards of political governance and democracy.

There are concerns that if Myanmar is allowed to assume the ASEAN chair in 2006 before it implements genuine democratic reforms, some of ASEAN’s dialogue and trading partners, like the EU and the United States, may consider boycotting official meetings, which will set back the grouping’s plans for greater economic integration and expansion.

ZI: After this, we’ll get ourselves organized to visit the European Union and get support from Parliamentarians in Brussels elsewhere. We need to highlight this issue. We need to get more support from Parliamentarians all over the world. We should look at our interests first. Asean should look at its own strategic interests in the long-term. If it means that we’re going to lose some friends because we want to remain friends with the generals, we have to weigh that against this conflicting situation. So yes, it’ll be a concern of Asean because Asean itself, as we can see, is trying to enhance its relevance by talking about Asean Plus Three and all this can only help, if within the smaller, the original group, we at least have a set of common principles and some common understanding. I sense that this is important for issues like the conduct of a member state like Myanmar.

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Stars Newspaper  19Jun05
A group of MPs from Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia have formed the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Caucus for Myanmar (AIPMC) as part of a campaign to raise awareness among legislators in their own countries of the situation in Myanmar and put pressure on the junta to free Suu Kyi and restore democracy. 

Led by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, head of the Malaysian caucus, they are asking that Myanmar, which is scheduled to take over as chairman of Asean by rotation next year, be denied the position unless Suu Kyi is released and other conditions are met.  

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TODAY newspaper 8Jun05
Singapore MPs
MPs Charles Chong (Pasir Ris - Ponggo PAP), R Ravindran (Marine Parade PAP), Wang Kai Yuen (Bukit Tima PAP) and Penny Low (Pasir Ris - Ponggo PAP) are taking their "personal interest" in Myanmar up a notch by joining the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, which aims to get Myanmar's military junta to implement its roadmap

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Malaysia Amnestry International
There are at least 1,350 political prisoners in Myanmar. These include prisoners of conscience imprisoned for activities such as writing poems and magazines, calling for the right to form student unions or for peaceful demonstrations. They are subjected to torture or ill-treatment, held incommunicado without access to lawyers, and sentenced under repressive legislation in unfair trials.

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