12-Aug-2005SINGAPORE (The Straits Times) - Myanmar must face up to the fact
that the world is changing and moving ahead and it cannot
stay "frozen in time", said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.
In an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, he warned that the
problems of the military-controlled country would spill into the
wider region.
"To stay frozen in time means they are building up problems for
themselves, and those problems will overflow into Asean," he said.
Last month, at an Asean ministerial meeting in Vientiane, Myanmar
gave up its chairmanship of the grouping for next year to focus on
its internal political situation.
Asked about the move, Lee noted that it "avoids embarrassment but
the problem still remains". He believed that Myanmar's lack of
prosperity compared with its richer neighbour, Thailand, would cause
unhappiness among its people.
One of Myanmar's major problems, he felt, was the lack of
agricultural Research and Development (R&D).
