Myanmar set to chair ASEAN: FM

NUSA DUA. All ASEAN member states believe that democracy in Myanmar has improved and thus it deserves to chair ASEAN in 2014, according to the Indonesian foreign minister.

“Every ASEAN member state supports Myanmar’s chairmanship [bid],” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters after an ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Tuesday.

However, it is unclear why Singapore and the Philippines, which initially opposed Myanmar’s chairmanship bid, finally threw in their support.

“But please don’t misunderstand that this support means that development in Myanmar’s [democracy] is now 100 percent perfect because it isn’t. The process is still ongoing,” Marty said.

Marty said the foreign ministers would further discuss Myanmar and make a recommendation to ASEAN leaders who would formally decide on the bid during their summit here later this week.

He said there were strong indications that Myanmar was now on the right track, given the release of pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and a number of political prisoners. Suu Kyi was released in November last year after seven years of house arrest, but could not run in the next month’s elections, while 6,359 prisoners were released last month but only 200 of them were prisoners of conscience.

Reports say 2,000 political prisoners are still being detained in Myanmar — an accusation the Myanmar government has repeatedly denied. Many have dismissed the release of the political prisoners as a deceptive attempt by the government to improve its global reputation.

Marty said that Myanmar believed that it was its right and obligation as a member of ASEAN to chair the regional grouping now, after it decided to withdraw from its turn to be chair in 2005.

A number of ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, share the view that Myanmar’s chairmanship in ASEAN would motivate the country to further democratize itself, and adopt more stringent human rights values, according to Marty.

“It’s the same old story we had back in 1998-1999 when we were in the early stage of our [political] reforms. We needed encouragement and support from [neighboring] countries that still doubted how far the reforms would go,” he said.

UN envoy for Myanmar Vijay Nambiar is scheduled to meet Marty on Wednesday to talk about Myanmar.

Marty visited Myanmar late last month to see how democracy in the country had developed in response to Myanmar’s chairmanship bid.

He said Myanmar’s political reforms looked “irreversible” and had put the country on course to chair ASEAN. He also urged the United States and the European Union to ease sanctions as the embargoes had done more harm than good in the country, Reuters reported.

Despite the West’s criticism of Myanmar, some analysts said that granting Myanmar the ASEAN chairmanship would to some extent force Myanmar to change for the better.

University of Indonesia international relations expert Hariyadi Wirawan said Marty’s trip to the restive country showed that Myanmar’s democracy was developing encouragingly in an ASEAN way, but that would not necessarily satisfy the US and the EU as they had stricter standards in terms of democracy and human rights.

“What the US and European countries want is instant change in Myanmar.” (Mustaqim Adamrah/The Jakarta Post)