Western leaders yesterday piled pressure on Myanmar's military rulers to release democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi and include her political party in constitutional talks widely dismissed as a sham.
As the junta kicked off a constitutional convention without the Nobel peace laureate, the harshest comments predictably came from Washington, where President George W. Bush labelled the former Burma an "extraordinary threat" to US interests.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urging southeast Asian nations to pressure Myanmar to release Suu Kyi.
The EU expressed "disappointment and concern" and was joined by the United States, Malaysia and Thailand in criticizing the junta.
Unusually strong words from the Thai prime minister suggest Myanmar's normally non-interfering neighbors are increasingly embarrassed by the junta, which takes over the chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2006.
Thaksin Shinawatra, whose Bangkok government has a policy of constructive engagement with diplomatically isolated Yangon, said he was quite concerned over the junta's lack of democratic pro-gress and indicated it had duped him over Suu Kyi.
"We understood they would release her in time to attend the meeting," Thaksin said.
Despite the absence of Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Myanmar opened its National Convention on Monday to draft the constitution the country does not have.
Delegates to the constitutional convention have been told they cannot walk out of meetings or make any anti-national remarks.
A code of ethics and discipline, published in a state newspaper yesterday, is apparently aimed at ensuring that the National Convention will not be marred by ugly scenes or a show of dissent against the military rulers.
Soon after the opening ceremony, Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan read out a "code of ethics and discipline to be followed by the delegates to ensure the successful holding of the National Convention," the official Myanma Ahlin daily reported.
"The regulations are prescribed not for repression but for the interest of the national races and the delegates," Kyaw Hsan told the delegates.
The delegates were told not to express disloyalty to the state, not to discuss "irrelevant matters," and not to accept any other country's patronage.
The forum is the first step in the junta's so-called "road map to democracy" unveiled in August last year. Critics dismiss it as a smokescreen to keep the generals in power.
For now, Annan is siding with the critics, saying the process lacks credibility without the country's chief democracy activist, who won a landslide election victory in 1990 only to be denied power.
However, diplomats say the reaction from ASEAN is now all the more important, given the relative increase in its commercial and diplomatic clout after the US and EU slapped sanctions on Yangon over Suu Kyi's detention.
ASEAN's next step is difficult to predict, diplomats say, given that its plan to admit Myanmar in 1997 in the hope of nurturing democratic transition has been exposed as fanciful at best.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS