Volume 13 No.4 - April
Burma’s Asean Role Could Hurt Relations between US and Asean—US State Secretary
By En-Lai Yeoh/AP Writer/Singapore May 10, 2005
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick on Tuesday reiterated Washington's opposition to military-ruled Burma gaining the chairmanship of Asean, saying such a move could stall relations between Southeast Asia and Washington.
The United States and the European Union have threatened to boycott the Association of South East Asian Nations, or Asean, meetings and stall the bloc’s development funding if Burma, becomes chairman.
"Given that Burma is an Asean member, I emphasized if Burma is the chair next year it would obviously tie our hands but this was an issue for Asean to decide," Zoellick said at a news conference in Singapore, his final stop on a tour of Southeast Asia.
Burma is due to take over the rotating Asean chairmanship near the end of 2006.
The country's military junta took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a pro-democracy movement. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in general elections. Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for much of the past 14 years.
"We are very troubled by the events in Burma," Zoellick said, adding that "the march of democracy" across the globe was one of US President George W. Bush's top priorities in his second term. He did not elaborate.
Pressure has been building for Burma to give up its bid to chair Asean unless it speeds up democratic reform and improves its human rights record.
Zoellick's weeklong regional tour, also saw him swing through Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia—six of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nation members.
Zoellick said the tour was to "lay the foundation for stronger US-Asean relations in the second term" of President Bush.
He denied the trip was part of Bush administration efforts to curtail China's growing relationship with Asean, saying any effort to curb Beijing's increasing global influence was "foolish."
"I wanted to get an assessment of the issues, issues of maritime security, counterterrorism efforts, proliferation security initiatives," he said, apart from the issues of trade and human rights.
He did not say whether the issue of joint sea patrols was raised in his meetings.
The Malacca Straits, straddling Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, has long been a hotbed of piracy. The straits links the Indian and Pacific Oceans and carries half the world's oil and a third of its commerce and Washington has expressed concern that terrorists could target the 50,000 tankers and ships plying the route yearly.
Asean as a whole is the United States' fifth largest trading partner with annual commerce valued at around US $136 billion.