FRAGMENTED COMMUNITY AND UNCONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENTS

Abstract

Asean's political elites appear to lack the will to pressure the SPDC regime into resolving the political crisis in Burma through democratic means. To better understand Asean's position, the factors that have underpinned Asean's commitment to preserve its principle of nonintervention and state sovereignty despite repeated human rights violations in Burma are analyzed. To what extent is Asean's commitment to the principle of nonintervention in keeping with the dominance of authoritarian states in the otherwise less than cohesive regional body? Is the recently unveiled Asean Charter an elite-driven initiative that is not intended to challenge the nonintervention principle? In addition to addressing these questions, this essay will conclude by analyzing the dynamics underpinning Singapore-Burma relations with a view to highlighting Asean's fragmented community that is dominated by authoritarian states not committed to promoting democracy and human rights, much less to resolving the political crisis in Burma.

Notes

1. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has spent twelve of the last eighteen years under house arrest. The political party she leads, National League for Democracy, won 80 percent of the votes in the 1990 elections, but was prevented from assuming the reins of government by the military.

2. Duffbrown 2007.

3. Singapore's foreign minister, George Yeo, further buttressed this assumption, saying in late September 2007, “The important thing is to back Gambari [UN special envoy] and to help the Myanmar people toward national reconciliation….They need to find a fresh way forward. The old approach can no longer work.” Cited in Pereira 2007.

4. Asean lawmakers call for intervention. Straits Times, 27 September 2007.

5. Asean Peoples Assembly 2007.

6. Human Rights Watch 2007.

7. Duffbrown 2007.

8. Cited in McIndoe 2007.

9. Pereira 2007.

10. Editorial (Bangkok Post) 2007.

11. Kuhonta 2006, 340.

12. Soesastro 2003.

13. Cited in Capie 2003, 88.

14. None of the Asean member states supported a UN resolution condemning Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.

15. Cited in Capie 2003, 97.

16. Ojendal 2004.

17. Cited in Capie 2003, 98.

18. The policy of “enhanced interaction” condoned efforts by individual Asean leaders to take up issues with cross-boundary implications. The nonintervention principle was maintained as these issues would not be undertaken under Asean's auspices. Refer to Haacke 2005.

19. Altsean Burma 2007b.

20. Kuhonta 2006, 349–50.

21. Ibid., 346.

22. Ibid.

23. Kang 2006, 67.

24. Ibid., 66.

25. Ibid.

26. Axworthy 2001, 20.

27. Report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to Asean Leaders 2006, 1.

28. Ibid., 1-2.

29. Ibid., 5.

30. Asean 2007.

31. Ibid.,1.

32. SAPA 2007.

33. Asean 2007, 4.

34. Report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to Asean Leaders 2006, 3.

35. Asean 2007, 18.

36. Report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to Asean Leaders 2006, 3.

37. SAPA 2007.

38. Ibid.

39. Archarya 2001.

40. Lawson 2005

41. Kaldor, Martin, and Selchow 2007.

42. Ibid., 283-85.

43. Chavez 2006, 6.

44. Human Rights Watch 2005.

45. There is a mutual recognition arrangement (MRA) for intra-Asean migrant professionals. Refer to Chavez 2006, 7.

46. Rahim 2004, 38.

47. Razzen 2004.

48. Fifth from the right is the party pooper. Economist, 26 November 2007.

49. Crispin 2007.

50. Chavez 2006, 5.

51. This strategy has since been expediently reconfigured with the adoption of a stronger regional posture in the recognition that Southeast Asia has much to gain by the rise of China and India. Refer to Ibrahim 2007.

52. Rahim 2004a, 57.

53. Jones and Smith 2002, 105.

54. Bellamy 2004.

55. Acharya 2001.

56. Collins 2007.

57. Jones and Smith 2002.

58. Khoo 2000, 43.

59. Haacke 2003.

60. Lee 2000, 369.

61. Nischalke 2002, 104.

62. Haacke 2005, 212.

63. Cited in ibid., 202.

64. Collins 2007, 209.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid., 207–9.

67. Lee 2000, 361–62.

68. Ibid., 363.

69. Ibid., 360.

70. Lee 2000, 364.

71. Kean and Bernstein 1998, 334.

72. They include three Singaporean banks and the Government-Linked Company (GLC) Keppel Corporation. See Cropley 2007.

73. Kean and Bernstein 1998, 331.

74. Levett 2005.

75. Lawrence 2002.

76. Kean and Bernstein 1998, 331.

77. Ibid., 332.

78. Since 1991, Singapore has executed four hundred people. See Kuppusamy 2007.

79. Rahim 2004b, 16-17.

80. Altsean Burma 2007a, 4.

81. Levett 2005.

82. General Than Shwe's son apparently sits on the board of Tay Za's company, Htoo Trading. Refer to Bell 2007.

83. Ibid.

84. Singapore, doctor and alleged banker to Myanmar's generals. AFP, 14 November 2007.

85. Ibid.

86. Indonesia and Malaysia have banned sand exports to the poor city-state citing its past illegal imports of sand.

87. Altsean Burma 2007a.

88. Ellis 2007.

89. Ibid.

90. Nischalke 2002, 105.