သူတို ့ အလွည့္ ေရာက္လာေတာ့မွာပါ

Their time will come
Thursday, 15 April 2010 21:01
IT’S unfortunate that the Asean summit ended recently in Hanoi without a clear signal from the nine Southeast Asian neighbors of Burma/Myanmar that the steps it has taken to ensure the credibility of this year’s elections are far from satisfactory.


The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), long criticized for its policy of constructive engagement with the junta that has held in its tight grip a hapless nation for decades, had given out some signal that it might be prepared to drum the human-rights and democracy issue into such a controversial regime when it adopted its charter last year and then moved to set up its own human-rights body. Since then, however, little progress seems to have been made as far as Burma is concerned.

At the end of last week’s summit in Hanoi, the chairman’s statement simply said: “We underscored the importance of national reconciliation in Myanmar and the holding of a general election in a free, fair and inclusive manner, thus contributing to Myanmar’s stability and development.”

Inter Press Service (IPS) quoted Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, summit chairman, as telling reporters at the meeting’s end: “The elections should be free and democratic, with the participation of all parties involved, and lead to real national reconciliation.” This, he added, would “help stabilize the country, creating a base for economic development.”

That’s it? No mention, IPS noted, of the National League for Democracy or its most famous leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is boycotting the election after the regime found new reason to extend her detention with the charges related to harboring an American man who swam in a lake to access her house and stayed there overnight, “to warn her,” supposedly, of risks to her life.

At the Hanoi summit’s end, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, was quoted as saying that “on the Myanmar issue, we just have to have patience.”

Well, patience is running out among a people who were deprived of the chance to be ruled by the party and leaders they voted for in a free election in 1990. In fact, even among Asean leaders, there has been an edge of irritation of late. Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, according to IPS, seem bent on nudging the junta, “at least privately,” to ensure that the elections aren’t a joke—in short, an embarrassment to Asean. Manila’s Foreign Minister Alberto Romulo was even more blunt. He was widely quoted as saying a few weeks back that at the rate things are going, the upcoming Burma elections seemed to be a mockery of democracy. He mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyi by name as a crucial factor to proving that the elections are fair and free. But then, that’s just one member lamenting the state of things in Burma.

The junta was lucky that focus on it was overshadowed by Thailand’s turmoil while the summit was going on. Sooner or later, however, there will be a time of reckoning, and for the sake of our Burmese brothers, it is hoped that real change would come peacefully. As the now-ailing Suu Kyi once told a feisty Australian journalist who did a secret documentary of the Burmese saga, “Our time will come.”
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24128:editorial-their-time-will-come&catid=28:opinion&Itemid=64