BANGKOK – The showdown between Burma‘s military regime and the European Union (EU) at this weekend’s meeting of Asian and European leaders has propelled into one that could damage the EU’s stature if Rangoon does not blink.
As it is, the stakes have never been higher. The Europeans are threatening the junta with plans to deny more Burmese officials travel visas coupled with a push to freeze international lending to the military dictatorship.
In addition, the Europeans have also targeted the Southeast Asian country’s illegal logging industry, which remains a key foreign exchange earner due to the heavy demand for Burmese teak.
To escape such punitive measures, Rangoon has to meet the EU’s politically charged demands by the time the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit gets underway in Hanoi on Oct. 8.
The demands are what the junta has ignored over the past year when made by leading UN officials, like Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the U.S. government and, at times, even by some of Burma’s Southeast Asian neighbors.
They include the release from house arrest of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the halt to intimidation of people belonging to her party – the National League for Democracy (NLD) – and the resumption with full political and civil liberties of the stalled national convention to draft a new constitution.
"This has become a test of the EU’s credibility. It will have to implement its threats if the regime fails to comply," Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), a regional human rights lobby, told IPS.
These ultimatums, she adds, are the "strongest so far, because the EU has been wary of imposing economic sanctions."
For Burmese parliamentarians in exile, the EU’s demands on Rangoon have been the "loudest" threats made. "It will come down to whether it has teeth. We will have to see," Teddy Buri, president of a group of Burmese parliamentarians in exile, said in an interview.
The pressure from the EU indicates the "frustration at the direction in which the government in Burma is taking the country," he added.
Signs of this imminent confrontation were clear by mid-June, when the EU announced it was withdrawing from planned talks with Southeast Asian finance and economic ministers due to the likelihood of Burma participating at the ASEM summit.
The EU’s subsequent threat to boycott this week’s summit was resolved after it was agreed that Rangoon would reduce its level of representation at the meeting. The country’s foreign minister will be permitted to attend unlike the government leaders appearing for the other nations.
This will be the first time that Burma, also called Myanmar by the military government, will be present at ASEM, which has been meeting every two years since it was conceived in 1996.
Burma’s inclusion was part of an effort by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to ensure that its newest members gain from the ASEM agenda on economic cooperation and trade. The other two new members are Cambodia and Laos.
The remaining members of ASEAN are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
For its part, the EU will have 25 nations representing it at the summit, including for the first time the 10 new members who became part of the regional grouping this year.
The economic ties between the two groupings are reflected in the volume of trade that prevails, with reports showing that the EU was ASEAN’s second largest export market in 2002 and third largest trading partner following the United States and Japan.
In 2002, EU exports to ASEAN were nearly 30 billion Euros ($36.82 billion) while EU imports from ASEAN were estimated at 62 billion Euros ($76 billion), states a release from the EU’s external relations division.
The threat of this trade balance that favors ASEAN being undermined by the spat between the EU and Burma has triggered concern among some governments in this region.
It comes amidst worries over pressure on Southeast Asian countries from the U.S. government concerning the oppression in Burma. Currently, Washington has imposed sweeping trade and economic sanctions on Rangoon, including a ban on all imports to the United States from Burma.
"The U.S. sanctions are hurting the regime because it hits their economic and financial base," says Stothard, the human rights activist. "That is conveyed by the angry reactions against the U.S. sanctions coming from Rangoon."
According to her, such economic pressure from outside is the only language that the military regime takes note of. "International diplomatic pressure not backed up by economic threats will not result in change."
But Burma’s military generals, whose grip on power goes back to 1962, appear to be in no hurry to cave into such pressure, most recently from the EU. In late September, General Than Shwe, the country’s hardline military leader, displayed such stubbornness by firing Win Aung, the foreign minister.
Win Aung, one of the few civilians in the junta, was expected to present a moderate face of Rangoon at ASEM. The one who has replaced him and most likely to take his role at the Hanoi summit is a military officer, Maj. Gen. Nyan Win.
Than Shwe’s move has set up a confrontation of wills. He appears reluctant to blink.
