Burma has the tenacity to take both Asean and the EU hostage. And prevail. This pariah state has been practising and perfecting the dark art of divide and rule. Indeed little has changed since the 1991 Asean-EU ministerial meeting in Luxembourg, when the Burmese issue was first raised and discussed among the leaders of the assembled nations.
So, it came as no surprise when Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said last week that his country's admission into the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) had "unfairly" been tied to that of Burma. As a former foreign minister of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, he understands and appreciates the progress Cambodia has made and the strong international support it has enjoyed for the past decade. Cambodia is eager to benefit from the dividends of peace.
Who is to blame for such an agonising appeal? Who is being unfair? Asean or the EU?
Or both? Apparently issues related to Burma have evolved into a gaming system that both groupings can use to test each other's determination, if not their hypocrisy. Shamelessly, the leaders of both Asean and the EU are willing to use and bet on the future of Burma for mean political expediency. It has been an Asean tactic to stay bundled together when dealing with the EU, not letting the EU corner individual Asean members or exploit the grouping's internal differences over Burma. Before Burma was admitted to Asean in 1997, the grouping made an all-out effort to defend the regime, saying that Asean understood Burma better than anyone else because of the country's proximity to its members.
However, five years after Burma's admission, Asean is still struggling to say why its method of peer pressure, of which the grouping's members are very proud, has failed to deliver the positive results that have been promised all along.
In the year that has passed since the Depayin incident last May, dissident voices have surfaced from within Asean. But they have not been loud or consistent enough. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who was instrumental in pushing through Burma's admission, severely criticised the country and suggested that Asean could expel Burma if it failed to modify its behaviour. Asean insiders knew that was wishful thinking. Unlike the Commonwealth, Asean does not have a mechanism or a charter to allow the grouping to punish members that damage the organisation or behave badly. At the Asean meeting in Phnom Penh last July, Cambodia was brave enough to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and other members echoed that sentiment. The world community hailed the call.
Unfortunately the budding movement was short-lived. Asean temporarily stopped defending Burma for about 170 days, from May 31 to October 6, 2003, but in the wake of the Bali summit, the grouping shifted back to the uneasy status quo of backing the junta. At the summit, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was the only Asean leader to defend Burma and its newly appointed Prime Minister Khin Nyunt. He urged his colleagues to give the new junta leader a chance to prove himself. With such a strong advocate, Asean leaders were polite enough not to publicise their disagreement and complied. Today Burma is the tail that wags Asean.
For the EU, Burma is an equally large dilemma. EU members have been torn between two different paths, one calling for continued and tougher sanctions against the country and the other appealing for softer measures. The latter would reward Burma for any constructive moves with a sort of carrot-and-stick approach.
It is an open secret that the EU does not want this controversy to stand in the way of further economic and investment cooperation with Asean. The EU has been refining its strategies towards the Asian region in general and Asean in particular since 1994. Europe views Asean as a huge market and a gateway to the rest of Asia and the Pacific. With the region's economic recovery and infrastructure development under way, the EU does not want to miss out on this lucrative market of over 500 million people.
After much wrangling among key members such as France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Denmark, the EU is extending its system of boycotts from last year without going for specific economic sanctions, as some of the members wished. Fortunately they did agree that Burma's admission to Asem must be contingent on a constructive engagement between the junta and opposition groups at the National Convention and on Suu Kyi's release. That has not yet happened. Obviously the EU would like its 10 new members that joined the union in May to become Asem members in exchange for the memberships of Cambodia, Laos and Burma. Although Cambodia and Laos want to join Asem as soon as possible, they do not want to hurt Asean solidarity. Unlike Burma, both countries have benefited from Asean-EU economic cooperation.
Ironically, this approach has given Burma a free hand to manipulate all Asean members. Sadly but truly, Asean has since come down with an internalised case of Stockholm Syndrome, as if Burma were the very soul of Asean. As a rule, the grouping will not wash its dirty linen in full view of the international community. Rather the members have chosen to endure the agony and intransigence of a house divided.