From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 27 Jul 92 11:54 PDT
Subject: Guardian Of Stability
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700282:000:3008
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jul 27 11:54:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Guardian Of Stability

/* Written  8:19 am  Jul 26, 1992 by apakabar in cdp:reg.indonesia */

    Reuter, Manila, July 27 - U.S. Secretary of State James Baker
promised Southeast Asian allies on Sunday that the United States would
remain a Pacific power.
    Baker also urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
to send a "loud and clear" message to Burma about what he called its
deplorable human rights record.
    Association members have in general been reluctant to speak out
about Rangoon's record, preferring what they call a policy of
constructive engagement.
    In a speech to foreign ministers of the economic and diplomatic
alliance, set up in 1967 partly in response to communist expansion in
the region, Baker sought to calm fears that the end of the Cold War
would mean a diminished American role in the area.
    He acknowledged that the U.S. withdrawal from Subic Bay Naval Base
in the Philippines by year-end means there will no longer be permanent
American bases in Southeast Asia.
    But he insisted: "This development has not altered our interest in,
nor our commitment to, Asian security. The form of our presence may have
changed but the substance of our commitment is firm.
    "The United States is a Pacific power and will remain one," he said,
stressing that "our forces are forward-deployed in Japan, South Korea
and Guam." Baker said there were new agreements granting the United
States limited access to facilities in other countries, like Singapore
and Malaysia.
    "America's resolve to honour its treaty commitments, to promote
economic growth and to support the peaceful resolution of disputes
remains the bedrock of our policy toward Asia," he added.
    ASEAN groups Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore
and Malaysia.
    He expressed concern over "disturbing problems" with the United
Nations-administered peace settlement for Cambodia.
    The Khmer Rouge faction, responsible for more than a million deaths
when it ruled Cambodia from 1975 to December 1978, has refused to join
three other factions in disarming most of its men.
    Baker said there had been "some positive but very limited changes"
in Burma in the last year, including the release of a handful of
political prisoners.
    "But this minimal progress cannot obscure the reality that Burma's
human rights situation remains deplorable," he added, noting that Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was beginning her fourth year of
house arrest on political charges.
    "Collectively, our message to the Burmese military authorities must
be loud and clear: release all political prisoners immediately and begin
a dialogue aimed at rapidly transferring power to a
democratically-elected government," he said.
    Baker also called attention to what he called the tragic plight of
more than 270,000 Rohingya Burmese Moslem refugees driven from their
homes into Bangladesh, and of another 70,000 forced into Thailand.