From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Baker Disagrees with ASEAN over Burmese Gov
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:37:28 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.filipino
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


	MANILA, Philippines (UPI) -- Calling Burma's military regime a source
of ``great instability,'' Secretary of State James Baker urged ASEAN
Sunday to help prod Rangoon into freeing political prisoners and handing
power to a democratically elected government.
	In comments underscoring an increasing rift between the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations and its major economic partners over human
rights issues, Baker painted a bleak picture of the pace of social
reform in Burma.
	``We have seen some positive but very limited changes in the last
year,'' he said during a meeting with the six ASEAN foreign ministers. 
``A handful of political prisoners has been released. A few small steps
have been taken which might lead to a constitutional convention.
	``But this minimal progress cannot obscure the reality that Burma's
human rights situation remains deplorable.... Right now, Burma is a
source of great instability and tremendous refugee flows,'' he said.
	``Collectively, our message to the Burmese military authorities must
be loud and clear: Release all political prisoners immediately and begin
a genuine dialogue aimed at rapidly transferring power to a
democratically elected government.''
	Baker's call for ASEAN to join Western pressure on Burma echoed that
of several of the group's other six major economic partners during three
days of talks here.
	And it, like other prodding on human rights issues, is likely to go
unheeded.
	ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand, bristle at assertions by its economic partners
that they would increasingly link economic aid to human rights
conditions in recipient countries.
	ASEAN ministers said human rights is a domestic issue and linking it
to economic aid violated their cultural integrity. They spurned Western
suggestions to isolate Burma's military junta, which they asserted is
the country's legitimate government.
	``We are not attracted to the idea of a joint ASEAN demarche on
Mayanmar (Burma),'' Philippine Ambassador Romualdo Ong said Saturday. 
``We don't like to stand in public judgment of a neighbor.''
	The junta took power in 1988 and has refused to surrender to the
democratic forces that defeated it at the polls in 1990. Opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in the fourth year of house arrest.
	The disagreement between ASEAN and the West on human rights issues is
hardly new. But diplomats gathered here this week said it is becoming
increasingly important because it threatens burgeoning economic links
between ASEAN and the West.
	``Economic relationships are more and more driving political
relationships,'' a Western diplomat said. ``Disagreements on human
rights...will increasingly affect relations (with the West) as the Far
East becomes more and more of an economic power.''
	ASEAN is the world's fastest growing region economically. The United
States invested $12 billion in the region in 1990 -- about double the
figure of a decade earlier.
	The association's trade with the 12-nation European Community reached
a record high of more than $50 billion in 1991.
	Portugal recently blocked a major EC-ASEAN agreement that would
bolster economic links further, saying it was protesting reports of
human rights abuses in East Timor, a former Portuguese territory annexed
by Indonesia in 1976.
	Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas charged Sunday the move
injected ``a sour note into the otherwise very good relationship''
between the two regions.
	``This is the first time that something like this has been used so
blatantly in the ASEAN-EC relationship,'' he said.
	ASEAN ministers said Saturday night they regretted Portugal's
decision and hoped the treaty could be finalized during talks scheduled
for October in Manila despite the disagreement.