Myanmar: Asean nations have vital role
Oct 4th, 2007
2007/10/04
Myanmar: Asean nations have vital role
By : DAVID MILIBAND
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, United Kingdom
THE eyes of the world are on Myanmar. Over the past week, we have seen monks and ordinary people alike unite in peaceful protest at a failed and illegitimate government and the hardship it has created. They were met with guns and batons.
The regime has tried to hide this horror from us. But modern technology has meant that we have witnessed images of extraordinary brutality as the regime cracks down on those who dare to stand up.
Regardless of our creed or colour, the shameful scenes we have witnessed inside Myanmar have repulsed and angered us all.
It is inconceivable how any government could order its soldiers to beat peaceful, unarmed monks.
Now people across the world are demanding that the international community take action that will make Myanmar’s leaders stop and listen.
At the United Nations in New York, foreign ministers have been united in their condemnation of the violence and in their calls for the regime to end their bloody repression. It is clear what the next steps must be: we need the violence to stop and for a genuine and credible reconciliation process to be put in place.
That process must have Aung San Suu Kyi playing a central role, and include leaders from opposition and minority groups. And it will need to have international legitimacy and support. All with influence on the regime must press them now to agree to this.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
The Burmese military junta will never negotiate. They have shown time after time that they will hold onto power by whatever means is necessary. They have trampled on the rights of all the nationalities in ‘Burma’, which was an artificial construct of the British Raj in the first place, with pieces of territory hived off from traditional peoples for the sake of their colonial machinations with competitors in Europe.
Each nationality must have the right to self-determination, and then perhaps some form of inter-state cooperation might go forward.