Min Khin Kyaw

Engagement policy should be working well. As it’s now the only player in the field.

With economic ties, the leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand went to meet the junta for political engagement. The consequence of fruitless results is ASEAN has reached nowhere politically as though Burma’s junta had veto power to stop the development of ASEAN.

Like ASEAN’s leaders, the UN’s Secretary General did his best obviously in several occasions. Ben is not just from the UN. He should be seen as a South Korean leader as well. His achievements around the world would be shared by the South Korean people.

Engagement is working in economic term but it has yet to prove its first achievement in politics. As USA goes, Japan has supported whilst the Burmese democrats are divided virtually. Without economic support, with sanction as its best, the approach of the US is rather clear and transparent but only as long as she maintains that virtue. The Whitehouse has repeated it will keep its hands clean.

Well, we all can see that Burma’s politics is strongly regional.

As the year 2010 is approaching, the election is also getting closer. Hence, the election should be held no matter what the problems and obstacles will be. With the election results, we will have to see some sort of improvements both from politics and economic arena – the people of Burma must earn some freedom in both economy and politics. For these to happen in positive ways, the coming ASEAN summit has to earn some credits from Burma’s junta.

As ASEAN has changed its game into a humanitarian engagement with Burma, we should have praised their action as a good gesture. Yet we have to see something outside virtual scenario.

ASEAN leaders need to implement the mechanism to make the engagement policy work more effectively. They have to reach out among the Burmese people for some reliefs as being a new adventure beyond the current area of engaging with the junta. It’s a collective responsibility.