VIENTIANE, LAO PDR — In a scene reminiscent of the days when
Burma’s former military junta was regularly lambasted at international
meetings, world leaders are again raising the issue of human rights abuses in
the country’s border regions—this time at the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM9)
in the Laos capital Vientiane.
Burma’s President Thein Sein is
attending the Nov. 5-6 meeting along with other heads of state and heads of
government from Europe and Asia, including outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,
Russia President Dmitri Medvedev and French President Francois Hollande.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign
and Commonwealth Office (FCO) traveling with Foreign Secretary William Hague,
who is also in Vientiane, told The Irrawaddy that Hague said he was was “very
concerned about the situation in Rakhine,” referring to Arakan State in western
Burma.
Hague opened a new British
embassy in Vientiane on Monday morning, after which the FCO spokesperson said
that the foreign secretary is hoping to meet Thein Sein. He added, however,
that the get-together is yet to be confirmed as of Monday afternoon.
“We would like the problems, the
unresolved problems of the status of the Rohingya people to be addressed by the
leaders in Burma across politics,” Hague earlier told reporters.
Earlier on Monday Australian
Prime Minister Julia Gillard sat with Thein Sein in the first bilateral meeting
between the two countries’ leaders since 1984.
Gillard congratulated Thein Sein
for his personal leadership of the country’s reforms, according to Australian
reports of the meeting, but raised concerns about human rights. “More needs to
happen on questions like human rights for ethnic minorities, so there is more
to do, but we should be welcoming the journey that is being undertaken in
Myanmar,” she said.
Today’s meeting with Gillard is
expected to be followed by a visit to Australia by Thein Sein in December.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest
Muslim-majority country and, like Burma, a member of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), also raised the Rohingya issue. Foreign
Minister Marty Natalegawa was quoted by AFP as saying that “of course the
matter to do with the Rohingya … is an issue of concern for Asean countries,
for individual Asean countries.”
“We [Indonesia] wish very much
for Myanmar to be able to address this problem in a positive way in the same
way that it has on the overall democratic process,” he added, referring to
changes such as the release of political prisoners, relaxation of media
restrictions and the slow emergence of Burma’s Parliament as a key forum for
debate and legislative change.
Burma will chair Asean in 2014,
an offer made in late 2011 as a reward for reforms already underway in the
longtime military-ruled country.
A heavy security presence in the
usually quiet riverside Laotian capital has seen streets around the summit
venue closed off to traffic, with machine-gun wielding soldiers and heavily
armed police seen all over the city. There is little to no access to the
delegates for media covering the summit, with the main meetings taking place in
a separate hall a kilometer from the media center.
Campaign group Global Witness
said that more than 100 families, or 500 people, were pushed off their land in
the capital without their consent and with little compensation to make space
for purpose-built accommodation for summit delegates.
ASEM9 marks a rare moment in the
international new spotlight for Laos, which recently joined the World Trade
Organization and has registered 8.3 percent economic growth this year.
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