ASEAN to question Myanmar over election laws

By Bill Tarrant

HANOI, April 7 (Reuters) - Myanmar will be grilled about its much derided election laws when foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meet in Hanoi on Wednesday, Thailand's top diplomat said.

'This evening, I hope we will be talking about Myanmar,' Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters after arriving in Hanoi for a working dinner with his ASEAN counterparts.

'Questions about elections and how it would affect ASEAN will be raised. There are still points we want to make. We want to see a free, fair and inclusive election and the big question is whether that can be achieved and how.'

Indonesia and the Philippines have been highly critical of Myanmar's election laws, which ban political prisoners, such as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, from running.

Her National League for Democracy, which won the last polls in 1990 by a landslide but was kept from governing, is boycotting this one. The junta has so far kept the polling date a secret.

Vietnam, a one-party communist state that has jailed a number of dissidents recently, is not keen to see Myanmar in the spotlight over its record when it chairs the annual ASEAN leaders meeting Thursday-Friday. Like Myanmar itself, Hanoi does not believe in interfering in another country's internal affairs.

ASEAN has never censured Myanmar over its rights record and is unlikely to do so this time. But Kasit's comments are a strong indication that Myanmar will feature on the summit agenda.

'The Myanmar issue still presents a problem when we want to take ASEAN forward to negotiate and deal with other groupings and countries,' Kasit said. 'It presents a major limitation for us.'

'Myanmar knows very well what the issues and reservations are. A few countries in ASEAN have been speaking quite directly about these issues so we hope to hear from them.'



ATTRACTIVE COMMUNITY

The main item on the summit agenda is putting into action ASEAN's vision of creating an economic, political and security community over the next five years.

The ASEAN economic community would encompass a region of 580 million people with a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion -- a powerful attraction to companies looking to expand market share and install supply chains.

ASEAN adopted a rules-based charter in 2007 to better negotiate bloc-to-bloc with similar entities such as the European Union. But the EU considers Myanmar a pariah state, which has slowed interaction between the two groups.

'Myanmar is a sensitive and delicate issue,' said a senior ASEAN diplomat who requested anonymity.

'The leaders of the regime are very touchy and would easily shut down and snub us if we push too hard. But we cannot sit back and do nothing either if we want ASEAN to be a genuinely effective grouping with credibility.'

Once part of the 'East Asia miracle' of the 1990s, Southeast Asia has again become an emerging market darling, and along with China and South Korea leading the world out of financial crisis.

It is once again attracting billions of dollars in capital inflows and its stock markets are among the world's best performers this year. ASEAN finance ministers said on Tuesday growth in their economies could hit 5.6 percent in 2010.

Myanmar, on the other hand, is at the bottom of most league tables of development. But just after World War Two, Burma, as it was then known, was one of Asia's most advanced nations, rich in resources and high in literacy.

Wedged between China and India, it was once a non-aligned leader and is geo-politically significant.

That is largely why the Obama administration has changed tack and opted for U.S. engagement with the generals.

Myanmar's election has been widely dismissed as a sham aimed at prolonging five decades of iron-fisted army rule by effectively allowing the military to pull the strings in a civilian-fronted government.

ASEAN has repeatedly called for 'fair and inclusive' elections, but still sees this vote as a transition to civilian rule, however flawed that may be, and as an exit ramp off a half-century of military rule, isolation and destitution.

ASEAN, which includes an absolute monarchy in Brunei, an advanced city state in Singapore, impoverished and communist Laos, as well as robust democracies such as Indonesia, is a far more diverse region than Europe. Reaching a consensus on knotty problems such as Myanmar will not be easy.

(Additional reporting by Ambika Ahuja; Editing by Ron Popeski) Keywords: ASEAN SUMMIT/MYANMAR (Reuters Messaging: [e-mail]; e-mail [e-mail]; [phone]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.