BurmaNet News, September 2-5, 2006

[Editor]

September 2-5, 2006 Issue # 3039


INSIDE BURMA
Vancouver Sun: Burmese opium kingpin switches to online gambling
IMNA: University students banned from wearing Mon traditional clothes
AP: Pluto remains a planet for Myanmar's leading astrologers
AP: Myanmar to resume constitution-drafting convention in October

ON THE BORDER
Xinhua: Myanmar to partly retain border trade system in second border
trade zone

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Timber deal with Burma raises questions
Xinhua: Myanmar to develop bond market

REGIONAL
AFP: Isolation of Myanmar not the solution: Singapore PM

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Burma set to dominate ASEM again
Washington Post: U.S. makes a push for U.N. action on Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Progress as Asean finally backs away from Burma - Kavi Chongkittavorn


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 4, The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
Burmese opium kingpin switches to online gambling - Jonathan Manthorpe

Sai Leun, the warlord of eastern Shan State in Burma's Golden Triangle,
has found a profitable substitute for the opium poppy crop that used to
sustain his 5,000-square-kilometer principality.
He fleeces Chinese gamblers. And since April he has been doing it online.

According to several Internet websites devoted to gambling news, Sai Leun,
also known as Lin Mingxian, shifted emphasis to an online operation after
Chinese authorities threatened to closedown the gaudy casino town of
Mongla, 10 kilometers over the border from China's Yunnan province.

Mongla, a startlingly incongruous outpost of concrete and throbbing neon
nestled in one of the most isolated jungle regions of Southeast Asia, is a
tawdry mix of gambling clubs, massage parlors, and Thai transvestite floor
shows.

Chinese authorities have become increasingly disturbed at the amount of
money flooding out of Yunnan into Sai Leun's casinos, especially as there
is evidence of officials engaging in embezzlement and corruption on a
massive scale to feed their gambling habits.

About a year ago, Chinese officials tried to close the border to stop the
estimated 1,000-a-day gamblers going to Mongla. There are unconfirmed
reports China even sent troops to confront Sai Leun, who has his own
militia of about 3,000 well-armed troops known, grandly, as the National
Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA).

Sai Leun is not easily intimidated, as his biography shows, and he has
chosen to fight rather than kow-tow to China. Sai Leun is an ethnic Shan
Chinese from this porous border region, where there have tradi-tionally
been few barriers to the movement of people and commodities. In the 1960s,
Sai Leun was a Red Guard in Yunnan province during China's Cultural
Revolution. Late in that decade he was sent to help strengthen the
Communist Party of Burma and his leadership talents soon became evident.
He became the field commander of a guerrilla unit operating in the area
around Mongla.

The communist insurgency in northeastern Burma disintegrated in 1989 and
Sai Leun, leading the NDAA faction, signed a deal with the Burmese
military regime. The essence of the deal made with the Burmese
intelligence chief and third-ranking officer in the junta at the time,
Khin Nyunt, was that in return for not at-tacking government troops Sai
Leun would have almost complete autonomy in the area around Mongla, known
as Special Region Number Four.

He was also allowed to keep his army. And it was agreed that a blind eye
would be turned on his opium growing and heroin trafficking activities, so
long as a share of the profits went to the generals in Rangoon.

By the mid-1990s Sai Leun had developed the Mongla area into a vastly
profitable undertaking. He was trafficking up to 2,000 kilograms of pure
heroin a year, and some of the profits were used to build casinos in
Mongla.

Trouble, however, came at Sai Leun from two directions.

Washington's State Department identified him as a kingpin in the global
heroin trade and he was put on America's list of 10 most wanted
international criminals.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly concerned
about the role of drug ad-diction in the HIV/AIDS epidemic then sweeping
into China from Burma. Beijing started putting pressure on the generals in
Rangoon to do something about Sai Leun.

But he is a survivor with a keen sense of threatening weather. In 1997,
Sai Leun declared Mongla an "opium-free zone" and got himself off
Washington's most wanted list.

For a while, Mongla suffered a recession until Sai Leun got the gambling
and sex tourism business up and running.

The new online gambling business is based on 14 new baccarat casinos built
in the jungle 16 kilometers southwest of Mongla.

Cameras above the tables broadcast live to the Internet, and gamblers in
Beijing, Kunming and Shang-hai can log in after they have paid a deposit
into the casinos' Chinese banks. They can place bets by cell-phone with
agents at the jungle casinos, and any winnings can be transferred straight
into their Chinese bank accounts.

So Beijing should be happy, because no money has to leave China, and Sai
Leun can be secure for a while longer in his jungle kingdom.

____________________________________

September 4, Independent Mon News Agency
University students banned from wearing Mon traditional clothes

The Southeast Commander has changed the dress code of students of the
University of Moulmein (Mawlamyine) and tutors. All Mon students have been
barred from wearing traditional Mon costumes and clothes on Monday, said a
university student.

In the university one normally had the freedom to wear traditional clothes
and Mon Family (the association of Mon Nationality in University) members
and students of the University have been wearing Mon traditional clothes
on Monday as a day symbol of the Mon people.

The order came in the third week of June and the students have to wear the
blue loun-gji and sarong on Monday and Friday.

The rule was framed by the commander of the Southeast Command and he does
not want to see Mon traditional clothes any more, said a Botany major. “It
is so obvious since the rules are for only one day. The authorities have
ordered wearing sky blue uniform on Monday and Friday.”

Usually, there were about 160 people wearing Mon costumes Mi Non Htaw, a
University student said.

The rumour has been spread among the students that the authorities have
planned to prohibit the traditional clothes and the students might have to
wear uniforms from next year.

The students claim that the ethnic traditional clothes including Mon
traditional costumes will be disappearing from the university campus if
the authority’s plan to introduce uniforms is implemented.

____________________________________

September 4, Associated Press
Pluto remains a planet for Myanmar's leading astrologers

Yangon: Myanmar's leading astrologers say they still consider Pluto a
planet, despite what scientists elsewhere in the world have decided, a
newsweekly said Monday.

"Pluto has been traditionally defined as a planet in astrology, and it
will retain that status," U Tiun Lin, president of the Myanmar Astrologers
Association was quoted as saying in the Myanmar Times.

Scientists at the International Astronomical Union met in Prague last week
and voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet, saying that a planet
must orbit the sun and be large enough to assume a nearly round shape. The
decision downsized the solar system to eight planets from the traditional
nine.

"Those scientists can decide what they like, but we will continue to
recognize Pluto's important role in the solar system and we will continue
to consider it in our calculations as we always have," U Tun Lin said. "It
is far from Earth and has a very wide orbit, which means it is too weak to
influence predictions for individuals but does have the power to influence
long-term predictions about bigger events."

Astrology is widely followed in Myanmar, as it is in many Asian countries,
and people regularly consult astrologers.

The news report quoted other well-known astrologers saying they too will
continue to call Pluto a planet.

"Pluto plays an important role in predicting the future of nations, so it
has a powerful status. We can't erase the traditional ways, just as we
can't change the essence of religious teachings whenever we like," said
Than Htay, vice president of the Myanmar Astrology Research Bureau.
Myanmar astrologers classify planets according to their color, size,
number of rings, orbit period and axial tilt to determine how they
influence the future of individuals or institutions, the Myanmar Times
said.

____________________________________

September 3, The Associated Press
Myanmar to resume constitution-drafting convention in October

Yangon: Myanmar's military government said Saturday it would resume a
convention to draft the country's new constitution next month, according
to state-run media.

Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, a top member of the ruling junta, said the National
Convention will resume the second week of October.

The government adjourned the meeting on Jan. 31, saying the more than
1,000 delegates needed to re-turn to work and that the convention would
resume before the end of the year "after farmers have finished their
cultivation and harvest."

The convention is the first stage of a seven-step "roadmap to democracy"
proposed by the junta, which has never announced a set schedule for a
return to electoral democracy.

Thein Sein had said in late July that the convention has finished 75
percent of its work, having laid down 15 proposed chapters to be included
in the new constitution.

Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the existing 1974
charter was suspended after the military violently suppressed mass
pro-democracy protests.

Critics consider the proceedings a sham because the delegates were
hand-picked by the military, and detained opposition leader and Nobel
Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy
party are not taking part.

The party won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but the
military refused to hand over power, claiming it had to first write a new
constitution.

The junta first convened the National Convention in 1993, but it failed to
make much headway and soon suspended its work. The convention was
resurrected in 2004, starting its work from scratch.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

September 5, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to partly retain border trade system in second border trade zone

Yangon: Myanmar will partly retain border  trade system in the light of
the establishment of the country's  second border trade zone of Myawaddy
in the process of  transformation of its border trade system at all trade
points into normal one, the local weekly Voice reported in its latest
issue.
The border trade system, which will be reserved at the Myawaddy trade
point, deals with consumers goods, sources with the Directorate of Trade
under the Ministry of Commerce was quoted as saying.
The sources had earlier said that in the course of  transformation, 30
percent of the trading system will be re-kept  with border trade system to
facilitate the livelihood of the  border inhabitants, while 70 percent
will be adopted by normal  trade system.
In Myanmar's course of transforming border trade system into  normal trade
one, the Muse 105th Mile Border Trade Zone bordering  China's Ruili in
Yunnan province stood the first and the largest  of its kind established
in April this year, while the Myawaddy  border trade zone in southeastern
Kayin state bordering Thailand's Maesot is emerging as the second of its
kind. More will follow suit including Tamu with India and Maungtaw with
Bangladesh.
Myanmar stressed five objectives of undertaking the border trade which
include improvement of bilateral relations with  neighboring countries,
progress of border trade, transformation of border to normal trade and
full collection of taxes.
Myanmar has a total of 13 main border trade points with four neighboring
countries -- China, Thailand, India and Bangladesh.
Thailand stands as Myanmar's largest trading partner, taking up about 1.9
billion U.S. dollars or 38 percent of Myanmar's 4.9 billion dollars'
foreign trade in 2004-05, statistics show. Of the Myanmar-Thai bilateral
trade, the border trade, which started in 1996, represented about 70
percent.
The statistics also show that the border trade volume between Myanmar and
Thailand in the fiscal year of 2005-06, which ended in March, amounted to
185.188 million U.S. dollars and that in the first quarter of 2006-07
reached 49.216 million dollars.
The trade volume at the Myawaddy point stood 107.156 million dollars in
2005-06 with Myanmar's export to Thailand registering at 52.523 million
dollars and its import from the neighbor 54.533  million dollars, the
figures indicate.
Besides Myawaddy, Myanmar also trades with Thailand at Tachilek, Kawthoung
and Meik (Free on Board) under the border trade system.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

September 4, Irrawaddy
Timber deal with Burma raises questions - Sai Silp

A recent report that the Thai government has inked a timber deal with
Burma has left many Thai businesspeople wondering how the agreement will
benefit the country.

Suthin Pornchaisuri, vice-president of the Thai Parawood Association based
in Songkla province in southern Thailand, said that the agreement would
give the Thai timber industry more choices.

He added that the cost of transportation from Burma would also drive up
timber prices, and supplies from Burma may not be enough to offset
Thailand’s shortage of timber for commercial production.

Suthin was responding to a report by the Thai News Agency on Sunday that
the government—according to Noppadon Pattama, vice minister of natural
resources and environment—is preparing to sign a timber contract with the
Burmese government and will survey about one million rai (nearly 160,000
hectares) of rubber plantations.

“Parawood [rubber wood] processing must be done within three days of
cutting down the timber because of its sensitivity to mod,” said Suthin.
“On top of that, Burmese government policies are always subject to changes
that could affect trade at any time.”

He added that there was no real shortage of parawood in Thailand. Rather,
farmers preferred to extract as much of the rubber sap as possible—the
price of which has risen considerably in recent months—before harvesting
the trees for timber.

An official from the Forest Industry Organization said that the expected
agreement will be the subject of talks this month between Noppadon and
Burmese officials.

A large supply of Burmese rubber trees—25 years or older—according to the
FIO official, is ready for logging. Most of the Burmese plantations are
near the Thailand borders in Mae Hong Son and Ranong provinces and
throughout Karen and Mon states.

According to the TPA, trade in exported parawood products in 2005 reached
nearly 8 billion baht (nearly US $217 million), while exports of parawood
furniture in the same period were valued at 18 billion baht ($487
million).

Timber imports from Burma were stopped in 1997 after it was discovered
that trees felled in Thailand’s Salween National Park were being smuggled
into Burma and then exported back to Thailand.

Burmese officials in August allowed Thai traders to import small
allotments of timber from Shan State across the Mae Sai border checkpoint
into Thailand. Logging in Burma has drawn criticism from environmental
activists who fear that the unchecked trade in timber from Burma has led
to deforestation in the country.

_____________________________________

September 4, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to develop bond market

Yangon: Myanmar is planning to set up a securities and exchange commission
to help develop a bond market in the country, the weekly Myanmar Times
reported Monday.

The commission, which will be the first government body of its kind, will
serve to develop and regulate a securities and bond market in Myanmar, the
report quoted sources with the Ministry of Finance and Revenue as saying.

The plan of the establishment came in response to the plans by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to set up a bond market in
the region in the future.

There is only one securities exchange center in Myanmar launched in June
1996. The center emerged as a joint venture between Myanmar economic Bank
and the Daiwa Institute of Research of Japan each holding 50 percent
equity of share to initiate a securities market in the country in support
of marketisation, privatization and internalization of the Myanmar
economy.

The Myanmar securities exchange center sells shares from two public
companies -- Forest Products Joint Venture Corporation and Myanmar Citizen
Bank as well as treasury bonds from the Central Bank of Myanmar, according
to the report.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

September 4,  Agence France Presse
Isolation of Myanmar not the solution: Singapore PM

Singapore: Myanmar is a "very difficult practical problem" but isolating
the military-ruled country would not lead to democracy, Singapore Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday.

A sudden shift from military to civilian rule would also not be easy, Lee
said at the Forbes CEO Conference here.

"I don't think practically it is easy for an outsider to cause Myanmar to
change a political system," he said.

"If you said the military gets out and the civilians take charge, I am not
sure what they will be taking charge of because there is no civilian
outfit and system to run the country."
He added that sanctions are unlikely to work.

"In the case of Myanmar they want to close themselves off from the world.
So if you impose sanctions on them, they say thank you very much, I am
very happy to live by myself," Lee said.
"If you want to influence Myanmar, then the persuasion has to come from
all directions, including China and India who have their own interests and
calculations," Lee said.

"Practically speaking, we can exhort, we can encourage but there's a
limited amount you can do actually to cause change to happen, and I think
that is a conclusion which many governments in the world have come to."

Lee said the Europeans and the Americans have taken a strong stand against
Myanmar's ruling junta because "they have a few stakes involved" in the
country.

Last Friday, the United States pressed to have political repression and
human rights abuses in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, put formally on
the agenda of the United Nations Security Council.

Washington has led efforts to force Yangon to change its repressive
policies and release democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 17 years.

Her National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections but was never
allowed to rule. Its offices have been shut down by the junta, which has
also locked up many other party members.
A number of other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members
have also openly ex-pressed frustration with the pace of democratic reform
in Myanmar.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 5, Irrawaddy
Burma set to dominate ASEM again - Clive Parker

Burma looks poised once again to cast a shadow on the Asia-Europe Meeting,
with Foreign Minister Nyan Win due to arrive in the Finnish capital
Helsinki by the weekend for the two-day leader’s summit beginning next
Monday.

The Finnish embassy in Bangkok, which also serves Burma, confirmed on
Tuesday that Nyan Win would lead a delegation of Foreign Ministry staff
despite being banned from the EU. Brussels has this year “reinterpreted”
its own stance on the issue, enacting an exemption on the ban in cases
“where travel is justified on the grounds of
 attending intergovernmental
meetings.”

Lars Backstrom, the Finnish ambassador to Thailand and Burma, said a
discussion on Burma’s human rights situation would be included in the
bi-annual meeting, a condition in the EU’s own rules in cases where
Burmese officials are allowed into the territory: “Naturally, this is
important to the European Union that we have been given an opportunity to
discuss the situation
of Myanmar [Burma] and that will be done,” he said.

Burma Campaign UK, a group that opposes what it deems to be a relaxing of
the EU’s attitude toward the Burmese government, is one of a number of
organizations that opposes Brussels’ decision to allow junta officials
into Europe: “We think it is disgraceful that the European Union is
allowing him to attend,” spokesperson Mark Farmaner said from Helsinki.
“There is no point in having a visa ban if you make exceptions every time
a regime official wants to visit Europe.”

The question of Burma’s participation at ASEM has plagued the grouping of
39 Asian and European countries in the past. A year ago, Holland caused a
split between Europe and Asia after refusing to grant a visa to the
Burmese economic minister, Soe Tha, for an ASEM meeting in The Hague,
prompting Japan to accuse Brussels of confusing bilateral and multilateral
issues.

The EU has since decided to agree not to ban Burmese ministers at such
events, a decision that was acknowledged by Hanna Lehtinen, the head of
the ASEM Secretariat for this year’s meeting, in a press conference on
Saturday: “Myanmar’s participation has been a difficult question between
Asia and Europe,” she said. “However, we Europeans think that discussions
should continue also with Myanmar. ASEM offers a unique platform for
discussing even sensitive and difficult issues between Europe and Asia.”

The Burma issue will also feature heavily in other events during the eight
days of meetings in Helsinki. On Monday, the Asia-Europe People’s Forum
will hold an event titled “Remembering the Victims of Burma Military
Junta,” followed on Tuesday by a working group discussion on the country,
which will include Burma Campaign UK, the National Coalition Government of
the Union of Burma and exiles now living in Europe.

Farmaner said the event would look at “what has gone wrong with the
European Union” in its approach on Burma. “We do support the European
Union having serious political engagements with the regime, but this
[ASEM] is not the forum for that happening,” he said.

_____________________________________

September 2, The Washington Post
U.S. makes a push for U.N. action on Burma - Glenn Kessler

The United States moved yesterday to formally add Burma to the agenda of
the U.N. Security Council, potentially exposing the Southeast Asian
nation, which is ruled by a military junta, to international condemnation
for human rights violations and other abuses.

John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he sent a
letter to the council's president, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis,
requesting that Burma fall under the council's scrutiny because the
junta's behavior threatens regional peace and security.

Bolton and other U.S. officials said they are confident they have the
necessary nine votes, among the 15 council members, to add Burma to the
agenda. China in particular has opposed the move -- and could veto any
potential resolution -- but U.S. diplomats, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, have worked relentlessly in recent months to line up the
votes. Opponents of Security Council action have argued that the venue is
appropriate only for threats to international peace and security, not
human rights violations.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is regarded as one of the world's most
repressive nations. The National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of
Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, won a landslide
electoral victory in 1990 that the military leadership refused to accept.
She has been repeatedly held in confinement since then.

 After the junta extended Suu Kyi's detention for another year, NLD
Chairman U Aung Shwe and Secretary U Lwin wrote U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan a letter dated June 1 saying "we believe that there is no
alternative except some actions of the Security Council." They wrote that
a spreading AIDS epidemic and severe repression of ethnic groups who
spill over into neighboring countries have threatened the stability of
the region.

The administration's success was aided by the fact that many of Burma's
neighbors  --  which in the past have strongly opposed adding a Southeast
Asian nation to the Security Council docket  --  have increasingly soured
on the junta. Indonesia Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said last week
that the other nine members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
have told Burma that they will no longer defend it if brought before the
Security Council. "You must defend yourself," he said.

"Even Burma's friends have abandoned it," said Tom Malinowski, Washington
advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Malinowski, who said he "has been waiting 17 years for this moment," said
he gave the Bush administration "high marks for their diplomacy on this
issue," because when the effort began in earnest a year ago, there was
little support in Asia or other parts of the world for tackling Burma's
problems. "They said it couldn't be done," he said.

 Another key player was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel
Peace Prize winner, who met with Rice in May to press for a binding U.N.
Security Council resolution calling on the Burmese military junta to
release Suu Kyi and other political prisoners and halt a
counterinsurgency campaign that is targeting civilians. Tutu has
campaigned around the world for Security Council action, likening the
struggle in Burma to the fight against apartheid.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 4, The Nation
Progress as Asean finally backs away from Burma - Kavi Chongkittavorn

If the current diplomatic effort, spearheaded by the United States, to add
the situation in Burma to the council's agenda comes to fruition in the
near future, Burma will be isolated and forced to fight alone.
This will be an important milestone in Asean history. As a rule, Asean
does not abandon its members, but rather always fights united like a pack
of wolves. Asean has learned its lesson after decades of hard-won battles
in the UN. During the Cambodian conflict (1978 to 1991), Asean made its
name by fully backing Thailand's efforts to find a political solution in
the war-torn country. Its diplomatic credibility and skills helped to
garner and sustain the international community's support, which led to a
peaceful settlement and democratic elections in Cambodia.
In the case of Burma, Asean has taken great pains not to say anything that
would reveal discord among its members. After years of risking its
reputation by defending Burma in multilateral forums, Asean has finally
come to terms with its pariah member. Asean will now do whatever is
necessary to save the organisation and no longer dwell on the challenges
of defending an unworthy member.
Today, more and more members are convinced that the Burmese junta has not
been at all cooperative with its Asean colleagues in efforts to find
political solutions in Burma. They believe that Rangoon is dragging its
feet to ensure that future political manoeuvring will perpetuate the
current junta's grip on power. Obviously, Asean is not going to play into
the junta's hands.
At present, pessimism strongly prevails in Asean. There is no hope that
the opposition, especially Aung San Suu Kyi, will be included in the
political process as envisaged. The junta is following its own timeframe.
Therefore, more pressure and action from the council and the international
community is pivotal.
This helps explain why during the past year, the situation in Burma has
been in the minds of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), who have been tasked
with coming up with recommendations for the drafting of the Asean charter.
Burma's intransigence and its far-reaching repercussions are the main
reasons why Asean has to scrutinise and come up with measures against
non-compliance.
Of course, non-compliance within Asean is not limited only to political
issues. In recent decades, there have been many problems related to full
compliance under various schemes of Asean economic and trade cooperation
as well. Those members who have refused to comply have been able to get
away with it and have never been made to face any punishment.
The EPG will meet for the last time in Brunei in November before
submitting a report to Asean leaders at the summit in Cebu, Philippines.
One of the new ideas is how to sanction a member that fails to comply with
the Asean charter once it's established.
Various "innovative sanctions" that have been suggested to reprimand
disobedient members have been difficult for many members to swallow to a
greater extent than EPG members would like to admit. This is especially
the case among new Asean members because they fear that they might one day
become victims of this very scheme. However, with the Burmese quagmire
visibly lurking in the background, they inevitably have to tackle this
problem.
In typical Asean fashion, the EPG could only agree on milder forms of
sanctions without any provision demanding a member's expulsion, as is the
case in other regional organisations. For any sanction, including a
restriction on rights and privileges, to be implemented, the grouping's
nine members must agree unanimously. The member targeted for sanction will
be excluded.
Asean leaders can still strengthen this provision in December if there is
a growing demand within the group. Recently, Cambodian lawmakers joined
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Inter-Parliamentarian Myanmar
Caucus (AIPMC), making this pressure group a powerful instrument to use in
pressuring Burma to open up. Even Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who
has been a strong supporter of the Burmese junta, has told AIPMC delegates
that Burma needs to implement political reforms.
The AIPMC has called for Suu Kyi's freedom and for Burma to be expelled
from Asean. Only three Asean members - Brunei, Vietnam and Laos - have yet
to join the caucus. That could change in the next few months. The caucus's
strong advocacy on behalf of abandoning the longstanding principle of
non-interference in the international affairs of member states, which has
been a pillar of Asean cooperation over nearly four decades, has had a
positive impact on the EPG. It has increased awareness among its members
of the need to be more pragmatic.
Asean's unfortunate experience with Burma is also a blessing in disguise
as it allows pro-reform members in Asean the impetus to argue strongly in
favour of greater flexibility in exercising the non-interference
principle. In the future, the code of conduct within Asean will be more or
less based on shared responsibilities and obligations. In the jargon of
Asean, that means the diminishing of the non-interference principle.