US to pursue UN resolution to pressure Burma

By Amy Kazmin 
June 1, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/45019436-f13f-11da-940b-0000779e2340.html

The US intends to pursue a binding United Nations Security Council resolution demanding political change in military-ruled Burma.
The move is an attempt to ratchet up the diplomatic pressure on the junta to begin a genuine dialogue with Burma’s pro-democracy advocates.
Sean McCormack, a US State Department spokesman, said Washington wanted the UN to act to “underscore the international community’s concerns about the situation in Burma including the unjustifiable detention of a great champion of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi.”
He also said the extension of Ms Suu Kyi’s house arrest demonstrated the junta’s “unwillingness to engage in a credible and inclusive political process.” A UN resolution, he said, should underscore “our common position that the regime must ensure an inclusive and democratic political process.”
However, China and Russia — veto-wielding permanent members of the security council which have warm relations with the junta — apparently objected to the US initiative, indicating the serious obstacles Washington would face in pushing through a resolution.
Japan, an elected council member without veto power, expressed opposition to council action, saying the prolonged political crisis in Burma — called Myanmar by its leaders — was an internal problem.
“I don’t consider the situation in Myanmar as posing a threat to international peace and security,” Kenzo Oshima, Japan’s ambassador to the UN, said, adding that China and Russia supported Tokyo’s view.
Washington, which considers Burma an “outpost of tyranny”, has long ostracised the junta and imposed tough economic sanctions, including a ban on all Burmese imports.
But even Burma’s long-standing Asian friends and trading partners, including fellow members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, are growing frustrated with the slow pace of political change, and the generals’ poor economic management.
Beijing, the Burmese junta’s biggest patron, was said to be dismayed by the October 2004 internal purge of Khin Nyunt, a pragmatic former prime minister, whom Chinese officials believed could steer a reform and liberalisation process.
With Washington now determined to step up its diplomatic efforts on Burma, Aung Din, policy director of the activist US Campaign for Burma, said China and Russia may find enough common ground with the US to reach a mutually acceptable stance towards the regime.
“We are not sure that China and Russia will use their veto powers,” he said. “They could come in for negotiations to go for a middle way.”
Burma’s military has been subjected to heavy international criticism since it snubbed appeals from friends, critics and even Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, and extended the house arrest of Ms Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning democracy advocate. Ms Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, has spent around 10 of the last 17 years in detention, mostly under house arrest.
The Burmese military says it is trying to establish what it calls “disciplined democracy”, but critics say any genuine political reform process must involve Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD, which won a landslide parliamentary election victory in 1990 but was barred from taking power.
But Ibrahim Gambari, the UN political chief, raised hopes in a UN briefing on Wednesday that Ms Suu Kyi’s current confinement – which began in May 2003 – was about to end, proclaiming the Burmese junta was ready to “turn a new page” in its relations with the international community.