Myanmar May Have Taken 'Defensive Positions' -Singapore Min
The minister was speaking ahead of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, in Singapore.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Australia's Stephen Smith, North Korea's Pak Ui-chun, Japan's Masahiko Komura, and Myanmar's Nyan Win are among the 30-odd top diplomats who will be in Singapore for the Asean Regional Forum from Friday.
The meeting is Asia's largest security gathering, and Myanmar's political and humanitarian situations are among the topics on the table. As many as 2 million victims still need assistance, aid groups say.
A joint U.N.-Asean-Myanmar assessment will be presented Monday at the Forum, Yeo said.
He also said that Myanmar will officially accede next week to the Asean Charter, the 41-year-old group's first legally binding document designed to help it become a E.U.-type trading bloc but without a single currency.
"That leaves Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines," Yeo said. "With a united Southeast Asia, we can deal with the major powers on some basis of equality."
The charter needs to be ratified by Asean's end-of-year summit in Bangkok, or it may be junked.
Myanmar's junta had initial objections to its human rights chapters.
All of Asean's 10 members, who represent a mix of the world's political systems, have faced criticism for alleged rights violations.
The bloc comprises democracies Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore; communist Laos; socialist Vietnam; military-ruled Myanmar and an absolute monarchy in Brunei.
Asean has a combined GDP of $1.3 trillion and a population of nearly 600 million. The grouping admitted Myanmar against pressure from the U.S. and the E.U. in 1997, and has also been criticized for its ongoing engagement with the junta, led by Senior General Than Shwe.
International civic and rights groups slammed the junta for the glacial pace of its response to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the country's rice-producing Irrawaddy Delta early in May. As many as 80,000 people were killed and over 50,000 missing.
The U.S. military sent its USS Essex Ready Group and Marines to positions offshore, where they waited weeks for approval from Myanmar to deliver supplies. It never came.
Myanmar has been military ruled since 1962, and observers have said the generals ruling the country are worried about preserving power. Many believe they resisted military help for weeks after Nargis struck because of invasion fears.
Some "had hoped that this would be the final push to bring down the regime. If that (push) had been done, we'd be playing with people's lives," Yeo said.
The Myanmar regime has been condemned for alleged human rights violations and the detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest.
The U.S. and the E.U. have slapped sanctions on Myanmar, which sits on large oil and gas reserves and holds some of the world's biggest gem deposits.
Myanmar only met its Asean counterparts three weeks after the cyclone - the region's worst natural disaster since the Asia-wide tsunami of 2004.
"I was not optimistic because they seemed so beleaguered, the Myanmar government," Yeo said of the May 19 meeting. "It was quite a dramatic encounter because the other Asean Foreign Ministers confronted our Myanmar counterpart asking him: 'Look, what does Myanmar mean to us, and what do we mean to you?'"
Asean's response toward the regime has been unusually blunt recently, especially after last September's pro-democracy crackdown. Bloc members have said Myanmar would respond better to engagement rather than isolation.
"In the end, we agreed that Asean should help to build a bridge of trust between the Myanmar government and the international community so that it'd be an Asean-led international assistance effort," Yeo said.
The U.N. launched a fresh appeal for Nargis victims July 10, saying aid agencies need nearly half a billion dollars for the relief effort.
Yeo said the aftermath of Nargis wasn't as bad as many initially thought.
"The general conclusion is the situation is not as bad as we have feared - no mass starvation or outbreak of epidemics," Yeo said. "But of course, it is very difficult for those affected."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Australia's Stephen Smith, North Korea's Pak Ui-chun, Japan's Masahiko Komura, and Myanmar's Nyan Win are among the 30-odd top diplomats who will be in Singapore for the Asean Regional Forum from Friday.
The meeting is Asia's largest security gathering, and Myanmar's political and humanitarian situations are among the topics on the table. As many as 2 million victims still need assistance, aid groups say.
A joint U.N.-Asean-Myanmar assessment will be presented Monday at the Forum, Yeo said.
He also said that Myanmar will officially accede next week to the Asean Charter, the 41-year-old group's first legally binding document designed to help it become a E.U.-type trading bloc but without a single currency.
"That leaves Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines," Yeo said. "With a united Southeast Asia, we can deal with the major powers on some basis of equality."
The charter needs to be ratified by Asean's end-of-year summit in Bangkok, or it may be junked.
Myanmar's junta had initial objections to its human rights chapters.
All of Asean's 10 members, who represent a mix of the world's political systems, have faced criticism for alleged rights violations.
The bloc comprises democracies Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Singapore; communist Laos; socialist Vietnam; military-ruled Myanmar and an absolute monarchy in Brunei.
Asean has a combined GDP of $1.3 trillion and a population of nearly 600 million. The grouping admitted Myanmar against pressure from the U.S. and the E.U. in 1997, and has also been criticized for its ongoing engagement with the junta, led by Senior General Than Shwe.
International civic and rights groups slammed the junta for the glacial pace of its response to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the country's rice-producing Irrawaddy Delta early in May. As many as 80,000 people were killed and over 50,000 missing.
The U.S. military sent its USS Essex Ready Group and Marines to positions offshore, where they waited weeks for approval from Myanmar to deliver supplies. It never came.
Myanmar has been military ruled since 1962, and observers have said the generals ruling the country are worried about preserving power. Many believe they resisted military help for weeks after Nargis struck because of invasion fears.
Some "had hoped that this would be the final push to bring down the regime. If that (push) had been done, we'd be playing with people's lives," Yeo said.
The Myanmar regime has been condemned for alleged human rights violations and the detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest.
The U.S. and the E.U. have slapped sanctions on Myanmar, which sits on large oil and gas reserves and holds some of the world's biggest gem deposits.
Myanmar only met its Asean counterparts three weeks after the cyclone - the region's worst natural disaster since the Asia-wide tsunami of 2004.
"I was not optimistic because they seemed so beleaguered, the Myanmar government," Yeo said of the May 19 meeting. "It was quite a dramatic encounter because the other Asean Foreign Ministers confronted our Myanmar counterpart asking him: 'Look, what does Myanmar mean to us, and what do we mean to you?'"
Asean's response toward the regime has been unusually blunt recently, especially after last September's pro-democracy crackdown. Bloc members have said Myanmar would respond better to engagement rather than isolation.
"In the end, we agreed that Asean should help to build a bridge of trust between the Myanmar government and the international community so that it'd be an Asean-led international assistance effort," Yeo said.
The U.N. launched a fresh appeal for Nargis victims July 10, saying aid agencies need nearly half a billion dollars for the relief effort.
Yeo said the aftermath of Nargis wasn't as bad as many initially thought.
"The general conclusion is the situation is not as bad as we have feared - no mass starvation or outbreak of epidemics," Yeo said. "But of course, it is very difficult for those affected."
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