BURMA: Diplomatic Thaw Toward Rangoon Worries Exiles (1) An Inter Press Service Feature

BANGKOK, Nov 18 (IPS) - A perceptible shift in the international community's attitude toward Burma has followed two meetings between senior members of the country's military junta and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

After almost five years of house arrest, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has met twice with top officials of Rangoon's State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in the past two months.

Now, Japan has announced it is considering resuming official development aid to Burma, citing recent "positive changes" there, in particular the opening of a dialogue between SLORC and Suu Kyi.

Both the United States and Britain, leading advocates of the hardline approach against SLORC, have sent senior officials to Rangoon in the first high-level discussions since relations were frozen when the military seized power in 1988.

"Some countries seem to have realised that it is good to give talks with Burma a chance and that the situation is better," said a Thai foreign ministry official, who was quick to claim credit for the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) 'constructive engagement' policy.

A Western European diplomat summed up the policy thus: "I guess we have learned that complete isolation of a country is not the medicine because you may create a worse reaction. We're not saying absolute dialogue, but a little pressure here, a push there."

The enthusiasm over the junta's seeming step toward democratisation has gone so high that at least one Western diplomat has predicted that Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since July 1989, could be released in two months' time.

But Bangkok-based exiled leaders and dissidents are worried that there has been much ado about nothing, pointing out that nothing is known about what was discussed in the two meetings. More important, no substantial changes have taken place in Burma.

"These countries should make clear to the junta that unless there is real improvement in democratisation, restraints on political and economic ties will continue," Senn Aung, foreign minister of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), told IPS.

The exiles fear that in their eagerness to get in on the ground floor of business opportunities in Burma, Japan and Western nations now engaging in dialogue with SLORC are falling into a trap just when international sanctions are beginning to work.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service