by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday, 20th July 1994:
ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok should send a clear and strong message to Myanmar military junta demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners
The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok should send a clear and strong message to Myanmar military junta demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners
Aung San Suu Kyi is entering into her sixth year of detention, and her detention is not only a shame to human rights in Myanmar but to South East Asia.
For this reason, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting must review its policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with the Myanmese military junta as it does not seem to have produced any results in restoring democracy and human rights to the Myanmese people.
A strong stand by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok is all the more inperative as the Myanmese military junta has been invited to attend the ASEAN Meeting for the first time.
Without such a strong stand, the presence of the Myanmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok would be read, in Myanmar as well as in the international community, as an endorsement by ASEAN countries for the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi as well as the violations of democracy and human rights by the Myanmese military junta.