Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-16-Speech-4-116"
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"en.20040916.5.4-116"2
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"Mr President, the Burmese people’s struggle for democracy has been a long one; there was a ray of hope in 1990, when the National League of Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work for non-violent change, won the elections with 82% of the votes, but, since then, the country has been ruled by a savage military dictatorship, which has placed her under house arrest and harassed her; there are over 1 000 political prisoners. Organisations tell us that, for example, the armed forces have also started using systematic rape as a weapon against ethnic minorities. There is widespread violation of human rights.
From that time onwards, the military dictatorship has been repeatedly denounced by international institutions, the European Parliament and the Council among them, and their constant demands have been threefold: freedom for the NLD to engage in political activity, freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi and the initiation of political dialogue aimed at advancing the country’s democratisation process. It was a major breakthrough when, at the 2004 ASEM Summit in Kildare, the Asian states supported these demands as the minimum requirement before Burma would be able to take part in future ASEM summits.
We can see, then, that there is a broad consensus in the international community that these conditions must be fulfilled, and it is one that this House has repeatedly underlined. It is therefore quite incomprehensible and utterly deplorable that the foreign ministers of the European Union have now taken the decision simply to abandon the criteria and political conditions that they themselves imposed and agree to Burma’s participation in ASEM summits without their being complied with. Nor is there any reason to suppose that conditions in Burma have changed for the better, or anything like that, in recent months – quite the contrary is the case.
Such an about-turn is quite incomprehensible and threatens to damage the credibility of European policy, for why, now, should anyone take our resolutions seriously? Who is going to take the resolutions of the Council of Foreign Ministers seriously when they have spent ten years saying, ‘this is the condition that must be met before you can take part’, and then, when the situation presents itself, say, ‘we didn’t mean it like that, we’ll let it go’. We all know, of course, that there has been discussion behind the scenes about the business interests involved. We all know that it is argued in business circles that we must now take a more cautious approach to Burma, that China wants to grab the Burmese market for itself, and that the European Union’s competitiveness is at risk if we do not take a softer line on Burma.
Such is the background music to a decision like this, and I believe that we in this House must say, loud and clear, that what is at stake here is the credibility of European foreign policy’s values. We have to make it clear that it is by these values that European foreign policy continues to be guided, and that we stand by our own resolutions. We have to make it clear that the foreign ministers have taken the wrong decision and that this House continues to take a critical line on the Burmese Government."@en1
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