Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-23-Speech-3-191"
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"en.20080423.19.3-191"2
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"Mr President, we are discussing Burma today, because the European Union’s targeted sanctions are due for renewal in five days’ time and the Burmese authorities are pressing ahead with a referendum on their sham constitution in just over two weeks.
We want to make a sincere appeal to the Burmese regime to take a step that is very much in its own interest as well as the interests of the Burmese people: to take the necessary action to rejoin the international community of nations. The policy of suspicious isolation has been tried for almost the whole of Burma’s life as an independent state and it has failed. It has harmed Burma and it has harmed the Burmese people.
In 1948, Burma was the world’s largest exporter of rice, the producer of 75% of the world’s teak and the wealthiest country in south-east Asia. It was believed to be on the fast track to development. Today, it has a GDP per capita lower than Rwanda or Bangladesh.
The Burmese economy urgently needs assistance from international financial organisations, yet, ever since Burma turned in upon itself and away from democracy, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have all, quite rightly, refused to extend any further financial help. The refusal of the Burmese regime to engage with external realities has led countries across the world to impose economic sanctions.
Burma needs friends to help protect its national interests on the global stage, but even ASEAN has now declared, again quite rightly, that it will no longer defend the Burmese authorities in any international forum.
We say to the Burmese Government: the world is not against you if only you will stop turning your back against the world. You do not need to be frightened of the international community any more than you need to fear your own people. You do not need the ninth largest army and the fifteenth largest military budget in the world. You do not need to live in a bunker. Recognise the democratic aspirations of your people, cease the political repression and enable opposition forces to engage fully and freely in a fresh constitutional process."@en1
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