Australian Foreign Minister Meets Burma's Suu Kyi

by Ma Nguyen Tong

14-10-2002

Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in October 2002 held talks with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer at her home in the capital Rangoon. Few details were made available about their discussion although they were thought to have focused on progress in reconciliation talks between the opposition leader and the ruling military government.

"They [the ruling generals] told me they were committed to greater democracy and the lesser rule of the military. They didn't give me any timetable," Downer said.

Downer's two-day visit to Burma was the first by a senior Western official in nearly two decades. He was also the first Western leader to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi since her release from house arrest six months previously. Downer's office said a meeting with the opposition leader had been a condition of him making the trip to Burma.

Earlier on October 2 he held talks with officials from the ruling military government with that meeting also focussing on the progress of reconciliation talks.

The trip was billed as a fact-finding mission, however Australia had hoped it would result in a resumption of dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's military regime with the ultimate aim of restoring democracy to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. Downer also carried with him a message from the United Nations to the Burma regime stressing the U.N.'s desire to see a political reform process begin.

House arrest

The opposition leader's National League for Democracy (NLD) won Burma's last democratic elections in 1990 but was never allowed to govern. Since that time the military regime had shown little inclination towards relinquishing power and held Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, most recently for a period of 19 months.

At the end of September the NLD leader issued a conciliatory statement to try to woo the military into dialogue but her overtures appeared to fall on deaf ears. Diplomats said Than Shwe opposed any move towards democracy at that point and believed Burma could engage the outside world without committing itself to reform. Australia demanded the restoration of democracy in Burma, but had taken a more conciliatory line than other Western countries toward the military regime.

Media snub

The trip also suffered a diplomatic hiccup on October 1, with Burma officials reneging on an apparent agreement to allow Australian journalists to cover Downer's trip. The move, which was not announced until Downer was about to board a plane to Bangkok in preparation for his flight to Rangoon, was not relayed directly to him, nor the Australian embassy. During planning for the trip, representatives for Downer had told the government Australian journalists would want to cover the trip, and were left with the impression the applications would be accepted. Downer said the decision was a "disappointment" but "it is important to still get there and give our message".

After Burma, Downer travelled on to Indonesia for the first South West Pacific Dialogue Ministerial meeting in the Javanese city of Yogyakarta.