MILITARY REGIME IN MYANMAR (Assistance)

Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether the Government has provided or given any assistance to the military regime in Myanmar, apart from encouraging trade between Singapore and Myanmar.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Mr Speaker, Sir, as a fellow member of ASEAN and a close neighbour, Singapore shares with Myanmar our experience in a number of areas through our bilateral technical co-operation programmes. Such programmes are primarily focused on helping Myanmar upgrade its manpower and human resources and are funded by the Singapore Co-operation Programme and the Myanmar Technical Assistance Fund. Since 1993, some 1,850 Myanmar officials have received training in Singapore in areas ranging from agro-technology, communications, and trade and tourism promotion.

Mr Jeyaretnam: May I ask the Minister whether Singapore provides special training for the intelligence officers, the Special Branch, in Myanmar to cope with the dissidents, supporters of the NLD?

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, as far as I know, no such assistance is given.

Mr Jeyaretnam: May I know whether Singapore exports any arms to Myanmar?

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think it has been stated in this House before that as far as arms sales are concerned, it is a general policy of the Government neither to confirm nor deny arms sales to any country. And I do not intend to depart from that position.

Let me assure this House, however, that Singapore pursues a responsible arms sales policy. We honour all international obligations and have always enforced international arms embargoes.

Mr Jeyaretnam: May I ask the Minister to tell us what is the rationale for not disclosing to this House? We know that, in Myanmar, it is not a lawful government which is in place. We have a military which has usurped the rights of the people. Do Singaporeans not have a right to know whether we are supporting this military government with our arms?

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, I thought my position is very clear. If there is a United Nations Security Council embargo which enjoins its members from exporting any arms to any country, we will, as a member of the United Nations, observe that embargo and any other sanctions which are part of our international commitments. As for the general policy which I indicated has been consistently observed by Singapore of not disclosing arms sales, this is a policy adopted by many countries.

As for the second part of his question, the drift of his question shows that the Member has a strange notion of how modern day diplomacy and international relations are conducted. There are some 180 or more countries who are members of the United Nations, different sizes, shapes, forms of government, constitutional systems, degrees of representative governments, and most of them have international relations and interactions with each other. Countries do not place preconditions on the internal systems of government and policies when they establish diplomatic relations and have normal international interactions. This is a fact of international life. If this were not so and if countries placed conditions, then very few countries would be able to have diplomatic relations with others. This is not to mean that countries approve and endorse everything that another country does when they have diplomatic relations. Similarly, for Singapore, Myanmar is a member of ASEAN, it is a member of the South-East Asian community, and we have international relations and interactions with them just as the majority of the international community do so.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Is the Minister saying that the Singapore Government recognises the military regime, the usurpers, as the lawful government of Myanmar? And, secondly, will the Minister tell us whether this constructive engagement policy of ASEAN has borne any fruit, or has it only strengthened the will of the military to further suppress the people?

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have touched on the constructive engagement policy of ASEAN on several occasions in this House before and I will not repeat in detail what I have said. The constructive engagement policy of ASEAN is not intended to dictate to the Myanmar government what it should or should not do. It is referred to as a constructive engagement policy in comparison with approaches taken by other countries and regions, which is to either isolate Myanmar or to impose sanctions on them. ASEAN decided that it would adopt a different approach of integrating Myanmar within the ASEAN fold and, in that process, encourage Myanmar to see what other countries in ASEAN are doing and, hopefully, they will, in course of time, achieve normalcy. Within the ASEAN constructive engagement policy, different members of ASEAN have engaged in dialogue with Myanmar to convey suggestions on various matters of common interest. This is the ASEAN way. Whether it is the perfect method, whether it will bear fruit and whether it will be successful requires judgement after some years have passed.

Mr Jeyaretnam: May I ask the Minister whether it has been successful so far? And, secondly, is he not aware that at least two other member states in ASEAN are having second thoughts of the wisdom of this constructive engagement?

Prof. Jayakumar: As to the latter part of his question, I will be interested to know if he can cite the chapter and verse because, as far as I am aware - I chaired an ASEAN meeting, both formal meetings and informal discussions as well as a retreat - I do not know of any ASEAN member which has said that it would abandon the policy of constructive engagement. In fact, on the contrary, in the retreat and informal discussions, we had very frank and candid discussions with each other, including Myanmar.