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Myanmar monks protest the military junta - Source: Reuters
Singapore urged Myanmar's military rulers to reconcile with the
opposition and engage with the West, even as the junta renewed a
crackdown on pro-democracy activists.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told his Myanmar
counterpart Thein Sein on Tuesday the city-state would do what we
can to help the junta revive ties with the United States and
Europe.
"Countries are grappling with the financial crisis, and asking
themselves what is the most effective way to conduct their affairs
with other regions," said Lee, whose People's Action Party has
governed Singapore since independence in 1965.
"We hope Myanmar will seize this moment to take bolder steps
towards national reconciliation and in engaging the international
community," he said in a dinner reception speech.
The junta, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962, has refused
to recognise a 1990 landslide election victory of the opposition
National League for Democracy.
Its leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most
of the past two decades.
Hours before Lee's banquet speech, an NLD spokesman said Myanmar
authorities had detained five of its members in Yangon last week,
but did not know why.
It was the latest in a series of arrests of pro-democracy
activists ahead of an election next year, the last step in the
junta's roadmap to democracy.
Western governments have criticised the poll as a sham aimed at
entrenching military rule.
Wealth management
Lee's remarks came as a UN investigator called on the junta to
release more than 2,100 political prisoners and allow them to take
part in the election.
Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in
Myanmar, also urged the military to halt its use of civilians in
forced labour.
Washington, whose sanctions on Myanmar include freezing assets of
the ruling generals, wants the 10-member Association of South East
Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Singapore, to press for
reform and political progress in Myanmar.
But Singapore, a strong US ally and a growing centre for wealth
management, has opposed sanctions on Myanmar and is believed to be
home to the generals' offshore bank accounts.
Lee said resource-scarce Singapore would continue to develop
business opportunities in resource-rich Myanmar, urging the junta
to provide a stable environment for businessmen to operate in, and
take concrete steps to remove barriers and bureaucratic
hassles.
Critics say the junta has turned the Rice Bowl of Asia into one of
Asia's poorest nations, but the regime says it is pursuing its own
seven-step roadmap to democracy and shrugs off calls for
reform.
On Wednesday, Singapore's state-run Botanic Gardens hosted an
Orchid Naming Ceremony for Thein Sein, the number four in the
junta's hierarchy, a ceremony that the government traditionally
conducts to honour visiting dignitaries.
Three Singaporeans at the gardens tried to present a bouquet of
orchids to Thein Sein to give to Suu Kyi, and called for her
release.
Protests are rare in Singapore and gatherings of five or more
people are illegal without a police permit.
"We feel it would be more fitting for the orchid flower to be
honoured in the name of Miss Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the rightful
leader of Burma," the protestors said in a statement.
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