The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has dodged a bullet. Myanmar's decision to give up its turn as chairman of the group in 2006 saves ASEAN from international embarrassment. Myanmar's status as a pariah state threatened to seriously hurt ASEAN as its dialogue partners vowed to avoid the group while Myanmar was chairman. Unfortunately, the real issue, the behavior of the military junta that rules the state, continues to frustrate the world. Until that government moves toward democracy -- and the reforms it has promised to make -- Myanmar will remain an international concern.
The chair of ASEAN rotates according to alphabetical order. In 2006, Myanmar was scheduled to take its turn. That posed real problems for ASEAN. Key partners, including the United States and the European Union, had warned that they would not send senior representatives to any meeting chaired by Myanmar, a move that would cut off any substantive discussion between ASEAN and those governments, marginalizing various meetings such as the U.S.-ASEAN dialogue and the Asia-EU Meeting (ASEM). This development would have serious repercussions for ASEAN's attempts to regain the initiative in regional discussions and ongoing efforts to forge a regional identity.
The problem for those dialogue partners is the reprehensible human-rights record of the Myanmar government. The military junta took control in Yangon after losing national elections in 1990, and has ever since defied international demands to honor the results of that ballot and release Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition National League for Democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been in prison or under house arrest. The military has said it intends to move toward democracy, but progress has been halting at best. The junta continues to be accused of repression and human-rights abuses, and Ms. Suu Kyi remains confined.