Australia considering extra aid for Burma
Updated
In the wake of Hillary Clinton's call yesterday for ASEAN states to put more pressure on Burma to hold democratic elections, Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Smith says Canberra is considering extending development assistance to Rangoon.
It would represent a step beyond existing humanitarian aid, and would aim to both assist impoverished Burmese, and send a signal to the military government about the benefits of international support.
Speaking on the sidelines of the foreign, trade and finance ministerial meetings of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation Forum in Singapore, Mr Smith also expressed concern about the deepening rift between Thailand and Cambodia.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Stephen Smith, Australian Foreign Minister
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SMITH: Well Australia is a founding member of the United Nations Secretary General's Friends of Burma group and we had a very good meeting in New York in September in the margins of the General Assembly, the Secretary of State was there as were a dozen or so foreign ministers interested in Burma, including some of the ASEAN colleagues.
Whilst there are a graduations of view, I think one could describe that as a there is an emerging consensus that we need to try and do more, we need to be a bit more creative and if all we do is do everything that we have done in the past, we might not get a successful outcome. So we have seen the United States review.
Australia has also been looking at what more we can do and in addition to a conversation with Secretary Clinton about Burma, I also had a conversation with Kurt Campbell, Assistant Undersecretary of State who has the day to day running of the matter and we agreed that we'll have a more substantive conversation in a few weeks time. So we're looking at what Australia can do to assist that process. We have a longstanding view about a return to democracy, release of Aung San Suu Kyi, release of political prisoners and we have been sceptical about the proposed election process. So we will work closely with the United States and with our ASEAN colleagues.
When I was at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand a couple of months ago, there was also clearly an emerging view in ASEAN that ASEAN itself had to do more to help and all of these developments I think are very good things.
MOTTRAM: And Mrs. Clinton clearly believes that ASEAN has to take a lead role?
SMITH: Well, and Burma of course is a member of ASEAN, is a neighbour and as a consequence often the most influential people are people in your neighbourhood, in your region and so the international community does look to our friends in ASEAN to be working positively and productively. So whether it's Indonesia, Thailand, within ASEAN itself or whether its China or India, the neighbourhood, the region in our view has a responsibility to assist, but we need to just look at what more we can do to try in a sense break through what's been a longstanding debilitating position so far as the regime is concerned.
MOTTRAM: Any thought of sending in delegations, sending any Australian senior figures to try to make some new ground?
SMITH: Well, Parliamentary Secretary, Bob McMullan, did go to Burma to Rangoon in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, where Australia, together with the international community made a very generous contribution to assist in that humanitarian effort. But we'll do or what we will do will be done in conjunction and in coordination with the United States, with ASEAN, and also with the Secretary-General who of course has his own special representative, Gambari. But we're open minded. We certainly want to help.
One particular area that we have been looking at is whether it's possible for us to do something on the development assistance side. We have always been generous in terms of humanitarian assistance. We have never wanted to do anything which would not assist the ordinary Burmese people and so we've been generous with humanitarian assistance. We're having a look at whether it might be appropriate for us to move into genuine development assistance, particularly in some of the social areas. But there are obviously risks associated with that and we will do that in consultation with our like minded friends.
MOTTRAM: Staying in that sort of general region, Thailand and Cambodia are experiencing considerable difficulties. How concerned are you about that situation?
SMITH: Well, we're always concerned when two of our friends get themselves into a state of difficulty or tension and I have not had the opportunity within APEC of course to speak to my Cambodian counterpart. I had a conversation with my Thai counterpart, Foreign Minister Kasit. I made the point that we of course want Thailand and Cambodia to resolve this issue sort of amicably. We don't want to see any escalation. The particular issue which is causing the current tension of course follows on quite quickly from the dispute over the temple and so there have been a couple of difficult issues between Thailand and Cambodia, and we hope very much they can resolve them amicably and together and certainly that's is the view also of their ASEAN colleagues.
