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ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Jakarta a “big flop” in  failing to maintain, let alone increase, pressure on Myanmese military junta to keep its  pledges on democratization and national reconciliation, marking a  new depth in the failure of the ASEAN “constructive engagement” policy with Yangon   Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Saturday): The 37th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM)  in Jakarta is a “big flop” in failing to maintain, let alone increase, pressure on the Myanmese military junta to keep its pledges on democratization and national reconciliation, marking a  new depth in the failure of the ASEAN “constructive engagement” policy with Yangon. The Myanmese military junta has  reneged on multiple  pledges to ASEAN leaders on democratisation and national reconciliation, such as: The pledge by the Myanmese Foreign Minister Win Aung at the 36th AMM in Phnom Penh in July last year that Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s re-detention on May 30 last year was “temporary”. It now appears that  in the dictionary of the Myanmese junta, “temporary” actually means “permanent”. Win Aung’s public assurance when he arrived at the ASEAN Summit in Bali last October that national reconciliation was a “priority” for the Myanmese military junta. However,  the junta has convened  the National Constitution Convention  without the participation of the National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 but was  barred from taking power, or releasing Aung San Suu Kyi. It is a sad day for ASEAN that the Jakarta AMM had backed down from its Phnom Penh communique last July by dropping its  public call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, substituting instead the watered-down and meaningless statement  which merely “underlined the need for the involvement of all strata of Myanmar society in the ongoing national convention” – flying in the face of  the stark realities  that Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest since her redetention in May last year and the boycott of the NLD. The softening and abandonment of the ASEAN stand in insisting that the Myanmese military junta must  “substantiate its path to democracy and reconciliation” by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy leaders from detention and engaging them in talks  is a “black day” in ASEAN history and does not augur well for ASEAN’s international relations, in particular the ASEM Summit between Europe and Asia scheduled for Hanoi in October or 2006.      (3/7/2004) * Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Member of Parliament for Ipoh Timor & DAP National Chairman