Myanmar army may get invite to US-Thai exercise

BANGKOK (AP) ? Myanmar's military, long criticized for human rights abuses, may be invited as an observer at annual U.S-Thai joint military exercise next year, a Thai official said Friday in what would represent another reward for the new government's recent political reforms.

The invitation to the Cobra Gold exercise would come after years of Myanmar being frozen out of U.S. regional activities because of Washington's disapproval of the former military regime's repression.

Thai Defense Ministry spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng said that there are tentative plans to invite Myanmar, but participating countries must agree on the action at a meeting late this month.

"We would need a consensus from all participating countries. However, the move to include Myanmar in the exercise could be seen as an attempt to expand military readiness in the region," he said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman declined to comment, and U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell said at a press conference in Yangon that he did not have any information on the matter.

Myanmar has been slowly shedding its status as a pariah state now that the army-backed but elected government that took power last year has instituted political and economic liberalization. The reforms follow almost five decades of repressive military rule

The country's moves toward political reconciliation with democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi won it the easing of sanctions imposed by the West. Participation in the Cobra Gold would be a further sign of improvement of relations with the U.S. in particular.

However, many critics of military rule point out the army's continued power and influence in the current government, which is guaranteed by the constitution it helped draft. They are cautious about moves that could strengthen the military.

Maung Zarni, a Myanmar scholar who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, described Washington's possible invitation to Myanmar as "utterly premature, ill-informed and too self-interested."

He said continued abuses include the recent reported large-scale violence the army employed against the Muslim Rohingya minority during riots in western Myanmar and in its continuing battles against the Kachin minority in the north.

"Empirically and historically, the military-to-military ties that the Pentagon build around the world are not known for producing democracy, human rights or reform dividends, particularly for peoples of countries under dodgy governments," Maung Zarni said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Within Southeast Asia, Suharto's Indonesia, Marcos' Philippines and Ne Win's Burma spring to mind." Myanmar was known as Burma until the previous military regime changed the country's name.

The Cobra Gold exercise was held earlier this year with members of the Indonesian, Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporean and South Korean militaries taking part, more than 10,000 in all. Other regional countries were invited as observers.

Thailand-based Cobra Gold is the biggest and longest-standing U.S. military exercise in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cobra Gold began in the early 1980s, soon after Vietnamese troops pushed to the Thai border after invading Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge regime. Early exercises concentrated on conventional military tactics and strategies for attack and defense.

In recent years, the exercise has concentrated on peace-keeping operations and humanitarian and civic assistance projects.

When a deadly cyclone hit Myanmar in 2008, U.S. Navy ships were diverted from Cobra Gold to offshore Myanmar to offer assistance. But the military government then in power declined its help, apparently suspicious about U.S. intentions.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/myanmar-army-may-invite-us-thai-exercise-113504513.html

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