Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08BANDARSERIBEGAWAN103
2008-03-28 08:06:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Bandar Seri Begawan
Cable title:  

BRUNEI: DEMARCHE ON BURMA REFERENDUM

Tags:  PGOV PHUM BM BX 
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RR RUEHAG RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHROV
DE RUEHBD #0103/01 0880806
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 280806Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4148
INFO RUEHZS/ASEAN COLLECTIVE
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0391
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 0446
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 0069
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 0382
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0527
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 000103 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/27/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM BM BX
SUBJECT: BRUNEI: DEMARCHE ON BURMA REFERENDUM

REF: STATE 26677

Classified By: Ambassador Emil Skodon, Reasons 1.4 (B,D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 000103

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/27/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM BM BX
SUBJECT: BRUNEI: DEMARCHE ON BURMA REFERENDUM

REF: STATE 26677

Classified By: Ambassador Emil Skodon, Reasons 1.4 (B,D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Brunei views the Burmese regime's
announcement of a referendum as a "positive step" and
believes it should be given a chance to move its roadmap
process forward. The Bruneians have privately advised the
Burmese government that they hope to see a peaceful and
inclusive process of reconciliation take place within Burma,
and in response to our demarche will consider sending a
similar message related to referendum preparations. Brunei
maintains that intra-ASEAN consultations on forging a common
approach toward Burma are continuing, but consensus has not
yet been reached. It does not believe sanctions will be
effective because the Burmese generals are "hermetically
sealed" and "did not care if they had to hold their oil wells
together with rubber bands." The Bruneians see China as
having been quietly helpful in getting the international
community's message across to the Burmese regime and suggest
it could be influential in the future as well. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Ambassador delivered reftel demarche to Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade Permanent Secretary Datin Maimunah
on March 27. In reply, Maimunah said the Government of
Brunei (GOB) viewed the Burmese regime's announcement of a
referendum on the draft constitution as a positive step, and
believed "we should give them a chance and see how well this
process moves forward." The GOB wanted to see national
reconciliation achieved within Burma via peaceful means but
realized the process would take time. For now, it was
focused on supporting Special Advisor Gambari. Maimunah
added that the GOB believed that the Burmese military would
have to be part of any solution, and it would be many years
before its involvement in government could be phased out
completely.


3. (C) Ambassador noted there were many points on which the
USG and GOB agreed. We both hoped for a peaceful resolution
and supported Gambari, and the USG accepted that the military
might play a role in a successor government if the Burmese
people decided that was appropriate. Just as we were willing
to accept that the military need not be excluded, however, so

we believed that the regime needed to accept that it could
not go on totally excluding others from a dialog on
reconciliation and reform. Time was running out for the
"roadmap" to regain credibility. It was imperative that
Brunei and other nations send a clear message that the
constitutional referendum needed to be inclusive, conform to
internationally accepted standards, and be free and fair. If
those criteria were not fulfilled, frustration would grow and
potentially boil over into instability and unrest that would
have an impact beyond Burma's borders.


4. (C) Maimunah replied that the GOB had advised the Burmese
government privately that it hoped to see "a peaceful and
inclusive process of political reconciliation" take place
within Burma. She said that discussions continued within
ASEAN in an attempt to forge a consensus approach to Burma,
but admitted "we aren't there yet" due to the wide divergence
of opinion among ASEAN members. When and if ASEAN did reach
a consensus position, that would guide GOB policy. In the
meantime, she would report the USG demarche to MFAT Ministers
I and II Prince Mohamed and Pehin Lim, with a view to
determining whether the GOB should repeat its earlier message
to the Burmese regime about the need for an inclusive process
of reconciliation, tying it to the forthcoming referendum.


5. (C) Ambassador asked what types of approaches Maimunah
thought might be effective in getting our common message
across to the Burmese generals. She replied that it was
long-standing GOB policy to oppose the use of sanctions. In
any case, she did not think they would be very effective with
Burma, since the regime had "hermetically sealed" itself off
from the outside world. She recounted a comment by an ASEAN
colleague that the generals "did not care if they had to hold
their oil wells together with rubber bands." Ambassador
noted that hermetically sealed containers could explode and
hurt innocent bystanders in the vicinity if their internal
pressure went out of control. Maimunah agreed and said that
was why the Chinese were worried about the course of events
in Burma. She thought the "quiet hand of China" had already
been useful in influencing the regime and could be
particularly helpful in the future as well.


BANDAR SER 00000103 002 OF 002



6. (C) Separately, earlier in the week Ambassador had asked
MFAT PermSec Pengiran Dato Osman if the March 25-26
ASEAN-China Senior Officials Consultation would include a
discussion of Burma (Brunei is ASEAN's current Country
Coordinator for China). Osman said it was not on the
official agenda, but might be discussed on the sidelines.
Ambassador urged Osman to find an opportunity for the
participants in this forum to exchange views of the planned
Burmese referendum, even informally, since it was such an
important issue for the entire region. Osman replied that he
would try but cautioned that the Chinese felt they were
already walking a fine line between encouraging the SPDC to
be less rigid and risking the kind of rapid change that could
lead to instability and a failed state on their border.
Ambassador emphasized that a rigged referendum that sparked
outrage within Burma and internationally would be the surest
way to guarantee more instability, and so it was in the
interest of both ASEAN and China to do what they could to
help avoid that outcome.


7. (C) Colleagues at the British High Commission in Bandar
Seri Begawan tell us that some of their sources maintain the
Sultan assured visiting Burmese PM Thein Sein in January that
Brunei followed a policy of non-interference in the internal
affairs of other countries and would continue to do so in the
case of Burma. We have been unable to confirm this report
independently, and note that while this is an accurate
description of Brunei's oft-stated general policy of
non-interference, it would be uncharacteristic for the Sultan
to offer such explicit assurances on a controversial and high
profile issue such as political developments in Burma. This
may be a case of the British sources putting the spin they
favor on the Sultan's remarks for western ears.


8. (C) COMMENT: We seriously doubt that the GOB will
publicly call for a free and fair referendum in Burma, given
that Brunei itself is an absolute monarchy that has not
bothered to hold any national elections -- free, fair, or
otherwise -- during its 24 years of independence. That said,
we found it interesting that Maimunah said intra-ASEAN
consultations on Burma are continuing, since ASEAN had
seemingly thrown up its hands after the Burmese said they
preferred to deal with the international community
exclusively through the UNSC and Gambari. Stressing to the
GOB how important it is for regional stability that the
Burmese generals be dissuaded from continuing down their
exclusionary and self-destructive path may, at a minimum,
help to ensure that Brunei does not actively oppose efforts
by other ASEAN states to press for a credible referendum.
END COMMENT.
SKODON