SINGAPORE PM LEE HSIEN LOONG : MYANMAR IS A PROBLEM.

(Extract from interview with Charlie Rose in TV, Channel news Asia.)

LEE HSIEN LOONG:
Myanmar is a problem. They have a system. The government, the
military is in charge. The world has limited influence over them, and you
can’t change them short of going there and providing a government, which
the British did for a couple of centuries, but eventually they can’t carry
on.

So they have to move forward because I think many people in Myanmar
know that this is not a solution for Myanmar. Many of the people know that
the government is doing badly by them and resent it deeply. I think many
people know that this is leading nowhere and needs to change. I suspect
that --

CHARLIE ROSE: How about many people in the military?

LEE HSIEN LOONG: Included.

CHARLIE ROSE: OK.

LEE HSIEN LOONG: But I suspect a few key people who make the
decisions, they have decided that this is an existential thing for them.

If they’re out, it’s not just the country and the government has changed,

but where do I go and which jail will I be in and my children and my jewels

and my billions?



So they are not likely to be persuaded by elections. You have to
wait. I think there will be a change over time as the generations change.
And they’re holding elections this year. It may or may not be perfect, but
it’s a step forward.

And if you look at Indonesia and President Suharto, he came to power
in a coup, military-backed. But over 30 years he acquired legitimacy, he
developed a kind of ideology to legitimize the rule. He had some kind of
elections, he had some sort of a political process.

CHARLIE ROSE: But at the end of the day he was a dictator. He was in
control.

LEE HSIEN LOONG: At the end of the day he did a lot of good for
Indonesia, but unfortunately towards the end the rapacity became
intolerable. And he didn’t deserve the end he came to.

(http://shanghaiist.com/2010/04/20/singapore_pm_lee_hsien_loong_china.php)