The Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (Asean) long-standing policy of non-interference in each other's affairs have failed miserably in Burma, Malaysian lawmakers said.

Malaysian members of Parliament Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz and Zaid Ibrahim (left) yesterday led calls for Asean legislators to set aside diplomatic niceties to apply direct pressure on Burma's military regime.

"Asean governments need to seriously review the relevance of the so-called non-interference principle," Zaid told the Asean Inter-parliamentary Caucus on Burma yesterday.

"We should not be willing to politely ignore the misbehavior of a neighbour when the consequences are interfering with our own internal and regional stability.

"We must not allow 'non-interference' to shield our hearts and minds from the suffering of 50 million of our own neighbours," he added.

He said this in his opening remarks to the caucus' two-day conference on Good Governance, Democracy and Asean which ended today.

Other means exhausted

In his speech, Nazri stressed the point emphatically when he said he would not read from his prepared speech which did not reflect his true feelings on the matter but would speak off the cuff.

The regional governments' attempts to engage Burma and persuade its military government into allowing democracy to take root had failed, he said.

"I believe that as parliamentarians the only way out is pressure from all parliamentarians in Asean. We are the only hope for the Burmese people. We should go ahead with pressuring them because all other means have been exhausted," said Nazri.

"We have seen that the Burmese regime remains the same. In fact, (it has gotten) even worse because of the support that our governments give them," he added.

'No turning back'

Nazri also said it was merely a matter of time before the Burmese military government succumbed to pressure coming from Asean's parliamentarians, who were the elected representatives of their respective populace.

"I feel that it is a matter of time, maybe not in two or three years, but the time will come when democracy returns to Burma," he said.

"This will happen, God willing, with the help of all parliamentarians in Asean pressuring the Burmese regime to step down because this is the way. There is no turning back in promoting democracy in Burma."

Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, meanwhile, also took the opportunity to call for the regional bloc to move away from a "government-driven Asean to a Parliament-driven Asean and, eventually, a people-driven Asean."