Cambodia disrupts ASEAN vision<\/p>\n
LONDON: The return of King Norodom Sihanouk to Cambodia from
\nChina on 29 August 1997 has done little to solve the country's
\nlatest political crisis. The putsch organised by Cambodia's
\nSecond Prime Minister, Hun Sen, head of the Cambodian People's
\nParty (CPP) against his senior coalition government partner,
\nFirst Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, head of the
\nroyalist Funcinpec party on 6 July 1997, has brought renewed
\nviolence to the country and has undermined its regional and
\ninternational rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
The coup has interrupted the timetable for enlarging the
\nAssociation of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to include all
\nten regional states Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
\nMyanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
\nMoreover, it has posed a challenge to ASEAN's standing and
\nregional role, which the Association has not been able to meet in
\na resolute manner.<\/p>\n
The decision to expand membership from seven to ten states
\nwith the admission of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar at the 30th
\nannual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Malaysia on 23 July
\n1997, had been confirmed on 31 May 1997.<\/p>\n
The coup has presented ASEAN with a singular problem, beyond
\nthe embarrassment of an interrupted timetable. The Association
\nextols the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs
\nof either member-states or other regional nations. This stance
\nexplains the Association's refusal to follow the West in applying
\npressure on Myanmar to revise its political system. Indeed, it
\nhad been Myanmar's prospective entry into the Association, and
\nnot Cambodia's, which had hitherto been the most controversial.<\/p>\n
ASEAN's predicament arises from the diplomatic role it played
\nin Cambodia following Vietnam's invasion of the country in
\nDecember 1978. Although ASEAN had a marginal influence on the
\nAgreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the
\nCambodia Conflict concluded at a conference in Paris in October
\n1991 it had a strong stake in the terms of the accord.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, was a co-chair of
\nthe Paris meeting, while six ASEAN states -- Brunei, Indonesia,
\nMalaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- participated
\nin either the UN Advanced Mission in Cambodia and\/or the UN
\nTransitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), which facilitated
\nrelatively free-and-fair elections in May 1993.<\/p>\n
A fragile power-sharing arrangement, expressed in a coalition
\ngovernment, did not reflect the poll's true outcome.
\nNevertheless, it was endorsed by ASEAN as offering the best
\nprospect for national reconciliation. Moreover, the settlement
\nenabled ASEAN to admit Vietnam as its seventh member in July
\n1995.<\/p>\n
The July 1997 coup challenged ASEAN's standing, because
\nenlargement had been represented as a founding vision of the
\nAssociation. In order to validate its regional role, ASEAN
\nreacted by postponing Cambodia's entry into the Association. That
\ndecision was reaffirmed at the 23 July 1997 meeting in Kuala
\nLumpur which granted Laos and Myanmar full membership status.<\/p>\n
During the Cambodian conflict, the Association challenged
\nVietnam's right to send its army across an internationally
\nrecognised national boundary and to replace an incumbent
\ngovernment with one of its own choosing. ASEAN's involvement in
\nCambodia's affairs was justified on that basis, although the
\nunderlying issue was Vietnam's challenge to the regional balance
\nof power. Indeed, the Association was able to play a central
\ndiplomatic role in the war because of its Cold War alignment with
\nChina and the U.S.<\/p>\n
The resolution of the conflict as an international problem was
\na consequence of the end of the Cold War. Strategic uncertainty
\nprompted by concern about Washington's regional priorities and
\nChina's rising power led ASEAN to extend its model of
\nmultilateral security dialogue to the Asia-Pacific region. In
\nJuly 1993, the Association established the ASEAN Regional Forum
\n(ARF), which began its first working session in Bangkok on 25
\nJuly 1994.<\/p>\n
The Association has assumed a central diplomatic position
\nwithin the ARF, although this has been contested by Australia,
\nJapan and South Korea. ASEAN provides the chair and secretariat
\nfor all ARF annual working sessions, and the co-chair for all
\ninter-sessional meetings. Opposition to ASEAN's leading role in
\nthe Forum has resulted in the Association's member-states acting
\ncohesively to protect a distinct diplomatic identity and its
\ninfluence within the wider Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n
Making ASEAN a larger and more diverse grouping, however,
\nincreases the problems of consensus-building and collective
\ndecision-making. Difficulties are likely to arise over economic
\nconvergence and, perhaps most seriously, in dealing with China's
\nmaritime assertiveness. There are opposing views about the latter
\nissue, especially among the Association's newest members.<\/p>\n
The problem of consensus was exposed when, at an emergency
\nmeeting of foreign ministers on 10 July 1997, Malaysia and
\nVietnam resisted suspending Cambodia's entry into ASEAN. After a
\nlengthy debate, a decision to postpone Cambodia's membership was
\ntaken, but without challenging Phnom Penh's existing Observer
\nstatus.<\/p>\n
ASEAN also agreed to mediate through three of its foreign
\nministers -- Ali Alatas (Indonesia), Domingo Siazon (Philippines)
\nand Prachuab Chayasan (Thailand). In a characteristic display of
\nextreme vehemence, however, the officials were initially rebuffed
\nby Hun Sen.<\/p>\n
This was not the first time that the Association had attempted
\nto intercede to address a regional problem. The Chair of its
\nStanding Committee, Malaysia's Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi,
\nvisited Yangon in June 1997 in a fruitless attempt to persuade
\nthe military junta to hold talks with opposition leader Aung San
\nSuu Kyi. Diplomatic intervention in Cambodia was more dramatic
\nand qualitatively different: ASEAN refused to recognise the new
\nregime and implied that some form of restoration of the political
\nstatus quo had to take place before entry would be considered.<\/p>\n
The Association's sentiments were registered on 24 July 1997
\nby Singapore's Foreign Minister, Professor Shanmugam Jayakumar:
\n"Where force is used for an unconstitutional purpose, it is
\nbehaviour that ASEAN cannot ignore or condone." The announcement,
\nhowever, was hardly consistent with a declared principle of non-
\ninterference in domestic matters.<\/p>\n
Respect for constitutionalism in Cambodia was linked to
\nASEAN's standing because of the Association's stake in the Paris
\npeace agreement and its outcome. And yet, ASEAN was also
\ninterested in ensuring political stability within Cambodia to
\nprevent any competitive external intervention that could have an
\nadverse effect on regional order. To that end, its foreign
\nministers expressed the hope that "the situation in the country
\nwould return to normalcy and that a solution could be found in
\nthe spirit of the Paris Peace Accords".<\/p>\n
ASEAN secured ARF endorsement of its mediation role, which was
\nindicative of a calculated Sino-U.S. agreement in advance of
\nChinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to Washington in October
\n1997. It also led to a more accommodating response from Hun Sen,
\nqualified by an insistence that the Association should not
\ninterfere in Cambodia's domestic affairs.<\/p>\n
ASEAN has indicated several conditions for Cambodia's
\npolitical rehabilitation:<\/p>\n
* respect for the Paris agreements;<\/p>\n
* reinstalling the coalition government (without stipulating
\nthe reinstatement of Prince Ranariddh); and<\/p>\n
* ending political repression and a commitment to free-and-
\nfair elections in May 1998.<\/p>\n
Hun Sen and his party colleagues went some way towards meeting
\nthese conditions by reconstituting a coalition government.
\nForeign Minister and Funcinpec member Ung Huot was elected First
\nPrime Minister in place of Prince Ranariddh by more than two-
\nthirds of the 120-member National Assembly on 6 August 1997, even
\nthough a number of Funcinpec officials had fled the country and
\nothers have reportedly been killed. The Assembly also removed
\nPrince Ranariddh's parliamentary immunity so that he could be put
\non trial if he returned to Phnom Penh. However, Hun Sen issued an
\nultimatum on 19 August stipulating that Cambodia would not join
\nASEAN if it had to wait until after the 1998 elections to be
\nadmitted.<\/p>\n
Now that a form of constitutionalism is being restored and a
\ncommitment to elections affirmed, ASEAN could justify
\nreconsidering Cambodia's membership at an informal summit before
\nthe end of 1997. Despite King Sihanouk's refusal to endorse Ung
\nHuot's appointment, Hun Sen's position has been strengthened by
\nChina's recognition of the regime and Washington's statement on 8
\nAugust that it would do business with the newly-appointed First
\nPrime Minister even though the process of his selection was
\nundemocratic and resume humanitarian aid supplies.<\/p>\n
By intervening in Cambodia's domestic matters, and assuming a
\nmandate that other ARF members had been only too willing to
\ngrant, ASEAN broke with principle, and put its cohesion, standing
\nand regional role at risk. Ironically, had the Association's
\nmediation effort been sufficiently successful to reconstitute the
\nousted coalition, political instability would almost certainly
\nhave returned to Cambodia, which would not have been in ASEAN's
\ninterest.<\/p>\n
Hun Sen's obduracy and violent disposition have left the
\nAssociation with little practical alternative but to approve a
\nlegitimising fagade for a ruthless dictatorial leadership in the
\ninterest of political order. The prospect of endorsing the easy
\noption has been increased by the recent entry into ASEAN of Laos
\nand Myanmar. Given the nature of the regimes in these two
\ncountries, it is likely that they would support Phnom Penh's
\nearly admission into the Association.<\/p>\n
Within Cambodia, Hun Sen continues to consolidate his
\nposition. Funcinpec has launched only limited armed resistance at
\nthe country's margins, and no countervailing military challenge
\nhas been mounted by any factions of the fractured Khmer Rouge.<\/p>\n
As a result of Hun Sen's political doggedness, an
\naccommodation of his regime by the administrations in both
\nBeijing and Washington, the resigned response of King Norodom
\nSihanouk, as well as divisions within ASEAN's ranks, the
\nAssociation enjoys minimal influence. ASEAN was never intended to
\nbe a regional police force or to act in a trustee capacity for a
\nfailing state. In seeking to take a stand on Cambodia's
\nconstitutional sanctity, the Association of South-East Asian
\nNations has not only violated one of its working conventions but
\nit has also exposed the limitations of its regional role.<\/p>",
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