38 years on, ASEAN wants more action, less talk
Ivy Susanti, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Thirty eight years after its establishment in Bangkok, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is now trying to become an action-oriented group.
This was the core issue at the round table discussion titled "Building the ASEAN Community: Prospects and Challenges", organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.
The ministry's director-general for ASEAN cooperation, Marty Natalegawa, who was the moderator during the discussion, told the participants that they would discuss how ASEAN should act in an ever-changing world, and possibly take a leading role in international relations. They also discussed the role of the ASEAN secretariat in facilitating the community-building process.
Hadi Soesastro, the executive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), criticized ASEAN as being a group that was adept at setting ambitious targets but lacked seriousness in working out mechanisms.
"ASEAN should begin to get realistic by setting up institutions on a regional basis. The tide is not on ASEAN's side. Unless ASEAN is serious, it will lose its attractiveness," he told the discussion.
He later pointed out that ASEAN community-building, as part of a process called "regionalism", required the states to surrender some of their sovereignty, as in the case of the European Community.
Sabam Siagian, a former Indonesian ambassador to Australia, pointed out that ASEAN should care about the domestic problems of neighbors if they wanted to become one community and benefit from each other. He also asked ASEAN parliaments to become more active in diplomacy to make up for their government's lack of action resulting from the straitjacket of ASEAN's non-interference principle.
The issues of human rights and democratization were also highlighted in the discussion. Marzuki Darusman, a member of Commission I for defense, information and foreign affairs, stressed the need for ASEAN members to press ahead with their neighbors to uphold the principles of human rights and democratization.
"We should question whether ASEAN's reconciliation (with the present political, economic and socio-cultural conditions) will be able to steer ASEAN in the direction of democratization," said Marzuki, a former deputy chairman of the National Human Rights Commission.
Marty, however, challenged some of the suggestions. He also mentioned that the 10-member group had opened up the opportunity for non-governmental organizations to take part in the community- building process.
"There seems to be a clash between sovereignty and democratization. I think this issue is unnecessary ... Its effort to move forward on human rights issues is by harmonizing (the interests of all member states). We don't want to judge others. But we do try to lead by example," he said.
Marty, who is also the ministry's spokesman, said that it was not the time to talk about concepts or visions, but implementation.
"ASEAN already has many programs. We would like to discuss how to transform these programs into real action. Anyway, the diversity of ASEAN is not an obstacle to community-building."
Many observers of ASEAN have called it a mere "talking shop" because of the group's lack of concrete action. But whether it will be consistent in its commitment to "talk less and act more" remains to be seen.