ARF yet to outline solid direction

By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

JAKARTA (JP): While the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has proven to be a potentially effective mechanism for preventing regional conflicts, it has yet to determine a more concrete means of resolving internal matters, particularly in the areas of membership and territorial scope.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), initiated in 1993, realized that mutual engagement and consultations were the key to creating a stable and secure Southeast Asia. They then applied the same formula to a multilateral consultative forum.

However, as ministers today begin the third ARF, the forum is in danger of becoming just another "talk shop", unless it can produce a clearer map for security relations in the region.

Political scientist Dewi Fortuna Anwar from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences asserts that the ministers need to come up with a concrete blueprint for security cooperation.

She says the blueprint would help guide the three stage approach to cooperation that the ARF is pursuing: confidence building measures, preventive diplomacy and conflict resolution.

In essence, the ARF has already laid the groundwork of such a blueprint by establishing various inter-sessional working groups, whose reports will be discussed at today's meeting.

The Inter-Sessional Group on Confidence Building Measures will be proposing more security dialog and an exchange of defense programs to foster a mutual understanding of defense perceptions.

The group has taken a bold step by suggesting a voluntary exchange of each country's "Defense White papers", the documents which contain defense policy information.

Search and Rescue Cooperation as well as Peacekeeping Operations are two other inter-sessional groups whose proposals will be considered today.

The latter is expected to urge participating countries to work more closely through a sharing of peacekeeping experiences, partly through courses on peacekeeping topics.

Meanwhile, Buntarto Bandoro from the Center for Strategic and International Studies pointed out that the forum may now have to proceed farther and faster then some members would like.

He explained that this is to anticipate the rapid pace of development in the region. The best way to ensure regional stability, he said, is to include on the forum's agenda issues which have wider regional and global implications.

ARF is expected to focus on three main issues: the South China Sea, nuclear testing along with the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty and the Korean Peninsula.

The South China Sea remains the most likely flash point in the region.

The fact that five of the six claimants to the disputed area are members of the ARF allows the forum to at least call on them to seek a peaceful solution.

Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan have overlapping claims in the area. Only the latter is not an ARF participant.

On nuclear testing, the ARF is expected to address the need for a speedy conclusion to the negotiations for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the end of the year.

The fact that all the major negotiating parties are participating in the ARF provides an opportunity for an exchange of views on the matter.

Within the forum, ASEAN will also push its own nuclear weapons free zone treaty. The United States in particular still refuses to sign the treaty.

ARF members will discuss the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the proposal of four-way talks. It is expected that the ARF will stress the need for some kind of peace mechanism.

Criteria

One of the most pressing matters facing the forum is the growing number of participants and the list of countries applying to join. After the inclusion of India and Myanmar, the ARF, under the guidance of ASEAN, will have to establish a set of criteria for new participants.

Officials during early meetings stressed that the forum should be kept to a "manageable size". Before it can do that, however, the forum must first define the main area of focus, or the "geographical footprint, as some officials have described it.

While Myanmar's admission is based on the fact that it is a prospective ASEAN member, India's recent inclusion indicates that the ARF covers both Northeast and Southeast Asia.

After establishing this, officials stress that new participants must be able to have a direct effect on regional peace and security.

Others have underlined that new participants will only be admitted if their inclusion is necessary for achieving the forum's goals. The rather subjective criteria trims down the number of potential new participants.

While the ARF seems to have sorted out just who should join and what the regional scope of their work is, it remains to be seen how the ministers will deliberate in a forum of 21 participants in a scheduled meeting time of just 4.5 hours.