ASEAN forum and preventive diplomacy

By C.P.F. Luhulima

JAKARTA (JP): Apparently the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) innaugural meeting, held in Bangkok yesterday, was not structured in the sense that it could be effective in fostering dialogs on political and security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

There was no specific agenda although preparations had been made by the senior officials in Bangkok last May. In fact, Australia, Canada and South Korea had made written contributions towards institutionalizing the forum.

Yesterday's three-hour session enabled its participants (the six ASEAN countries, their seven dialog partners, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States, the "consultation partners" China and Russia, and three observers, Laos, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam) to exchange views on diverse security issues in the region and the contiguous areas. This was done in order to familiarize them with the various views and interests in efforts to head off nascent security flash points, particularly in the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula.

There were no substantive discussions. The fate of the ARF will most probably not differ substantially from the ASEAN approach to tackling border and territorial issues among the member countries. Taking priority over problem solving will be: preventive diplomacy in the sense of building peace through preventing disputes and threats from escalating into armed conflicts; trust-building proposals formulated to provide mutual reassurance by promoting openness about defense matters, and conflict diffusion.

The U.S.and Australia brought up the issue of human rights violations by the SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) in Myanmar to force the Myanmarese junta to return to their senses and formally recognize the outcome of the 1990 elections. No less than U.S. President Bill Clinton has agreed that the SLORC has one of the most dismal human rights records. The U.S. wants ASEAN to push the Myanmarese government to talk to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose party won the above election. Winston Lord, U.S. assistant secretary of state, has said that the ARF should begin by encouraging "transparency" in defense matters and building mutual trust.

Two broad topics might have come up in the ARF discussion: an overview of security-related "challenges and opportunities" (Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality and the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone) the Asia-Pacific region faces, and confidence building measures to preempt disputes between potential antagonists.

The question remains as to whether ASEAN is capable of providing enough leadership in such discussions to manage regional security issues effectively. This very much depends on the question this author raised one year ago on the issue: "Will ASEAN be cohesive enough in its political and security views to effectively manage political and security issues in the region."

ASEAN is still not fully cohesive on the realization of ZOPFAN and the SEANWFZ despite the fact that the ASEAN foreign ministers agreed long ago, in April 1972, on 14 guidelines for implementing ZOPFAN, and in July 1993, on the Program of Action of ZOPFAN.

If the ASEAN members have not reached complete agreement on the need and timing of its implementation, how will ASEAN be able to produce a cohesive and harmonious view on the presence and the role of the major powers in the region and agree on the instruments that should structure their behavior and their legitimate mediation?

The code of conduct to regulate their behavior in the form of protocol has yet to be finalized. ASEAN is not agreeable to applying the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia, ZOPFAN's legal instrument, as an international code of conduct even though it was amended in 1987 by two articles that allow non-Southeast Asian countries to become party to the Treaty. The reason is not entirely clear except for the argument that allowing outside countries to become party to the Treaty will enable them to intervene in Southeast Asian affairs.

This argument is untenable for two reasons. First, the Protocol Amending the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation of Dec. 15, 1987, allows for accession of states outside Southeast Asia only "by the consent of all the States in Southeast Asia which are signatories to this Treaty and Brunei Darussalam."

Hence, ASEAN would have to stipulate on what terms that consent could be provided.

To formulate a separate protocol as a code of international conduct in Southeast Asia for non-Southeast Asians will not have the legal power of the Treaty and will not bind the major powers legally to their commitments.

Secondly, ASEAN has been successful in obtaining concessions from the United States in its preference for cultural relativism in its stance on human rights issues. In a recent Worldnet Dialog (July 20, 1994) Winston Lord acknowledged that the United States recognized that while it would carry on with its policies on human rights "there are many other interests -- economic, security and environmental -- and we have to take different approaches to various countries, depending on the nature of the problems and the other interests that are included."

If ASEAN is cohesive and adamant enough to back up their stance on a certain issue, big countries will eventually compromise.

ASEAN should keep projecting itself at a higher profile, an attitude Dr. Mahathir keeps proclaiming, particularly vis-a-vis the economically advanced countries. This can also be applied to TAC as the code of international conduct in Southeast Asia.

The most crucial question will have to be answered in the affirmative: Yes, ASEAN is cohesive and adamant enough in its political and security views to effectively manage, guide and seek solutions to political and security issues in the region.

Yes, ASEAN is cohesive in its stance on ZOPFAN and the NWFZ as the foremost trust-building instruments in Southeast Asia and the contiguous areas.

Only in such a way will ASEAN be able to call the shots in politics and security in the region and hence give meaning to the ASEAN Regional Forum. Otherwise, the ARF will be transformed into a forum dominated and managed by the big powers in the region.

ASEAN will thus have to come up with a background paper on practical proposals for the realization of ZOPFAN and the NWFZ, for security cooperation in the wider region and on preventive diplomacy and conflict management. This should entail proposals for exchange of information among members on arms procurement plans, military exercises and intelligence, joint programs to monitor Asia-Pacific sea lines of communication, cooperation on limiting weapons proliferation and others. And the question still remains as to how to develop the ARF in order that by the Jakarta meeting in 1996, the institutionalizing of the forum will have been completed.

ARF meetings will by then have transparently annotated agendas for talks which are prepared far in advance so that the negotiations can proceed efficiently and effectively, such as is the case with the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and the ASEAN-Post Ministerial Conference.

The writer is a senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).