ASEAN ministers retreat to mull group's future

By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

SINGAPORE (JP): As members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) begin to creep out of their worst regional crisis, ministers will take time from the grouping's annual meeting on Friday to do a bit of soul-searching on the future.

Despite having a two-day ministerial meeting and hundreds of other annual ASEAN meetings, ministers for the first time feel it necessary to engage in personal talks on ASEAN's future.

ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo C. Severino said he and the 10 foreign ministers would hold private "freewheeling" discussions to "take a close look at how the ministers would like to see ASEAN in the next couple of decades".

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, has weathered a turbulent two years.

The region, once the most buoyant in the world, underwent economic and political turmoil which led many to question the future role of the grouping.

Its battered self-image also has been undermined by teething problems resulting from the group's enlargement, with questions about basic ASEAN tenets such as nonintervention and criticism over the failure to promote human rights.

Severino admitted that the financial crisis and the enlargement to include Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar prodded the three-hour retreat on Sentosa Island.

"The ministers usually meet on very specific issues but here we want to take a broad look at the institutions and processes of ASEAN," he said in an interview.

Although there is no specific agenda, delegates hinted one important area which may be discussed is the fate of future political cooperation.

Despite lacking tangible market results, economic cooperation in ASEAN has progressed much farther than political cooperation. Headway has been made in setting the foundations for a free trade area via AFTA and other economic arrangements.

But on the political side, members still treat each with kid gloves.

"I think that's normal. If you look at the growth of the EU (European Union) it was like that. And economic cooperation has political underpinnings," Severino said.

"In fact, ASEAN was founded not primarily for economic integration or even economic cooperation, but to ensure that southeast Asian countries don't fight one another, and one way of doing this is to promote economic and cultural cooperation.

"Later economic cooperation acquired a life of its own and it has become the most visible manifestation of cooperation."

Severino disagrees with the argument that an inability to tackle delicate political issues head-on shows weakness in an organization which turns 32 next month.

"There's no such thing as perfect trust. But I think ASEAN would not have come this far if there was not a certain level of mutual trust."

Although conceding "there are some pretty intractable problems between ASEAN countries", he was quick to add that the issues would have erupted long ago without the organization's presence.

He brushed aside suggestions that the addition of three members made ASEAN's meetings and reaching consensus more complicated. "There's not much difference except, maybe, that meetings take a little longer to go around the table."

Human Rights

The most contentious debate within ASEAN in the past two years has been the nonintervention policy in which fellow members do not interfere in each other's domestic affairs.

Respect of sovereignty is a fundamental rule of conduct, but the rise of transnational problems and the trend toward promoting human rights have prompted unsuccessful calls for a review of the policy to allow action on domestic issues with regional impact.

ASEAN was the target of international criticism when it accepted Myanmar as a member in 1997.

ASEAN maintained that its policy of constructive engagement would eventually promote human rights in Myanmar.

Two years on, questions remain on the success of constructive engagement. Myanmar's admission has actually created more headaches, with the ASEAN-EU dialog at an impasse as a result.

Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in an open letter last week, called on ASEAN to take a tougher line to help promote democracy in her country, but ASEAN delegates have said the grouping's current policy was the only viable solution.

Thai deputy foreign minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the only alternative would be the unacceptable exclusion of a fellow member state, adding that the grouping could not promote changes in the domestic political arrangement of a member country.

Severino maintains that overall ASEAN held strong concerns about the promotion and protection of human rights in the region, but the question remained how to achieve them.

"I think some people would like to see ASEAN go on a pulpit and posture ... but if ASEAN is talking about its own members, certainly that kind of approach would not be effective at all.

"Faraway countries, particularly those don't have any political or economic stake in the region, are free to make very vocal pronouncements because it costs them nothing. But for ASEAN, the primary consideration is solidarity of the region because there are political, strategic factors that have to be taken into account."

How far ASEAN foreign ministers will be able to look into the future during their retreat remains questionable. Longtime ASEAN watchers have learned not to expect too much, too soon from a grouping labeled by detractors as a "talk shop".

In keeping with the informal nature of the retreat, no official statement is expected.

Even Severino underlined the evolutionary and deliberative way ASEAN moves, including Friday's retreat at Sentosa Golf Club.

"I don't think there will be a public document that will be issued except that somebody will take down notes ... If one was looking for specific decisions or breakthroughs, well, I don't think that's going to happen".