ASEAN needs to adapt to face future

ASEAN needs to adapt to face future

BANGKOK (AFP): ASEAN countries should give preferential treatment and aid to new members to prevent a "two-tier" organization from developing, former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas said in a report Monday.

"We must continue to pull out all our efforts towards liberalization and toward finding effective means to adjust ourselves to globalization; if we fail to do so we will be left behind," he told the Nation in an interview.

"The new members are not as advanced economically and they need our help," said Alatas, one of ASEAN's most influential figures.

"Apart from concentrating on projects like Mekong Basin Development, ASEAN must come up with development aid-based programs like what the EU did for many years for its under- developed members."

Alatas cited as an example of a more flexible approach ASEAN's decision to allow new members such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam more time to achieve Asean Free Trade Area conditions.

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Alatas, former president Soeharto's foreign policy chief, was in Bangkok last week to receive a royal decoration for his role in promoting Thai-Indonesian relations and his determination to bring peace and stability to the region.

He acknowledged that ASEAN had faced credibility problems, in particular following Myanmar's entry to the regional group in 1997 and the resulting political fallout with the EU.

"Undoubtedly what has happened in (Myanmar) has affected ASEAN's effectiveness in work, as proven by our difficulty in getting dialogues with the EU."

But Alatas stressed that ASEAN must continue in its own way to persuade Myanmar's ruling military junta to resolve its problems. "Ours is a different way from that of the West, which wants to impose sanctions and denounce (Myanmar) publicly. We think his method will not work," he said.

Ministerial meetings between the EU and ASEAN were suspended after Myanmar was admitted to the regional organization in 1997. However ties are due to be renewed at a meeting in December in Laos.

Alatas also said that the political and regional problems affecting the vast Indonesian archipelago had not weakened his country's backing for the grouping.

"Indonesia has not abandoned ASEAN and its interest in ASEAN will not be diminished. We believe that ASEAN is vital for peace and stability, he said.

"We have achieved a tremendous amount because our environment is so peaceful and because we have ASEAN."

The former foreign minister also said that ASEAN should support any attempt by East Timor to join the group once it becomes fully independent.

But he dismissed suggestions about expanding the group to include China, Japan and South Korea: "ASEAN should remain an ASEAN for Southeast Asia."

When asked whether ASEAN should seek to mediate in cross- strait tensions between China and Taiwan, Alatas said it had to prevent itself "from being sucked in."