ASEAN parliamentary caucus on Myanmar

ASEAN parliamentary caucus on Myanmar

Michael Vatikiotis, Singapore

Myanmar's imminent turn as chairman of ASEAN in gives regional
officials cause for concern. Their worry is that when it is the
military junta's turn to host the annual round of meetings and
summits next year, ASEAN's dialog partners -- and principal trading
partners -- will choose not to attend and embarrass the region.
This fear explains why regional governments have tacitly given
the nod to a remarkable political development that chips away at
ASEAN's hallowed principle of non-interference.

When legislators from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia
and Cambodia gather in Jakarta on Feb. 2, they will be making
history by launching the region's first interstate parliamentary
caucus. Their stated aim is to pressure the generals in Yangon to
accelerate the transition to democracy.

When the caucus was first formed in Malaysia last year,
veteran opposition politician Lim Kit Siang announced that the
aim of the caucus was to "monitor and ensure genuine
democratization" in Myanmar. "The seven-year history of Myanmar's
membership in ASEAN," declared Kit Siang, "is a sorry record
littered with broken promises about genuine democratization and
national reconciliation inside the country and grave
embarrassment to ASEAN imperiling international goodwill and
investment opportunities for the region."

This strident advocacy, once the lonely preserve of NGOs and
exiles, was given a credibility boost, when the MPs from the
ruling UMNO party joined the caucus and Malaysia saw the creation
of the first bipartisan parliamentary grouping. Later in
November, the caucus, now led by outspoken UMNO MP Zaid Ibrahim,
brought together legislators from neighboring ASEAN countries and
issued a strong statement calling for the release of Nobel peace
laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The induction of 20 legislators from the Indonesian parliament
this week means that ASEAN's largest, and newest democracy, has
now lent its voice to the calls for change in Myanmar. The
question is will a bunch of parliamentarians calling for change
in public succeed where countless officials taking the quieter
route of discreet engagement and cajolement have failed before?

Perhaps. It seems unlikely that the sensitive generals in
Yangon will invite these MPs for tea -- especially since they
have been consorting with well-known activists and advocates of
radical change in Myanmar, as is their right. But the role this
group plays may not be in Myanmar itself, but in the way it helps
break new political ground in the wider region.

Over the past few years there has been mounting impatience
with ASEAN's rigid adherence to the convention of non-
interference, which has made it hard for example, for Indonesia's
neighbors to complain too loudly about the haze that pollutes the
regional environment, or more recently for neighboring countries
to propose closer cooperation to help resolve the burgeoning
conflict in Southern Thailand.

A regional parliamentary caucus of the kind that is
crystallizing around the Myanmar issue could help regional
governments overcome their resistance to dialogue and cooperation
on sensitive domestic issues. Much of the difficulty in resolving
the internal conflicts that plague the region could be addressed
through more cross-border discussion and confidence building.
Moving this kind of dialogue out of the realm of officialdom into
the popular arena helps build understanding that seeps down into
society.

There are already noises coming out of the Malaysian caucus
that the group should consider addressing other regional issues
like the violence in Southern Thailand that has claimed more than
500 lives this year, or even the conflict in Aceh. Zaid Ibrahim
believes that elected representatives from the region have a
collective responsibility to promote democracy; and that the old
culture of non-interference should be buried in ASEAN. As
Malaysia's foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar put it last
November, talking about the violence in Southern Thailand, "there
is no such thing as absolute non-interference."

Of course, critics argue that table-thumping tactics will get
ASEAN nowhere with the oversensitive generals in Yangon and
suggest that the MPs confine their rhetoric to the cigar lounges
of their various capitals. That may be so, but the generals have
shown no inclination to leave the regional grouping, and want the
credibility that they think will stem from securing the ASEAN
chairmanship in 2006. What if, by then, ASEAN governments have
started listening more to its elected representatives, and even
perhaps recognized the role they play in helping to set political
directions or correct doubtful courses? The point about the
February caucus meeting in Jakarta is that this kind of thinking
is not any longer so wishful.