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.