ASEAN 'should rethink interference creed'

ASEAN 'should rethink interference creed'

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): A newly enlarged ASEAN will find it challenging to keep to its fundamental creed of not interfering in the internal affairs of member states, speakers at an Asia- Pacific conference this weekend said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) despite pressure from the West to deny Myanmar membership because of its human rights record will admit Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia at the grouping's annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur next month.

ASEAN -- currently grouping Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- has insisted its policy of "constructive engagement" will nudge Myanmar's military rulers along the path of reform.

Yusuf Wanandi, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Indonesia's Centre for Strategic and International Studies, called for ASEAN to give Yangon "a roadmap" for political and economic reforms.

"Despite the principle of nonintervention in each other's domestic affairs, there is always an exception to be made, and on Burma (Myanmar) it is right to do so," Wanandi said at a seminar on ASEAN at the Asia-Pacific Roundtable on Saturday.

ASEAN can also give some advice to the feuding factions in Cambodia to avoid violent confrontation there, Wanandi said.

Relations between Cambodia's copremiers, Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen, have been strained to a near breaking point in the run- up to next year's general election, paralyzing the legislature.

Wanandi, a sherpa for the Indonesian delegation at ASEAN's founding in 1967, noted that ASEAN played a key role in paving the way to ending Cambodia's long civil war.

Brunei delegate Timothy Ong questioned whether all ASEAN members were prepared to see the group abandon its cherished principle of noninterference.

"Strict adherence to that principle made it possible for Brunei to join in 1984. And strict adherence allowed ASEAN to withstand the excesses of the Marcos regime (in the Philippines)."

Wanandi said in response that the media and the non- governmental organizations in ASEAN countries have broken the taboo of noncriticism over issues like Indonesia's human rights record in East Timor and Myanmar.

He called for a regional assembly that could air potentially contentious issues, saying that ASEAN is overly defined by its leaders and senior officials.

Jose Almonte, Presidential Security advisor and director general of the National Security Council in the Philippines, said the newly enlarged 10-member ASEAN would help safeguard the region from outside intervention.

The new ASEAN would "prevent Southeast Asia from becoming an arena of their strategic competition, as it was for much of the last 50 years".

"Unification also increases Southeast Asia's attractiveness to foreign investors, gives it clout to enforce reciprocity on its trading partners," Almonte told the seminar.

With the three new members, ASEAN now has a total population of 480 million -- larger than Europe's -- with a combined gross domestic product of US$590 billion.