ASEAN to discuss Cambodian crisis

ASEAN to discuss Cambodian crisis

By Bill Tarrant

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be under considerable pressure to defer Cambodia's membership when they meet in Malaysia today, analysts said.

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were set to become members of ASEAN at the end of this month, realizing a dream of its founders to have all 10 Southeast Asian nations in the grouping.

But that tidy tableau was thrown into disarray when Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a virtual coup against First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh in weekend clashes that killed at least 58 people and wounded 200.

The victims included a senior interior ministry official loyal to Ranariddh, who was executed. Several other senior Ranariddh officials were said to be in hiding.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said yesterday ASEAN had not ruled out the possibility of postponing Cambodia's entry into the seven-member grouping.

"If that is the desired consensus of ASEAN foreign ministers, then of course," he told reporters.

Malaysia is this year's chairman of ASEAN, which also groups Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

As host of ASEAN's annual meeting on July 21-29, Kuala Lumpur is probably the keenest to induct the new members on schedule, diplomats and analysts said.

Malaysia's Acting Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told reporters yesterday ASEAN was sticking to the original schedule for Cambodia's admission for now. But he added: "We're asking our Foreign Ministry to discuss with other ASEAN foreign ministries the possibility of a change."

Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines are thought to be leaning toward deferring the whole issue at least till the end of the year, when ASEAN holds an informal summit in Kuala Lumpur, diplomats said.

"ASEAN has no choice but to delay the whole process," said Abdul Razak Baginda, head of the Malaysian Strategic Center. "It would be a de facto recognition of Hun Sen's coup d'etat. ASEAN would look very bad."

Abdul Razak said ASEAN played a key part in the Paris Peace Accords that ended a two-decade civil war and paved the way for the 1993 elections won by Ranariddh's party.

Deferring Cambodia's admission would also affect Myanmar and Laos, analysts said.

ASEAN heads of state decided at last year's informal summit in Jakarta to admit Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia as a group this year. They left it to their foreign ministers to fix the date, and they decided on May 31 to admit the three at the July meeting.

Analysts said the decision to induct the three as a group was a way of deflecting an international outcry over admitting Myanmar, whose military rulers have been accused of widespread human rights abuses in cracking down on a democracy movement.

"It could be a blessing in disguise," Abdul Razak said of the Cambodian crisis. "ASEAN now has a way of circumventing the pressure over Myanmar."

ASEAN has argued strenuously it is admitting countries not governments and that in any case the grouping can exert more influence on rogue rulers from within the family fold as part of its policy of "constructive engagement".

It has long maintained that it cannot interfere with the domestic concerns of its members, especially when governments of current members range from a communist one-party state in Vietnam, an absolute monarchy in Brunei, an authoritarian government in Indonesia and free-wheeling democracies in Thailand and the Philippines.

But the grouping also has a long history of diplomatic involvement in Cambodia. Indonesia's Alatas was an architect of the Paris accords, which Washington said on Tuesday had been ruptured by Hun Sen.

In the 1980s, ASEAN supported a guerrilla coalition that included Ranariddh's faction and the Khmer Rouge against a Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh led by Hun Sen.