ASEAN urged to fortify regional solidarity

ASEAN urged to fortify regional solidarity

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Southeast Asian nations must face economic crisis, the possible return of choking haze and Cambodia's political turmoil together, ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo Severino said yesterday.

"Some in ASEAN seem to pay mere lip service to the ideal of regional solidarity and cooperation," the Association of Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretary-general said.

"Now the financial crisis, the haze problem and Cambodian question have brought home to all of us the need to forge a stronger sense of unity in ASEAN if our most serious problems are to be addressed," he told a forum on security issues.

Severino said the regional turbulence was an "emerging irony" in ASEAN as "the very integration envisioned and long regarded as a source of strength can be a point of weakness."

But ASEAN's reaction was an even stronger commitment to economic openness, instead of hesitating and slowing down its economic integration, he said.

"ASEAN members must now work together more closely than even before and bind their economies more tightly together, if they are to manage the affairs of an increasingly integrated regional economy," he said.

Similarly, Severino said ASEAN had approached the problem of haze, the choking clouds of smog which enveloped much of the region last year, by frequent consultations and cooperative measures.

On Cambodia, he said ASEAN was compelled to get involved "not out of a desire to interfere in a neighbor's internal affairs but because of the regional repercussions of developments in that neighbor."

Cambodia was thrown into turmoil when Second Prime Minister Hun Sen overthrew his co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh last year. Elections are due in the country in July.

"ASEAN has to make sure that no unstable element intrudes into its midst, that destabilizing forces such as refugee flows do not shake the rest of the region and that no change in leadership or form of governance by violent means is encouraged," Severino said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the regional crises had "helped minimize differences" among ASEAN members and called for further economic cooperation.

"We must (also) be mindful of the limits of ASEAN action and not expect more of it than it is ready and equipped for. In particular, we must recognize that we are but small economies and only a fifth of our trade is with each other," he told the forum.

Abdullah also cautioned that economic plans in ASEAN countries should not "threaten the fundamental security and well-being of our societies."

He argued that foreign prescriptions for recovery were "often laden with the logic of pure economics and pure economics can be as destructive as pure politics."

Thailand's deputy foreign affairs minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra urged political reforms so ASEAN members could adjust "newly emerging societal demands and ensure politically sustainable economic growth."