Cooperation elusive on SE Asia security

Cooperation elusive on SE Asia security

Dan Eaton, Reuters/Jakarta/Bangkok

Rivalry and vastly different levels of development in Southeast
Asia are frustrating cooperation in combatting militants and a
host of other security threats.

Some regional nations trust their neighbors less than they do
outside powers, and are more comfortable cooperating with the
United States, despite its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Jakarta next week will discuss
an Indonesian initiative to form a security community, which
includes a regional peacekeeping force, more cooperation on
maritime threats and creating more open societies.

That meeting comes ahead of annual security talks on July 2
with ASEAN's 13 dialog partners, including the United States,
Australia and the European Union.

But it is unlikely to see major progress, given the mistrust
sewn by years of rivalry within ASEAN involving at least 13
overlapping maritime zones and dozens of land border disputes.

Singapore and its close ally the United States have recently
voiced alarm at the risk of pirates linked to terror groups
attacking tankers or other vessels in the Strait of Malacca
dividing Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

They have called for tougher security and pledged to work to
protect the strait, through which more than a quarter of world
trade and half its oil passes.

And despite earlier vocal expressions of concern Washington
might be seeking to have its marines patrol the vital sea lane,
Malaysia, following a visit this week by U.S. pacific command
chief Admiral Thomas Fargo, has now pledged to work with
Washington through sharing intelligence and joint exercises.

Washington also plans to hold talks with other Asian nations
on what it calls its "Regional Maritime Security Initiative", an
as yet ill-defined plan to boost cooperation.

Indonesia, meanwhile, is left wondering about the fate of its
intra-regional cooperation initiative, dubbed the "ASEAN Security
Community".

"Our recent discussions on this issue prove to us that we need
to have regional capacity in this area, because in the absence of
regional thought on the subject we feel that other parties will
bring a solution to us," said Indonesian foreign ministry
spokesman Marty Natalegawa.

"This vacuum of ideas is not useful. We would be in a better
state if we were to think of these things in a more deliberate
manner, in a more rational manner," he said.

Indonesia's push for a regional peacekeeping capacity has also
met with resistance from countries who fear such a development
opens the door to ASEAN abandoning its traditional policy of non-
interference in members' domestic affairs.

A draft plan of action to be approved by ministers at the
Jakarta meeting next week contains a watered-down version of
Indonesia's original proposal. It refers only to cooperation
between various peacekeeping centers in member countries.

A draft joint communique makes no mention of it at all.

"The idea of a regional peace keeping force is probably
premature at this stage," Thai foreign ministry spokesman Sihasak
Phuanketkeow told Reuters.

"Maybe we should be thinking in terms of some kind of
arrangement among ASEAN countries if this peace-keeping is
necessary."

Another Southeast Asian official, who declined to be
identified, said the peacekeeping proposal would probably be
quietly dropped.

He said some ASEAN nations, which signed on to the broad
concept of building a security community by 2020 at a meeting in
Bali last year, also disagreed with other Indonesian proposals,
including the promotion of human rights and democracy.

"Some of them have problems mentioning border disputes and
some of them have problems dealing with specific references to a
regional human rights mechanism," the official said.

"Some of them are also allergic to the concept of good
governance because they say that good governance is a Western
concept which is not applicable to ASEAN."

The nations of ASEAN are disparate and include military-run
Myanmar, communist Vietnam and Laos, absolute monarchy Brunei,
Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and
wealthy Singapore.

Recent incidents in Southern Thailand, where more than 100
alleged separatist militants have been killed by security forces,
and a fresh bout of sectarian violence in Indonesia's Moluccas
islands, show the region's vulnerability to conflict.