Crisis blocking the road to ASEAN democracy

Crisis blocking the road to ASEAN democracy

An economic crisis concentrates Asian minds powerfully on the
other issues which are usually brushed aside. On Tuesday in
Manila, the nine-member ASEAN grouping joined with its Western
partners to set up a forum on the social costs of economic
failure. Thailand, which proposed the new body, said that "social
unrest is now the most real threat to security in Asia". Such
language would have been inconceivable a year ago.

The Thai foreign minister had already led the way when the
ASEAN meeting gathered last Friday, urging his colleagues to
speak more frankly about democracy, deprivation and the
environment. He was backed by his host: a stronger ASEAN, the
Philippines foreign secretary said, had to speak out on "thorny
issues".

Other ASEAN countries -- particularly Singapore which takes
over the chairmanship -- are more reluctant. Malaysia continues
to insist on the "time-honored principle" of non-interference.
The result was a cautious agreement to allow "enhanced
interaction" to discuss issues within member states which had
external implications. In reality unrest anywhere in the region
can quickly impact elsewhere, as the news from Yangon and Phnom
Penh underlined Tuesday.

In Cambodia international pressure up till now for free and
fair elections has been directed towards the ruling regime of
Prime Minister Hun Sen -- fairly enough in view of his dubious
record. The latest development in which the royalist Fucinpec is
crying foul presents a more complex situation. The UN observers
may have been too keen before the elections to give Hun Sen a
clean bill of health, but the actual elections do appear to have
passed relatively smoothly. Unless hard evidence of fraud can be
produced, the result must stand. The Cambodian opposition should
be reminded of the disasters which have occurred elsewhere when
one party rejected a popular vote. Boycotting the assembly would
only give Hun Sen the pretext to establish what really would
amount to one-party rule.

ASEAN has said it is watching the political process in
Cambodia very carefully but it still dodges the bigger problem of
Myanmar (Burma), which it admitted to membership last year. Only
the non-ASEAN nations of Japan and South Korea joined Tuesday's
call for the junta to stop blockading Aung San Suu Kyi -- now
immobilized for the fifth day in her car. Already a heroic
fighter for the social justice which ASEAN is beginning to
acknowledge, she deserves much better from her fellow-Asians.

-- Guardian News Service