Face saving for ASEAN's leaders
The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok
The about-face on Burma (Myanmar) by ASEAN leaders in Bali should not surprise anyone. When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations faces a crisis from within, it has traditionally shied away from confronting it, choosing instead to show solidarity rather than washing its dirty linen in public.
That the ASEAN leaders decided to make a U-turn on Burma is a classic case of ASEAN preferring to save face at all cost and against all odds. After all, this particular meeting was an auspicious occasion: The ASEAN leaders were sending off one of the region's most seasoned and colorful figures, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who, ironically, not long ago threatened to kick Burma out of the grouping.
Mahathir did not say anything negative about Burma this time. Had he done so, he would have thrown the Bali summit into chaos.
Now that the ASEAN leaders have endorsed the Burmese roadmap to democracy, it is incumbent on the Burmese military leaders to show that they really mean it. But that is a very tall order.
History has shown repeatedly that Burma has failed to honor its word and as such cannot be trusted, so it could well be that the junta has simply been handed more leeway to prevaricate over national reconciliation.
ASEAN is keen to give an opportunity to new Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt to realize his seven-point plan. Yet it had no choice but to go along as the grouping's leaders understand that he could be in power for a long time. Bali, therefore, is a personal triumph for him and Burma.
By backing Khin Nyunt, ASEAN is hoping it can strengthen his role and authority over the hard-liners within the Burmese ruling clique and accelerate the stalled dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. Yet unfortunately no ASEAN leader showed any sympathy for the opposition party leader or her role in Burma's transformation into a democracy.
As host, Indonesia became timid towards the end of the Bali summit by lowering the expectations. The plan it had put forward to establish the ASEAN Security Community by 2020 was supposed to be a highlight. But this was played down due to the region's growing ambiguity towards the prevailing strategic environment.
It seems that threat perceptions among ASEAN's members continue to be different. Bridging them now might prove impossible and could backfire. Thus the idea that ASEAN can form a security community that maintains a common foreign and defense policy has been relegated to a later time.
September 11 made ASEAN a strategic linchpin in this part of the world by default. So while it might have decided to broaden its economic and security relationships with all Asian powers in a concerted effort to balance growing U.S. influence, Bali shows only that its solidarity is intact, not its prestige -- not as long as it continues to defend Burma.