Ministers bring heavy baggage to Yangon meeting

Ministers bring heavy baggage to Yangon meeting

YANGON (AFP): Southeast Asian foreign ministers gathered in
the Myanmar capital on Sunday for a meeting which is expected to
be hamstrung by the host of political and economic woes besetting
the region.

As they began arriving in Yangon, coup rumors swept the
Philippines and Indonesia was braced for violence on the eve of a
parliamentary session expected to launch the impeachment of
President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Observers said that as a result, the informal retreat which
begins on Monday will see none of the fiery debate aired at the
ministers' last Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
meeting in Bangkok last July.

Delicate issues including the future viability of the bloc,
and a security "troika" to adjudicate on regional troublespots
are likely to be avoided by ministers who are preoccupied with
their nations' own internal problems.

"When they met in Bangkok they made an agreement to work on
preventative diplomacy," said Prapat Thepchatree, director of the
Bangkok-based Center for International Policy Studies.

"But at this particular time, it seems many countries in the
region are more concerned about their internal problems," he
said, particularly as their economies fall victim to the slowdown
in the United States and Japan.

"Efforts to improve cooperation within ASEAN will be
considered as a kind of luxury compared to the urgent domestic
issues."

However, ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo Severino said
ministers would take current events in their stride when they
meet at a plush golf course venue after paying a call on
Myanmar's leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

"These are not distractions, they are problems for us to work
on," he said.

ASEAN reform initiatives, spearheaded by the region's stronger
democracies, had always met with opposition from authoritarian
members anxious to stick to ASEAN's policy of non-intervention in
internal affairs.

The dissenters are likely to have more influence at Monday's
meeting, held in military-ruled Myanmar and chaired by communist
Vietnam which will also host the ministers' official meeting in
July.

"We can see a big difference from last year, when Thailand was
a chair and active in promoting a lot of new issues and
cooperation," said Prapat. "Since the chair has changed to
Vietnam you can see ASEAN has been very quiet."

However, Singaporean Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar was upbeat
on Sunday, welcoming the "no-frills" meeting which will be closed
to officials as well as the media.

"The whole idea is to get away from a rigid structure and to
have a free exchange of views," he said.

One highlight of the retreat will be the first meeting between
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung and his Thai counterpart
Surakiart Sathirathai, who will stay on for a two-day official
visit.

The two countries have been bogged down in angry exchanges
since February when fighting between rival ethnic militias
reputedly engaged in the drug trade sparked a rare clash between
the neighbors' armies.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Chaiwat Khamchoo, dean of political science at Thailand's
Chulalangkorn University, said the meeting would be a valuable
chance to clear the air.

"Things have got really out of hand lately, but it's in both
our interests to have a good relationship," he said. "The sooner
this is done the better. We have wasted too much time."

"Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore --
everyone has their own leadership problems. So I guess things
might be bit quiet and the issues that are broached might not be
too exciting."

Instead, the ASEAN spotlight will be on this week's meeting of
economic ministers in Cambodia, where delegates will grapple with
the fallout from the U.S. slowdown which is strangling their
trade-dependent economies.