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.