No cure for ASEAN
The problem with ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is that it believes it can continuously overlook problems by simply refusing to deal with them.
The problem with Myanmar is that it believes coercion and force to be a sovereign right.
A combination of the two brings about a corrosive predicament that reduces one of the most dynamic regional groupings to a state of lethargy, typified by persistent grogginess.
ASEAN foreign ministers may be holding their heads high at the conclusion of their annual meeting in Vientiane after resolving a potential impasse over Myanmar's chairmanship of the grouping. In a joint statement, the ministers said Myanmar had agreed to defer its one-year chairmanship until such time as it was able to shoulder the burden.
Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win reportedly told the nine other foreign ministers that Yangon wanted to devote its full attention to what he termed the country's national reconciliation and democratization process.
The rotating chairmanship -- which involves hosting the next ASEAN Ministerial Meeting -- now falls to the Philippines, which is next in line in the 10-member grouping.
Myanmar's chairmanship would have damaged (further) ASEAN's relationship with its Western dialog partners and condemned the annual ministerial event in Yangon to irrelevance given the likely boycott by high level delegates from Europe and the United States.
Yangon is quickly becoming an international pariah for its persistence in persecuting political opposition. It has responded, at the urging of ASEAN, by introducing a blueprint for national reconciliation and democratization to relieve international pressure. It claims that this blueprint will foster political openness.
But few have faith in the regime's sincerity about sowing the seeds of democracy in Myanmar.
The delegates gathered in Vientiane will likely tout the agreement as further proof of the success of the "ASEAN Way" of resolving tensions. But the reality is that they are only postponing the politically inevitable, which will occur in the not-too-distant future.
Out of sight -- in Myanmar's case -- is not out of mind.
Despite Myanmar relinquishing the ASEAN chairmanship, the grouping will continue to be the target of easy criticism for doing little to ease the plight of prisoners of conscience in a member country.
Since joining ASEAN in 1997, Myanmar has made little headway towards democratization. Its membership of ASEAN has been inadequate to spark internal change in the country.
The names may change, but the attitude in Yangon remains the same: indifference toward political rights.
Myanmar also remains obtuse as regards the changing socio- political climate in the region.
Respect for sovereignty does not imply looking the other way when blatant rights violations are repeatedly perpetrated. Yangon should realize that it cannot keep putting its most credible allies in difficult positions as a consequence of its belligerence.
Without change, one of these days, and we hope not too far away, Yangon will find some of the other nine ASEAN members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- will be its allies no longer.
While governments may display tact and diplomacy, the true stakeholders of ASEAN -- it's peoples -- are losing patience in being associated with a country that continues to incarcerate people for speaking out against the ruling military junta.
At a time when this country is holding elections at all levels of government, Indonesians must question why their government is so sympathetic to a regime that scuttled a perfectly legitimate poll and continues to deny its own people the right to vote.
The outcome of the meeting in Vientiane provided no cure for ASEAN's ills vis-a-vis the Myanmar issue. It merely provided an opiate to temporarily ease a pressing pain. Like all opiates, however, this one is no less likely to become an addiction that will only contribute to a further deterioration in the patient's health.