Praise for Phnom Penh

With all 10 leaders of the ASEAN countries now safe and sound at home after attending the just-concluded Phnom Penh summit, it is proper for us to congratulate the host country, Cambodia, although somewhat belatedly, for its achievement in drawing the region out of its years of lethargy and loss of international prestige.

This is certainly no mean feat. ASEAN, it should be remembered, was born in the 1970s out of the realization that the countries of this region had to cooperate if they were to confront successfully an increasingly competitive world. Not surprisingly, the initial aims of the association mainly concerned matters of mutual accord in the areas of trade and economy, shunning politics and the military.

Things started promisingly enough. From being initially a regional organization comprising only five members -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines -- it grew to one of 10 after the inclusion of other countries, attracted by the benefits that ASEAN promised.

Unfortunately, the global map changed drastically after the Asian economic and financial crisis began to bite in 1997. And, as far as Indonesia and ASEAN were concerned, President Soeharto's downfall in 1998 caused the downturn in ASEAN's fortunes to accelerate even further.

Instead of cooperating, the organization's member countries bickered and squabbled over issues that, within the context of global development, might be regarded as trivial, such as migrant labor. Lately, terrorism added to these issues.

It is to the credit of Cambodia and its leaders that the recently concluded summit in Phnom Penh has managed to break the ice among those countries and restore at least some of the goodwill that imbued the association in its earlier years. Special credit must go to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the respected King Norodom Sihanouk.

A sign that ASEAN is beginning to regain some of its old prestige in the international community is the interest displayed by countries such as China, India and Australia to strengthen their links with the association. With all this, it seems reasonable to expect that ASEAN can soon reemerge as a prestigious regional organization in the world today.

What all this means for Indonesia is that the right time has come for this country to play an active role once again and reassume its once-prominent role in this region. To do this, however, one requirement is necessary: President Megawati Soekarnoputri needs to assert the strong leadership that this nation and the region expect from her as the leader of Southeast Asia's largest and most-populous country.