Security the priority

The presence of American troops in the southern Philippines to fight extremist Abu Sayyaf rebels is proof enough that regional nations have to look elsewhere for help. If ASEAN took a united stand on the issue of security, Asians would be able to look after their own affairs instead of seeking assistance from outside powers.

The biggest problem is that ASEAN lacks cohesion. Indonesia's president Soeharto was a unifying voice, but the grouping has become unwieldy. Given the political and economic variance between ASEAN's members, its member nations have increasingly adhered to the group's founding agreement of non-interference in one another's internal matters.

This rule may have been acceptable a decade ago, but Sept. 11 (has) changed the world. The new threat is terrorism and, being a global phenomenon, global rather than localized thinking is necessary to wipe it out.

ASEAN does face problems in providing its own security to fight such issues. Muslim forces from Malaysia and Indonesia could not be drafted to fight the Islamic fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf. But soldiers from other member nations such as Thailand and Singapore surely could.

In this new and dangerous era, ASEAN must surely make a stand to face up to the expectations and needs of its people.

-- South China Morning Post, Hong Kong