Still a long way to go

ASEAN foreign ministers and their counterparts discussed a whole range of subjects during almost a week of meetings in Jakarta.

In the end, two issues dominated: Burma and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

It takes great pride in what is seen as its increasing maturity, its ability to initiate international activities (such as the regional security forum), and the fact that it no longer has to follow the lead of the Western powers.

And yet its reluctance to broaden its values beyond self- interest shows that ASEAN still has a long way to go.

Some ASEAN governments insist that they do want to see Burma become more democratic, and that constructive engagement is the best way to achieve this.

But in practice ASEAN is not really doing much to counterbalance the legitimacy it is giving to the Rangoon dictators by bringing Burma unconditionally into ASEAN activities.

One interpretation is to view the Jakarta meeting as an occasion where the Western countries turned ASEAN into a forum for condemning Burma.

That would be a slight exaggeration, since the ASEAN countries stood their ground.

But it does mean that Jakarta 1996 was a venue for unusually intense East-West confrontation, not only on Burma, but also on the introduction of labor rights and corruption as new responsibilities of the WTO ministerial meeting in Singapore in December.

There is a possible link between the controversies over Burma and the WTO.

ASEAN is right to oppose bringing labor and other human rights into the WTO.

It is right to say that these issues should be handled in other forums.

One such forum is ASEAN itself.

ASEAN's position in the WTO would carry so much more weight if ASEAN, as a group of like-minded neighbors, were to demonstrate that they genuinely care about issues other than their own narrow commercial interests.

In other words, ASEAN should devise its own "footprint" of decency.

It should state clearly that its members must observe standards of decent behavior, and that the kinds of practices undertaken by the SLORC are unacceptable.

-- The Bangkok Post