Thailand seeks to redefine ASEAN's role

Thailand seeks to redefine ASEAN's role

By Karl Malakunas

BANGKOK: When one of Australia's most senior defense officers flew through Asia last month in a bid to round up troops for the multinational peace keeping force in East Timor, history suggested his plea would be ignored.

Given the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN)'s 22- year policy of not interfering in the internal affairs of its member states, sending a powerful deployment from any ASEAN country on to Indonesian soil seemed highly improbable.

But with Thailand looking for a chance to redefine its own and the regional body's role in the face of increasing attacks over the region's inability to deal with crises in its own back yard, Australia found a much needed Asian ally.

Air Marshall Douglas Riding, vice chief of Australia's defense forces, walked out of his meeting in Bangkok with Thailand's political and military leaders on Sept. 16 able to report back to Canberra that his mission had been a success.

While other nations in the region had offered more symbolic than practical support, Thailand committed 1,500 troops, a naval vessel and transport plane and took on the role of deputy commander of the International Force for East Timor (Interfet).

In a decision that Australian diplomats have described as unusually quick, Thailand's Prime Minister, Chuan Leekpai, and army chief, Gen. Sarayud Chulanont, took less than a day to agree for the Thai military commitment to exceed that of all other nations except Australia.

"In the initial stage, we cast our net as wide as we could to get forces from any (Asian) country we thought had the capacity and military organizational skills," a senior Australian diplomat said last week. "The Thais were terrific, the Thai military forces moved very, very quickly."

A senior Thai government official said last week that Thailand's decision to commit so heavily to Interfet, which came after Indonesia invited international peace keepers into East Timor, was a last-ditch bid to ensure ASEAN had a say in fixing its own regional crises.

Thailand's foreign minister, Surin Pitsuwan, had already used his country's turn at the helm of ASEAN this year to push for a major policy change away from the body's original goal when formed in 1967 to promote economic and political co-operation without interfering in each others' internal affairs.

Thailand, and to a lesser extent the Philippines, started pushing for "constructive engagement" rather than non- interference.

With the United Nations taking control of security in East Timor to stop the massacres following the independence vote, Thailand felt that ASEAN would lose all relevance and credibility if its member countries did not prove they were prepared to become militarily involved in theirs neighbors' security issues.

"We hope this will kind of be a groundbreaking move for the other challenges in this region in the future," the senior Thai government official, who is involved in developing ASEAN policy, said. "ASEAN has realized that we have to be more engaged with one another. Even if it is the internal matters, we must be able to talk about it and take some action.

"Many of the member countries recognize that many of the problems that we will face in the future will be these kinds of problems and we have to not be seen as irrelevant." However, while the five original members of ASEAN, aside from Indonesia, have backed Interfet, the newer members -- Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Laos -- have refused to become involved, fearing possible intervention in their countries for their own human rights abuses and other internal conflicts.

And, wary of the diplomatic sensitivities and a possible major split in ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei have made clear their decisions to commit to Interfet were made as individual countries, not under the auspices of the regional body.

Western diplomats are unsure if Thailand and the other nations' more flexible approach to non-intervention will hold if another regional crisis flared in, for example, Burma, which has a long history of internal conflicts and bloody suppression by its ruling military junta.

"The rules are starting to change and it's very difficult to see what the end result will be," a Western diplomat said.

With UN secretary general Kofi Annan this month calling for the international community to respond more quickly to emergencies previously considered the sole domain of the individual country, Thailand and ASEAN may continue to be forced into similar quandaries.

A range of other theories exist as to why Thailand has taken such a lead role in Interfet. Some analysts believe Thailand is positioning itself to compete with Australia for "middle-power" influence in the region. This view gained credence when a senior Thai military officer recently criticized Australian Interfet troops for being too aggressive in East Timor, despite the multinational force not having fired one shot.

However, rather than a power play between the two countries, a Western defense expert based in Bangkok said Australia and Thailand were working closely together for shared objectives based partly on their strong military relationship.

A decades-old defense co-operation program has seen more than 100 Thai military personnel go to Australia each year for education and training which, combined with a range of other joint training operations, have helped keep relations close.

"The Thais do know Australia and Australia's military system -- there's a certain amount of that which is influencing this contingent of deployment of Thais," the expert said.

Another possible factor was that Australia and other Western countries had used the US$17 billion International Monetary Fund rescue package following the 1997 economic crash in Thailand as leverage in pressuring the Thais to commit troops.

"The money would have probably had a slight influence," the expert, who has monitored Thailand's military relations with Australia and other countries for more than a decade, said.

But the Thai government official denied that there had been any economic pressure from the West.

"I don't think we are doing this in response to what the Western countries want," he said.

"We are a democracy. We are concerned about this situation and if it corresponds with what Western countries want, then so much the better, but that is not our aim."

-- Observer News Service