Unprecendented frankness marks two-day ASEAN meeting

Unprecendented frankness marks two-day ASEAN meeting

MANILA (Reuters): The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) yesterday ended a two-day meeting of foreign ministers marked by exchanges over whether to discuss previously taboo subjects like democracy and human rights.

Ministers noted widespread criticism that the nine-member group had appeared helpless in the face of major challenges such as the region's financial crisis and calamitous forest fires last year in Indonesia.

Their final communique deplored nuclear tests in South Asia -- it did not refer by name to India and Pakistan, which conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May -- and called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The communique also highlighted the signing of a declaration that member states would try to make Southeast Asia a drug-free area by 2020. ASEAN members include countries of the infamous opium-producing Golden Triangle, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

But the meeting was overshadowed by what looked like an unresolved debate over whether ASEAN should permit a more freewheeling political style and allow debate on issues transcending boundaries, such as human rights and the environment.

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, supported by the Philippines, led the campaign, telling the conference on Friday: "Like it or not, the issues of democracy and human rights are those that we have to increasingly deal with in our engagement with the outside world.

"How are we going to put ourselves on the offensive rather than always on the receiving end?"

The meeting embraced a compromise, calling for "enhanced interaction" on trans-boundary issues while preserving the group's central tenet of non-interference in member states' affairs.

Closing statements to the ministerial conference by outgoing chairman the Philippines and incoming chairman Singapore showed how very differently member states intepreted the compromise.

Philippine Foreign Minister Domingo Siazon told delegates: "Our common problems have driven us to work together. Trying times call for courageous thinking. And greater openness is a boon to our common efforts."

He told a closing news conference that "lively discussions" on the non-interference issue marked the first time it had been considered jointly at this level.

Singapore Foreign Minister Shunmugam Jayakumar took another line entirely. He said the meeting had started amidst some confusion and speculation as to whether there would be changes to ASEAN's fundamental principles.

"These controversies have been laid to rest," he said. "We are now clearly of one mind, resolute and united. The basic principles of non-intervention and decision-making by consensus would remain the cornerstones of ASEAN."

Thailand has been pushing an agenda of greater openness partly because it feels the pressure of illegal workers entering the country from military-led Myanmar, giving it first-hand experience of the fall-out from political turmoil in a neighboring country.

Myanmar was admitted into ASEAN last year despite its pariah status in the West. The apparent lack of progress in resolving the long conflict between the military junta and pro-democracy campaigners is an embarrassment to some in the association.

The Philippine minister Siazon told the closing news conference that he wanted to see the process of national reconciliation in Myanmar accelerated.

ASEAN's members are Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.