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.