By Alex Au
Asia Times (Hong Kong)
SINGAPORE - When United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari landed in Singapore prepared to brief Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other East Asian leaders on his mission to Myanmar, he was told at the last minute that the briefing was off.
The senior diplomat, charged with mediating national reconciliation between Myanmar's ruling generals and its oppressed pro-democracy movement, had effectively flown halfway around the world for nothing.
The 40th anniversary summit of ASEAN, a grouping comprised of 10 Southeast Asian countries, will be remembered more as a shambles than the celebration of the beginning of a new era. ASEAN's leaders were in particular expected to show the world progress on the Myanmar issue, but ended up looking more disunited - if not outright cowardly.
They also inked agreements towards creating an integrated ASEAN economic community, while at the same time the grouping's largest member Indonesia had just handed down a controversial decision against a Singaporean investor which ratcheted up the risks for all foreign and ASEAN investors.
The summit's first working dinner for the 10 ASEAN leaders on November 19 was gummed up by the Myanmar issue. As ASEAN's current chair, Singapore had invited Gambari to brief all the other ASEAN leaders on his mission's progress. In addition, with leaders from China, South Korea and Japan in attendance as part of the post-summit "ASEAN+3" roundtable, Gambari was also slated to brief those countries' leaders.
Prior to the event, when Singapore sounded out the other ASEAN leaders on the meeting's scheduled proceedings, none of them at the time had objected to the planned Gambari briefing. According to an unnamed diplomat quoted in the Straits Times, Singapore's main daily, even the Myanmar government explicitly said it had no objections to the briefing.
But at the dinner, and while Gambari was en route from New York, Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein suddenly shifted his government's position and refused to agree to an ASEAN briefing by the UN envoy. Myanmar's internal affairs were not the business of other ASEAN countries, he insisted.
Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia disagreed, pointing out that with global attention on the situation it could no longer be considered a domestic matter. One leader reportedly told Myanmar: "The rest of the world thinks that this is a matter that concerns ASEAN also and have begun to hit at us." Still Thein Sein refused to budge, forcing all the other leaders to climb down and severely embarrassing the group.
Just the week before, ASEAN had rejected the US Senate's call to suspend Myanmar from the grouping. Introduced by California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer, the unanimously-approved resolution urged ASEAN to take "appropriate disciplinary measures, including suspension, until such time as the government of [Myanmar] has demonstrated improved respect for and commitment to human rights".
Ong Keng Yong, ASEAN's secretary general, said in reply that Myanmar was part of the ASEAN family and insisted that dialogue should be the way forward. Suspending Myanmar maybe be possible from the "perspective of American decision-makers ... but from our perspective we believe we should be a bit more circumspect", he said.
Ong also said Myanmar could simply walk away from ASEAN, as they "are quite happy to be left alone". "They are not scared, not afraid of being isolated. They can just shut the door and go into hibernation."
In a sense, his estimation of Myanmar's intransigence was proved right, except that Myanmar was prepared not only to thumb its nose against the West, but against its ASEAN neighbors as well. That being the case, the group might as well have suspended Myanmar as the US Senate's resolution urged.
However, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia did not want the group to set a new precedent of interfering in a member state's affairs, and generally objected to ASEAN taking a hard line against Myanmar. Even sanctions were ruled out once again. "Not only will they not work, but they will be counterproductive," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters.
He was responding to the view of the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates: "We think sanctions are important in order to proceed." Socrates was in Singapore representing the European Union at the ASEAN-EU dialogue. The same week as the ASEAN summit, the EU adopted sanctions against 1,207 Myanmar firms and expanded visa bans and asset freezes on the country's military rulers.
Toothless charter
Despite the Gambari briefing fiasco, ASEAN's leaders made a big show of supposed unity at the summit by unveiling and signing a new charter. Throughout the drafting process, most of the details were kept secret, though advance publicity had mentioned moving the grouping towards a "rules-based" orientation.
While the primary aim of the new charter was to facilitate a speedier integration of the 10 members' economies, to meet the twin challenges of a rising China and India, in the months leading up to the summit the new charter's provision for a new "human rights commission" was also highlighted.
When the final document was leaked, it proved right all those who had the lowest of low expectations. The document was full of motherhood statements about promoting a "people-oriented ASEAN" and having "respect for the different cultures, languages and religions of the peoples".
As for human rights, it said loftily that there should be "adherence to the rule of law, good governance, the principles of democracy and constitutional government" together with "respect for fundamental freedoms, the promotion and protection of human rights and the promotion of social justice", but the establishment of a new human rights commission didn't figure in the final draft.
Instead it provided for an unspecified "ASEAN human rights body" which "shall operate in accordance with the terms of reference to be determined by the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting". At the same time, the charter enshrined among its principles "non-interference in the internal affairs of ASEAN member states" and "respect for the right of every member state to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion and coercion".
That being the case, it is difficult to see how the new charter can make any difference to the situation in Myanmar, or any other rights-abusing ASEAN country, for that matter. For instance, no provision is made in the new charter for sanctions or expulsion from the grouping if a member state refuses to live up to any of these broad obligations.
In any case, the charter can only come into toothless force after all 10 countries have ratified it. Already, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signaled a likely roadblock ahead. "The expectation of the Philippines is that if Myanmar signs the charter, it is committed to returning to the path of democracy and releasing [opposition leader] Aung San Suu Kyi," she said. "Until the Philippines Congress sees that happen, it would have extreme difficulty in ratifying the ASEAN charter."
The same day the ASEAN charter was signed, the leaders also inked additional agreements on economic integration and two declarations on the environment. The economic agreement calls for an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 which in theory will form a single market "where goods, services, investments and capital, as well as skilled workers, will be able to flow freely".
The blueprint says that four priority sectors, namely air services, e-commerce, healthcare and tourism, will have all barriers to services trade removed by 2010. Such designs, however, will remain a pipe dream unless there is much more political will than hence demonstrated. For example, ASEAN countries, with few exceptions, still regulate air links with each other through highly restrictive bilateral air services agreements. Indonesia has so far banned all foreign budget airlines from operating into its airports to protect its own domestic budget carriers.
Moreover, while ASEAN leaders were hammering out liberalization measures in Singapore, Indonesia made an alarming decision against Singapore state investment vehicle Temasek Holdings that promises to dampen broad investor sentiment. Jakarta's competition watchdog, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission, told Temasek it had to divest within two years its stakes in one of two telecom local companies, ruling its crossholdings violated anti-monopoly laws.
It also fined Temasek and eight linked companies 25 billion rupiah (US$2.7 million) each for allegedly manipulating Indonesia's telecom market. Temasek has protested the decision and plans to appeal the controversial ruling to a Jakarta court. In its current form, ASEAN is notably powerless to mediate and hand down binding rulings on such disputes.
Hence, ASEAN's dream of forging a rules-based single economic community from its current talk-shop incarnation is still far from reality, freshly inked mutual agreements notwithstanding. And with ASEAN's continued resistance to international calls to suspend or at least sanction Myanmar, despite the signing of a new rights-promoting charter, the grouping looks for the foreseeable future to remain a paper tiger.
Alex Au is an independent social and political commentator, freelance writer and blogger based in Singapore. He often speaks at public forums on politics, culture and gay issues.
The senior diplomat, charged with mediating national reconciliation between Myanmar's ruling generals and its oppressed pro-democracy movement, had effectively flown halfway around the world for nothing.
The 40th anniversary summit of ASEAN, a grouping comprised of 10 Southeast Asian countries, will be remembered more as a shambles than the celebration of the beginning of a new era. ASEAN's leaders were in particular expected to show the world progress on the Myanmar issue, but ended up looking more disunited - if not outright cowardly.
They also inked agreements towards creating an integrated ASEAN economic community, while at the same time the grouping's largest member Indonesia had just handed down a controversial decision against a Singaporean investor which ratcheted up the risks for all foreign and ASEAN investors.
The summit's first working dinner for the 10 ASEAN leaders on November 19 was gummed up by the Myanmar issue. As ASEAN's current chair, Singapore had invited Gambari to brief all the other ASEAN leaders on his mission's progress. In addition, with leaders from China, South Korea and Japan in attendance as part of the post-summit "ASEAN+3" roundtable, Gambari was also slated to brief those countries' leaders.
Prior to the event, when Singapore sounded out the other ASEAN leaders on the meeting's scheduled proceedings, none of them at the time had objected to the planned Gambari briefing. According to an unnamed diplomat quoted in the Straits Times, Singapore's main daily, even the Myanmar government explicitly said it had no objections to the briefing.
But at the dinner, and while Gambari was en route from New York, Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein suddenly shifted his government's position and refused to agree to an ASEAN briefing by the UN envoy. Myanmar's internal affairs were not the business of other ASEAN countries, he insisted.
Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia disagreed, pointing out that with global attention on the situation it could no longer be considered a domestic matter. One leader reportedly told Myanmar: "The rest of the world thinks that this is a matter that concerns ASEAN also and have begun to hit at us." Still Thein Sein refused to budge, forcing all the other leaders to climb down and severely embarrassing the group.
Just the week before, ASEAN had rejected the US Senate's call to suspend Myanmar from the grouping. Introduced by California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer, the unanimously-approved resolution urged ASEAN to take "appropriate disciplinary measures, including suspension, until such time as the government of [Myanmar] has demonstrated improved respect for and commitment to human rights".
Ong Keng Yong, ASEAN's secretary general, said in reply that Myanmar was part of the ASEAN family and insisted that dialogue should be the way forward. Suspending Myanmar maybe be possible from the "perspective of American decision-makers ... but from our perspective we believe we should be a bit more circumspect", he said.
Ong also said Myanmar could simply walk away from ASEAN, as they "are quite happy to be left alone". "They are not scared, not afraid of being isolated. They can just shut the door and go into hibernation."
In a sense, his estimation of Myanmar's intransigence was proved right, except that Myanmar was prepared not only to thumb its nose against the West, but against its ASEAN neighbors as well. That being the case, the group might as well have suspended Myanmar as the US Senate's resolution urged.
However, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia did not want the group to set a new precedent of interfering in a member state's affairs, and generally objected to ASEAN taking a hard line against Myanmar. Even sanctions were ruled out once again. "Not only will they not work, but they will be counterproductive," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters.
He was responding to the view of the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates: "We think sanctions are important in order to proceed." Socrates was in Singapore representing the European Union at the ASEAN-EU dialogue. The same week as the ASEAN summit, the EU adopted sanctions against 1,207 Myanmar firms and expanded visa bans and asset freezes on the country's military rulers.
Toothless charter
Despite the Gambari briefing fiasco, ASEAN's leaders made a big show of supposed unity at the summit by unveiling and signing a new charter. Throughout the drafting process, most of the details were kept secret, though advance publicity had mentioned moving the grouping towards a "rules-based" orientation.
While the primary aim of the new charter was to facilitate a speedier integration of the 10 members' economies, to meet the twin challenges of a rising China and India, in the months leading up to the summit the new charter's provision for a new "human rights commission" was also highlighted.
When the final document was leaked, it proved right all those who had the lowest of low expectations. The document was full of motherhood statements about promoting a "people-oriented ASEAN" and having "respect for the different cultures, languages and religions of the peoples".
As for human rights, it said loftily that there should be "adherence to the rule of law, good governance, the principles of democracy and constitutional government" together with "respect for fundamental freedoms, the promotion and protection of human rights and the promotion of social justice", but the establishment of a new human rights commission didn't figure in the final draft.
Instead it provided for an unspecified "ASEAN human rights body" which "shall operate in accordance with the terms of reference to be determined by the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting". At the same time, the charter enshrined among its principles "non-interference in the internal affairs of ASEAN member states" and "respect for the right of every member state to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion and coercion".
That being the case, it is difficult to see how the new charter can make any difference to the situation in Myanmar, or any other rights-abusing ASEAN country, for that matter. For instance, no provision is made in the new charter for sanctions or expulsion from the grouping if a member state refuses to live up to any of these broad obligations.
In any case, the charter can only come into toothless force after all 10 countries have ratified it. Already, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signaled a likely roadblock ahead. "The expectation of the Philippines is that if Myanmar signs the charter, it is committed to returning to the path of democracy and releasing [opposition leader] Aung San Suu Kyi," she said. "Until the Philippines Congress sees that happen, it would have extreme difficulty in ratifying the ASEAN charter."
The same day the ASEAN charter was signed, the leaders also inked additional agreements on economic integration and two declarations on the environment. The economic agreement calls for an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 which in theory will form a single market "where goods, services, investments and capital, as well as skilled workers, will be able to flow freely".
The blueprint says that four priority sectors, namely air services, e-commerce, healthcare and tourism, will have all barriers to services trade removed by 2010. Such designs, however, will remain a pipe dream unless there is much more political will than hence demonstrated. For example, ASEAN countries, with few exceptions, still regulate air links with each other through highly restrictive bilateral air services agreements. Indonesia has so far banned all foreign budget airlines from operating into its airports to protect its own domestic budget carriers.
Moreover, while ASEAN leaders were hammering out liberalization measures in Singapore, Indonesia made an alarming decision against Singapore state investment vehicle Temasek Holdings that promises to dampen broad investor sentiment. Jakarta's competition watchdog, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission, told Temasek it had to divest within two years its stakes in one of two telecom local companies, ruling its crossholdings violated anti-monopoly laws.
It also fined Temasek and eight linked companies 25 billion rupiah (US$2.7 million) each for allegedly manipulating Indonesia's telecom market. Temasek has protested the decision and plans to appeal the controversial ruling to a Jakarta court. In its current form, ASEAN is notably powerless to mediate and hand down binding rulings on such disputes.
Hence, ASEAN's dream of forging a rules-based single economic community from its current talk-shop incarnation is still far from reality, freshly inked mutual agreements notwithstanding. And with ASEAN's continued resistance to international calls to suspend or at least sanction Myanmar, despite the signing of a new rights-promoting charter, the grouping looks for the foreseeable future to remain a paper tiger.
Alex Au is an independent social and political commentator, freelance writer and blogger based in Singapore. He often speaks at public forums on politics, culture and gay issues.
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