ASEAN struggles for credibility as members feud

05/09/2011
By Martin Abbugao
Agence France-Presse

JAKARTA, Indonesia - It was supposed to be a summit to advance ASEAN's community-building goals, but as Southeast Asian leaders sat down in Indonesia at the weekend, the cracks began to show.

Minutes into the meeting on Saturday at Jakarta's swanky convention center, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen launched into a tirade against Thailand over a border conflict which has cost 18 lives since February.

The row hijacked the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and fuelled concern that such distractions are hurting the credibility of the group's plans to create a fully integrated community by 2015.

"When you have a feud in the family, especially when fighting can be heard outside the house, it is very embarrassing to the neighbors," a regional diplomat said.

Mediation efforts by current ASEAN chair Indonesia have so far yielded few concessions that could lead to a lasting ceasefire and negotiated political solution between the warring neighbors.

Eighteen people have been killed and 85,000 temporarily displaced in weeks of clashes over ownership of a small patch of territory surrounding an 11th-century Khmer temple. The temple itself belongs to Cambodia.

International pressure on ASEAN is also expected to mount after Myanmar announced it wants to chair the group in 2014 despite allegations of ongoing human rights abuses and doubts over democratic reforms, including an election last year that was widely regarded as a sham.

"We cannot afford to put our community building efforts in jeopardy by failing to respond to such bilateral conflicts," Philippine President Benigno Aquino said at the meeting, according to a copy of his speech seen by AFP.

"We call on both countries to move forward in the interest of the region's peace and stability. Intra-regional skirmishes do not bode well for... ASEAN's peace and stability or its credibility in the international community."

Aquino also called for the release of remaining political prisoners in Myanmar, saying this will be a "concrete step" in its reform process.

ASEAN wants to be the driver of future debates about security and economic challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, but Ernest Bower, a US-based Southeast Asia specialist, said there were doubts it was up to the challenge.

"The key issue is ASEAN credibility -- it must move toward being more specific about how it will define whether it is achieving its self-defined goals for regional economic, social-cultural and political security integration," Bower, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told AFP.

"General goals are already defined, it needs to now focus on clear definable accomplishments in order to convince its business leaders and citizens that policy will be changed to move toward genuine progress toward these goals."

Among others, ASEAN should obtain a ceasefire and peace process from Thailand and Cambodia and "define a baseline criteria" for Myanmar to meet before takes over chairmanship, Bower said.

It must also agree on a "pro-active and comprehensive" agenda for the East Asia Summit (EAS) that ASEAN will host in November, he added.

The East Asia Summit will be attended by the Russian and US leaders for the first time since their entry into the forum last year. With China and Japan also members, the ASEAN-driven EAS has become a heavyweight on the regional diplomatic stage.

Diplomatic sources say Beijing is against putting maritime security on the agenda because it wants to avoid US meddling in South China Sea territorial disputes.

ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have partial claims on the Spratlys, an island-chain in the South China Sea which is being claimed in whole by China. Taiwan is the sixth claimant.

The group's end-of-summit statement on Sunday said the EAS would discuss economic and strategic issues but made no direct reference to maritime security being on the agenda.