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.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road,
Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
