The Achilles heel of ASEAN

The need for realism, wisdom in large doses

IT may be just coincidence but in the 2011 selection for the annual Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA) fellowships, several regional journalists will spend the better part of a month examining some of the region's conflict areas at close quarters.

An Indonesian and a Vietnamese journalist will be at the Thai-Cambodian border to look into the long-festering dispute there that recently flared into a brief shooting war, while a Filipino one from Mindanao will be in southern Thailand to explore parallels between that troubled region and his own home island in the Philippines.

A Thai journalist and this writer will, meanwhile, fan out to the Philippines; the Thai to study recent posturing between the Philippines and China over disputed islands in the South China Sea whereas yours truly will get the chance to delve deeper into the complexities of the Moro rebellion in Mindanao.


As the SEAPA fellows met this week in Jakarta before they go out on their respective self-selected missions, they were provided a crash course of sorts on the latest developments in the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), as the regional grouping moves towards the realisation of a regional community in four years' time.

It is well and good that SEAPA is doing its bit to foster a greater sense of regional community.

The irrepressibly optimistic writer and SEAPA chairman Kavi Chongkittavorn of The Nation in Thailand was not only a keen observer of the inner workings of all things Asean, but perhaps is the only regional writer who consistently and persistently boosts Asean through his writings.


Despite the distinct lack of any general excitement about the impending creation of the Asean Community, Kavi was probably right in saying that despite its many shortcomings and the almost perpetual not living up to its promise, Asean as an organisation is something none in the region can do without.

Most in the region are at least well aware that unless the 10 member-nations hang together, they will hang separately. The grouping gives all the member-nations, with the exception of Indonesia, a heft they will otherwise never achieve on their own. And in the global scheme of things, the members of Asean know that as a regional group, they are consequential in dealing with such great powers as China, India and the United States.

So what holds back Asean? Again, Kavi hit it in the head when he described Asean as a grouping of selfish member-states. Even as each Asean state realises that it gains strength in numbers, the attitude is to see how each can extract the maximum benefit out of the regional group with minimal investments into it.


The Achilles heel of Asean is likely the fact that it is such a disparate group of countries with the full range of countries at varying stages of political, economic and social development.

It, therefore, has little choice but to move forward based largely on the lowest common denominator, by consensus and hence with progress always threatened by the ever-present possibility of a veto that each of the member-states effectively wields.

Much thus depends on the leadership that Indonesia lately and with increasing confidence seems disposed to exercise in Asean. Indonesia has shown laudable statesmanship in its willingness to take up the cudgels on behalf of Asean in the South China Sea maritime territorial disputes between some member-states and China although Indonesia itself is largely not involved in the disputes.

As the current Asean chair, Indonesia has insinuated itself into the role of a facilitator for peaceful dialogue between Thailand and Cambodia over their border dispute.

But conflict resolution by Asean member-nations on behalf of fellow members is tricky at best. Indonesia had to engage in rounds of shuttle diplomacy before Thailand and Cambodia reluctantly agreed to take Indonesia on as facilitator.

Similarly, Thailand has been unwilling to regionalise its seemingly growing unrest in its southern provinces.

The Aceh peace talks were mediated by Europeans. It will be interesting to see if Indonesia itself will be willing to submit to Asean peer involvement in the Papua peace process that independence fighters in its eastern-most province now insist must involve an international third-party mediator/facilitator.

The Philippines seems the only country that has consistently involved its Asean peers -- Indonesia and Malaysia -- in helping to resolve its southern conflicts.

So even as Asean appears to be the parent that none of its member-states particularly care about but still cannot discard, it needs to be treated with due respect lest it be burdened with too many unfocused agendas of rather dubious value, such as its rather toothless human rights body.

Hearing the Indonesian Asean human rights commissioner describe how it came into being, one is left struck by how much effort and time must have gone into establishing a body so toothless and to wonder if all the labours might in the end result in just adding to the popular cynicism about Asean as an institution.

Leadership in Asean will have to be tempered with heavy doses of realism and wisdom.