Editorial Expert on Burma's Situati

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

(July 7) 

Thailand's ASEAN move welcome (The Australian, Sydney): 

Thailand's ambitions for the reform of the Association of South-East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) deserve support. Bangkok is pushing an ambitious agenda of
reform for ASEAN, which has been shown to be slow and cumbersome in the face
of the regional economic crisis. 

Underlying the Thai approach is a more radical realization that the old ASEAN
style, the old ASEAN culture, is no longer meeting today's requirements. It
has been magnificently successful at what might be considered its three
historic core tasks - preventing armed conflict among South-East Asian
nations, deepening regional resilience such that the challenge of Cold War
insurgencies could be defeated and development pursued, and fostering a sense
of community within South-East Asia. 

Yet today's challenges are different and require a different institutional
response. ASEAN's shortcomings have been cruelly exposed by the economic
crisis. Nothing since the end of the Vietnam War has posed such a threat to
the well-being of South-East Asia yet ASEAN, as an institution, has had little
or no role. 

Moreover, as Thailand Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan argued in an interview
with the Australian, ASEAN's image in the West, not least in the capital
markets, needs serious work. The decision to expand ASEAN can be seen now as a
mistake or at least seriously premature. The admission of Vietnam, Burma and
Laos has muddied ASEAN's historically pro-Western and broadly ideologically
coherent image. ASEAN should not be saddled with the crimes of Rangoon. But if
it must have Burma as a member, it needs to be free to distance itself in
international eyes from the depredations of the Burmese government at the same
time as trying to modify that government's behavior at home. ASEAN must
respond to these challenges in the interests of its own people. Thailand's
leadership on this matter is a welcome sign and a harbinger of things t