The first blunder made by the neighbors of the Myanmar junta was in 1997. Watchers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) say that asking Myanmar to join the group by signing a well-intentioned treaty only provided the junta a solid basis to be accepted, at least by its neighbors, while continuing atrocities against its people.

The Treaty of Cooperation contained the magic word "noninterference". This and little else was the main appeal for the junta.

In the following decades ASEAN has earned the mockery and, worse, indifference of the world as it has sat by dumbly repeating meaningless words and phrases like "noninterference", "constructive engagement" and "confidence-building measures".

In the meantime, Myanmar citizens have poured out of their homeland, driven out as refugees, runaways, exiles, illegal migrants -- all risking arrest and detention in one of more than four dozen prisons across the Buddhist nation.

Now, once again, as ASEAN citizens we fear yet another major blunder on the horizon, which would be a big joke if it wasn't so tragic in the telling consequences for our neighbor.

In the wake of the deadly Cyclone Nargis that ravaged Myanmar in early May, the country's neighbors became the world's best hope to get aid to survivors. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent Indonesia's first package of aid, along with a letter conveying his condolences and Indonesia's experience with the 2004 tsunami in Aceh.

Finally, ASEAN acted.

They met Monday in Singapore and set up a task force to channel international aid to desperate cyclone survivors, chaired by ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan. Indonesia's foreign minister, Hassan Wirajuda, said some relief personnel were already in the country, while others would visit cyclone-hit areas "as soon as possible".

How soon will that be?

The UN estimates 2.5 million people have been left destitute in and around the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta area, including farmers who say their remaining seeds are now only good for cattle feed.

The host of Monday's meeting, Singapore's foreign minister, George Yeo, was quoted as saying that Myanmar would welcome medical teams from all ASEAN nations. However, he said, "there will not be uncontrolled access".

Have we been "outfoxed" once again by the junta, as one observer said? Last Saturday envoys in Myanmar were given a tour of "pristine" refugees camps, as one participant put it, while ships full of aid from France and the United States still wait for access, stuck off the coast and across the border in Thailand.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has called for a donor meeting, scheduled this Sunday in Yangon. But the junta is showing yet again how heartless it is, with its plan to devote preciously scarce resources to hold the second round of a constitutional referendum on Saturday while millions of citizens wait desperately for food and shelter.

ASEAN staff often deplore the lack of public attention paid to their hard work. This will change the day the public sees the club move away from grandiose gatherings preaching "we'll do it our way", to become a group of leaders who can determine when "noninterference" is no longer an option if they want to save lives.

Will the association get another chance to get Myanmar right?

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, said it was the "combination of the ASEAN effort and the United Nations pushing with the conference this weekend that I think can start to make the biggest difference possible".

Failing that, few in the region will be able to relate even remotely to the ASEAN pledge of being a "humane community".

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