There was earlier speculation that a re-scheduled summit would face great difficulties after attempts by the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship had petitioned Burma and Singapore to boycott the summit claiming that the government is undemocratic.

As ASEAN will celebrate its 42nd birthday this year, established on 8 August, 1967, a lot of ASEAN observers are wondering if the organization is truly relevant to the ASEAN population.

During the period of the adoption and ratification of the ASEAN Charter in 2007-2008, many ASEAN governments, including Thailand, insisted the ASEAN Charter will make the body a more "people-oriented" organization. The actual text of the charter, however, does not detail how the people can be involved in ASEAN decision-making processes.

The Jakarta-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies and Indonesian lawmakers had spoken in favor of the non-ratification of the charter, seeing no benefit in the charter.

ASEAN's relevancy has been questioned in many instances.

First, ASEAN policies have proven to be mostly rhetoric rather than actual implementation. The 1997 document, ASEAN Vision 2020, talks about ASEAN's aim "to build a community of caring and sharing societies".

However, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva, as the current chair of ASEAN, reiterates the quote on one hand, and at another continues to label the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar as illegal migrants who should be detained and "pushed-out" from the country.

This totally contradicts the essence of "caring and sharing communities". It has been noted that less than 50 percent of ASEAN agreements are actually implemented, while ASEAN holds more than 600 meetings annually.

Second, ASEAN members themselves do not take the organization seriously. Last year, when Thailand and Cambodia had at their most critical dispute in decades over the ownership of Preah Vihear Temple - which was stirred up by the PAD's ultra-nationalism fervor - Samdech Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia ignored ASEAN and brought the issue directly to the UN Security Council. He surely must have been aware that there is a dispute settlement mechanism in ASEAN to which he could refer the issue.

The writer was recently told by a former senior staff member of the ASEAN Foundation, an integral body of ASEAN which is tasked to "promote greater awareness of ASEAN and interaction among the peoples of ASEAN", that the Asia-Europe Foundation has been receiving far more funding from ASEAN governments than ASEAN's own foundation. He said, "ASEAN governments want the foundation to stand on its own."

Similarly, the ASEAN People's Assembly (APA), a yearly forum that has been organized by the ASEAN think tank network, known as the ASEAN Institute for Strategic and International Studies since 2001, which attempts to bridge the gaps between the policymakers and civil society groups by bringing the two groups together to the same forum, is also facing a similar problem.

While in the ASEAN's Vientiane Action Programme adopted in 1999, it recognizes APA as an "important consultative mechanism for developing more people-oriented policies"; ASEAN is still not supporting the initiative as this mechanism is facing large financial constraints on continuing its operation.

Third, participatory democracy is a foreign term among ASEAN governments. The ASEAN Charter, which is the first document that talks about "people-oriented" ASEAN, was discussed discreetly, while there had been calls by civic groups to make it public for general discussion or to have it voted on in a referendum. Three documents accompanying the charter namely the Economic, Political-Security, and Socio-Cultural Blueprints were also discussed in private.

Last, and most importantly, civil society and ASEAN observers are viewing ASEAN as unable to meet human rights challenges. While ASEAN bureaucrats often credit ASEAN for having created peace in the region since its establishment, they forgot to acknowledge that ASEAN stood still during the genocide in Cambodia, which then was not a member of ASEAN.

Similarly, ASEAN allowed Indonesia to take extreme measures against East Timor from 1974 to 1999, when Jakarta then viewed it as a renegade province. The conflict in Cambodia and East Timor claimed approximately 2 million and 102,800 lives respectively. Not to mention that the human rights situation in Myanmar has not improved since it was admitted to ASEAN in 1997.

Although, the ASEAN Charter is coming up with the plan to establish an ASEAN human rights body (AHRB) by appointing the High Level Panel who are currently doing the drafting of the terms of reference (TOR) of the AHRB, there is very little hope for those who have been following its development.

The confidential text of the TOR highlights that the body has to respect the principle of non-interference and will work to defend ASEAN from external interferences on human rights issues. Furthermore, it is known that the body will focus on promotional roles rather than protecting human rights victims; that it will only serve as a window-dressing mechanism for ASEAN.

Feb. 20-22, 2009, close to a thousand civil society representatives will be coming together under the banner of the ASEAN Peoples' Forum to discuss issues affecting them. One question to be discussed is the relevancy of ASEAN. It is expected that they will come up with a statement to be delivered to the ASEAN leaders looking at how ASEAN can better serve them.

As ASEAN claims itself to be a "people-oriented" body, it surely must finally get it together and implement its policies and ensure that ASEAN will be able to respond to the needs of its peoples on issues such as democracy and human rights, if it wants to change its image as a relevant organization to the people it says it wants to serve.

The writer is a Bangkok-based independent scholar and an analyst on ASEAN.

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