Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post, Manila | Thu, 03/05/2009 9:24 AM
It was a weekend of contrasts. People from the same wide regional area came together, but remained in groups so far apart.
On one side were ASEAN officials and eggheads, the “elected or self-appointed individuals” who dictate the processes of the meeting.
On the other was the ever present lump of disparate groups representing the issues and passions of the wider ASEAN stakeholders.
From Bangkok to Manila, separate gatherings of state leaders and civil society representatives over the past week reflected the two faces of ASEAN: the latter crying out for attention from the former, who tendency is to simply turn a blind eye. .
Forty-two years after the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and 2,100 days until the deadline for the proposed formation of the ASEAN Community, the regional grouping remains indifferent to, sometimes even loathing the prospect of openly engaging with the civil society.
At the summit in Hua-Hin, Thailand, over the weekend, civil society representatives from Cambodia and Myanmar had to withdraw from a meeting with ASEAN leaders because they were rejected by leaders from those two countries.
These actions openly belying the people centered-ASEAN concept stated at Bali Concord II and contradict the essence of the ASEAN Charter “to promote a people-oriented ASEAN in which all sectors of society are encouraged to participate in and benefit from”.
Uninhibited civil society was, at least on the weekend, considered a threat rather than a partner to government.
The rejected Cambodian and Myanmar representatives were envoys dispatched after a gathering of nearly 800 people at the ASEAN People’s Forum-ASEAN Civil Society Conference just days earlier in Bangkok.
“We weren’t surprised about the rejection of Cambodian and Myanmarese representatives,” Khin Ohmar from the Burma Partnership, one of those forced to withdraw from the Hua-Hin meeting, said.
“But we were disappointed that other leaders did not raise any objection,” she told The Jakarta Post in Manila a few days after the event.
Concurrent to the summit in Hua-Hin, a select group of delegates from around 50 South-East Asian NGOs gathered in Manila to debate the future of the ASEAN People’s Assembly (APA).
Bringing together a increasingly diverse number of private individuals, civil society representatives and NGOs since its inception in 2000, APA has emerged as the premier Track III (civil society) initiative to forge a bridge between Track I (ASEAN officials) and Track II (Institute’s for Strategic Studies).
With subsequent gatherings [there have been six in total] and persuasion from Track II bodies, APA gained momentum. Its existence — along with the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization and the ASEAN Business Advisory Council — was finally acknowledged by ASEAN leaders at the Vientiane Action Program 2004-2010 as part of ASEAN’s strategy for political development through increased engagement with civil society groups.
While its idealistic mission is to serve as a mechanism for consultation with peoples in the region, APA, in the very least, serves as a meeting ground for alternative ideas from ASEAN’s grassroots organizations.
It can champion topics ignored in the formal ASEAN agenda, such as indigenous issues, and bring to light the uneven development of civil society while cultivating a sense of ASEAN citizenship.
Nevertheless ASEAN’s inflexibility remained unaltered despite an obvious growth in civil society movements.
When the inaugural APA was held in 2000, organizers chose the venue, Batam, Riau, knowing certain individuals would be denied entry to Singapore where a leaders summit was being held.
While the activities of the APA fall directly under the objectives of the ASEAN Foundation, to this day the Foundation refuses to lend support because of objection from a few countries.
Some have suggested the APA seeks to institutionalize its interface by becoming an accredited organization with the ASEAN Secretariate.
That would be a disastrous exercise! Civil society would become ‘colonialized’ by its own governments.
A run down of the three dozen accredited civil society organizations recognized in the ASEAN Charter — which includes the ASEAN Kite Council and the ASEAN Vegetable Oils Club —
display the intent by which ASEAN perceives its subjects: With ridicule and condescension.
Khin Ohmar was right to express surprise after the events in Hua-Hin. Where was the voice of reason from leaders of Southeast Asia’s two greatest democracies?
The diplomatic hush over the failed meeting in Hua-Hin was not a case of protocol or diplomacy but of inherent, inalienable values.
Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should not have hidden behind the skirts of Myanmar and Cambodia under the pretext of solidarity or consensus.
The business of government is too important to be left to government alone. Especially in ASEAN governments, civil society will rally. They [we] are not subjects, but equal citizens.
Dialogue is no threat. Silence breeds anarchy, particularly when leaders begin to act like rulers.
