T

he ongoing clashes between Thai and Cambodia troops over a disputed border area surrounding the Preah Vihear Temple has shown that much work must be done in the process of creating an ASEAN community by 2015, an ASEAN official says.

“We always say that we’re heading in the direction of creating an ASEAN Community, but our spiritual situation is not going the same way,” executive director of ASEAN Foundation Makarim Wibisono said on Tuesday.

At least three Thais and eight Cambodians were killed and at least 34 Thais and 55 Cambodians were wounded as a result of the skirmishes, which began last Friday. The incident along the border of two ASEAN member states, said Makarim, had underlined that the current process of community building in ASEAN was not enough because most ASEAN activities were still government-centered, stressing that the bottom-up process, engaging more elements in society, must be stepped up. “It is significant that people-to-people contact be intensified. The community is not shaped by a resolution or a charter, but intensive interaction among people,” he said.

Makarim recalled in the early years that ASEAN focused on ministerial meetings. Then it developed to summits of head of states or governments. As a consequence, ASEAN produces such programs that engage mostly in state institutions, but still lack people-to-people interactions.

Therefore, in the next three years of his tenure in the ASEAN Foundation, Makarim would like to enhance people-to-people contact in the region, by conducting forums for civil society, such as ASEAN journalists and young people. An important factor in building the ASEAN Community is the “we feeling”, he said. “It is still absent in the minds of ASEAN people.” (ycr)