ASEAN and a load of old crap (again!)

Of benefit to all?

The ASEAN Charter will be of benefit to all members, said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore on Tuesday.

He, of course, was only echoing what had long been known as ASEAN’s tradition of upholding consensus. From the very beginning hardly anyone would expect the 40 year old organization to make statements containing strong messages towards Myanmar and its repressive military junta.

Therefore, it was anticipated already that in the last minutes the ASEAN Charter would undergo major changes and everything related to punitive measures on any member abusing human rights were taken out.

We can only hope that what was decided at the summit does not further highlight the fact that—as many critics say—ASEAN is an elitist organization. Everything discussed and decided by the organization only served the interests of the leaders, not the people.

That’s why when Yudhoyono said that the ASEAN Charter would be “of benefit to all members” it was not really clear whether the word “all” also referred to the people throughout the ASEAN region, in Myanmar in particular.

For ordinary observers like us, it was strange actually how a government like the one in Myanmar could take as many as nine other governments “hostage” to its problems.

Things were even more confusing when the nine other governments abruptly agreed to cancel a briefing by a U.N. representative Ibrahim Gambari before the senior officials of the Association on the latest situation in Myanmar.

The reason was nothing but “an objection made by the Myanmar military junta who said that what Gambari was going to talk about was its domestic affairs.”

The cancellation, of course, placed Singapore—the host of the summit—in a very embarrassing situation and, worse, reflected ASEAN’s longstanding weakness and ineffectiveness in handling the bad behavior of its own troublemaker.

It is not known how long, the nine other member countries could tolerate the attitude of Myanmar despite their elites’ economic and business interests in the country.

Well, at this time of the day, probably it’s just enough that we remind all those participants of the 13th ASEAN summit that the mightiest power of all is the power of the people—not of the leaders.