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ASEAN tackles border disputes, economic woes

Southeast Asian ministers urged Cambodia and Thailand yesterday to show restraint over a military standoff on their border and took steps to create a regional human rights body.

The 10 members of ASEAN were also tackling spiraling food and fuel prices at their annual meeting yesterday, as worsening inflation adds to political turbulence in the region.

The group, seeking to create an EU-style community encompassing half a billion people with a combined GDP of US$1.2 trillion, was set to again express profound disappointment with junta-ruled Myanmar, its most problematic member, a draft communique said.

With Thailand and Cambodia holding high-level talks yesterday aimed at resolving the dispute over a 900-year-old temple on their border, ASEAN ministers offered to help mediate.

“The situation has escalated dangerously, with troops from both sides faced off on disputed territory near the Preah Vihear temple,” Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) said in a speech opening the meeting. “ASEAN could not stand idly by without damaging its credibility.”

The group’s diplomacy on the issue “reflects a growing sense that ASEAN is no longer just a ‘talk-shop,’ but a maturing community of nations prepared to act to advance its collective interests,” the prime minister said, adding that they had received assurances that Thailand and Cambodia would show “utmost restraint” to avoid armed conflict over a dangerous border dispute.

After a week of diplomatic sparring and a build-up of troops, expectations for a breakthrough were low, but both sides said they wanted to ease tensions.

The foreign ministers are discussing “the growing challenge posed by rising oil and food prices ... to our people’s welfare as well as our countries’ continued economic development,” the draft joint communique said.

The high-growth economies of Southeast Asia are worried global financial turmoil could lead to a replay of the “Asian contagion” financial crisis of 1997 to 1998, one official from the Philippines said.

ASEAN aims to sign a landmark charter at its annual summit in December that would create an EU-style community among its members, although three countries — Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines — have yet to ratify the document.

ASEAN’s inability to get Myanmar’s junta to reform has been a major stumbling block in its ambition to exert economic and diplomatic muscle.

But on Sunday, Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo saidcomments from foreign minister Nyan Win indicated generals could release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in about half a year.

Asked whether the Myanmar’s minister’s comments meant she could be freed in the coming months, Yeo said: “I am just repeating to you what he told me and I think that is not an inaccurate inference.”

Also See: Myanmar ratifies ASEAN charter

Also See: Hopes for Suu Kyi release fade at ASEAN meeting
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