SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Civil Society Sees Influential Ally in Thai Govt

• by Marwaan Macan-Markar (bangkok)
• Friday, March 06, 2009
• Inter Press Service

The kudos stems from the welcome mat that the Thai government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva rolled out to civil society organisations (CSOs) during the meeting of the 10-member regional bloc, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), held at the resort town of Cha-am, south of Bangkok.

Such a nod to CSOs by Thailand has set a benchmark to measure engagements between activists and governments at future gatherings of the region’s leaders, activists told IPS.

‘’The space for civil society engagement with ASEAN at the 14th summit was unprecedented and Thailand, as host, has a lot to be proud of,’’ says Debbie Stothard, a Malaysian national who heads ALTSEAN, a regional rights group monitoring abuse in military-ruled Burma.

‘’Thailand’s leaders and the ASEAN Secretariat now probably realise that they may have more in common with ASEAN civil society than with certain ASEAN governments,’’ she added, reflecting views of some activists from Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

It is a comment that touches on the division within ASEAN about the relevance and role CSOs have in shaping the future of the regional bloc, which has begun a 2,125-day march to create a unified economic and political community that is ‘’people-centred.’’

ASEAN, which was founded in 1967 to stop the spread of communism but is now redefining its image, has the following members: Brunei, Burma (or Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

All 10 countries signed a regional charter that came into force last December to establish, by 2015, a rules-based entity that closely resembles, in some form, the European Union.

However, only governments from three countries, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, have given wide latitude for CSO activity at home. Malaysia and Cambodia have a mixed record, while Brunei, Burma, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam have placed restrictions or do not tolerate any form of independent CSO activity within their borders.

This divide tested the host country’s diplomatic skills, when the prime ministers of Burma and Cambodia refused to join other leaders in an unprecedented 30-minute dialogue with 10 CSO leaders from the region had that encounter, on Feb. 28, included Burmese and Cambodian activists. Vietnam and Laos had also hinted at throwing their weight behind this move, since ‘’they are all part of a caucus,’’ a diplomatic source revealed.

‘’Around midnight Friday (Feb. 27), the 14th ASEAN Summit was hanging in the balance,’’ writes Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior editor and columnist of ‘The Nation’, and English-language daily in Thailand. ‘’Suddenly, senior foreign ministry officials were having second thoughts about their whole endeavour to broaden the participation of civil society organisations.’’

The answer was found in a Thai-style compromise, when Abhisit led regional leaders to meet the CSO delegation sans the Burmese and Cambodian activists and then, later, the Thai leader and his foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, met the two ousted activists for a 10-minute dialogue.

Khin Ohmar, the Burmese activist, told Abhisit that the new people-centred ASEAN, that the region has set its sights on, could be undermined by governments like the Burmese junta.

But Thailand’s diplomatic solution does not augur well for community objectives, writes Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University who moderated the dialogue between ASEAN leaders and the CSO delegation in Cha-am.

‘’While Mr. Abhisit and Mr. Kasit’s embrace and empathy for the CSOs’ grievances and aspirations rescued the day, they signalled a rocky road ahead for the community objectives as spelled out in the charter,’’ he noted in a commentary in Friday’s ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper.

‘’The years ahead till 2015 will be a learning curve for ASEAN governments that have low tolerance for CSOs. They will now be compared with what Thailand achieved at the summit,’’ says Sinapan Samydorai, a Singapore national who heads the Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers. ‘’They have to open up; they have to recognise that other governments are opening up to civil society.’’

The relationship between ASEAN leaders and CSOs at summits is heading in a new direction,’’ he added during a telephone interview from the city-state. ‘’Previously ASEAN did not engage with civil society, and when there was talk of participation, it had a limited perspective.’’

ASEAN’s new relationship with CSOs emerged in 2004, during a summit hosted by Malaysia. It marked a break from a regional bloc that had, for four decades, paid little attention to the powerless and grassroots voices, consequently making the alliance appear more interested in the self-preservation of government leaders than a union of the region’s 570 million people.

Yet, besides such summit-level dialogues, the region’s activists want the new ASEAN that is being shaped to have a formal mechanism within the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat, ensuring CSOs have a permanent presence.

‘’This [mechanism] will help to mainstream civil society participation in the ASEAN institution,’’ says Yuyun Wahyuningrum, an Indonesian national who is the East Asia programme manager at he Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development, a regional lobby group.

‘’We need to keep banging on the door to make sure that the space is wide enough for all to participate at summits and at the secretariat level,’’ she told IPS. ‘’This is the best way to bring national issues to the regional forum.’’

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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