ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By THE IRRAWADDY | The postponed summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will be held in Bangkok on February 24-26, the Thai government announced on Tuesday.

Asean foreign ministers look for their positions during the "Welcoming the Entry into Force of Asean Charter" ceremony in Jakarta on December 15. (Photo: AFP)

The summit was to have taken place this month, but the political turmoil that closed down Bangkok’s two international airports forced a change of plans. The Thai hosts hoped to keep to the summit schedule but at a new location, in Chiang Mai. That plan was then changed, too, and a February date chosen.

The announcement of the revised summit schedule came one day after the Thai parliament chose a new prime minister, Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, and one day following the signing of the Asean charter by high ranking officials of the group
in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Asean governments are reported to be eager to hold the summit because of the worsening economic situation in the region. Signs of pressure for speedy economic action were seen on Tuesday in Singapore, where six Southeast Asian nations—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore and Malaysia—signed three separate deals covering trade in goods, investment and services.

The Asean charter signed on Monday envisages an EU-style single market by 2015.

While the charter sets out a common set of rules for trade, investment, the environment and other fields in the region, civil society groups are skeptical whether Asean will actually live up to its promise of becoming a more effective body.

Human rights activists and observers have long argued that Asean is no more than a "talk shop," pointing out that a proposed human rights body will have no power to impose sanctions or expulsion in cases of serious breaches by members.

Tin Maung Maung Than, a Burmese scholar at the Institute of South East Asian Study in Singapore, wrote in an article for The Irrawaddy: "The fact that the authoritarian CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam) countries would not allow anything that would compromise regime security and long-term national interests surely works against incorporation of liberal norms and values."

Military-ruled Burma strongly opposes giving the human rights body the power of even monitoring or investigating violations.

Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan maintains, however that the charter is not a “paper tiger.” The Thai official told the Bangkok Post that although there was “room for improvement…We are going to make it a living document.”

Somchai Homlaor, secretary-general of the Thailand-based Human Rights and Development Foundation, has said: "We can't make the economic development alone without development of democracy and the human rights situation.

"It depends on how strong civil society is in Asean countries in the future. If we are strong, we can push the governments to undertake the measures against a violator of the charter."