ASEAN Tackles Border Spat, Rights and Myanmar

The group called for ´bolder steps´ towards democracy by junta-ruled Myanmar, its most problematic member.

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

The 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations also tackled spiralling food and fuel prices at their annual meeting on Monday, as worsening inflation adds to political turbulence in the region.

The group, seeking to create a European Union-style community encompassing a half-billion people with a combined GDP of $1.2 trillion, called for "bolder steps" towards democracy by junta-ruled Myanmar, its most problematic member, according to a communique issued after the meeting.

With Thailand and Cambodia holding high-level talks on Monday 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," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a speech opening the ASEAN meeting. "ASEAN could not stand idly by without damaging its credibility."

ASEAN'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.

Thai Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niumpradit later told reporters in Aranyaprathet, Thailand that the talks with Cambodia had failed to reach an agreement.

HUMAN RIGHTS BODY

The foreign ministers also discussed "the mounting challenge posed by rising oil and food prices ... to our people's welfare as well as our countries' continued economic development", the joint communique says.

The high-growth economies of Southeast Asia are worried global financial turmoil could lead to the kind of chain reactions that destabilised them in the "Asian contagion" financial crisis of 1997-98, one Philippines official said.

Spiralling prices contributed to unprecedented opposition gains in Malaysia's general election last March and are stoking political turmoil elsewhere in the region, including food riots and protests in some countries and export restrictions in others.

"We encouraged all countries to do away with price-distorting export subsidies and other protectionist policies and to provide market access to competitive food exports," the communique says.

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 has decided to press on with the charter's implementation without waiting for all 10 member states to ratify," Lee said in his speech.

The foreign ministers, representing countries that include a kingdom, a military junta, communist states and democracies, agreed a framework for a landmark human rights body, that will be incorporated into the group's charter.

Myanmar formally handed in its charter ratification papers at Monday's meeting, meaning the military junta is signing up to plans for economic liberalisation and the human rights body. But the body's powers have yet to be decided, and with deep divisions between the group, it could be toothless [ID:nMAN253614].

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.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo on Monday said he had misunderstood Myanmar's comments the previous day about when the generals could release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi -- clarifying that a limit for her detention would be reached six months from May 2009, dampening hopes she could be freed six months from now.

The ASEAN communique "urged Myanmar to take bolder steps towards a peaceful transition to democracy in the near future" to hold elections in 2010, and to "release all political detainees", including opposition leader and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, confined for nearly 13 of the past 19 years.

The recovery from a tropical cyclone that tore into Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta in May and left at least 138,000 people dead or missing will cost more than $1 billion, a report by the United Nations and ASEAN, which has been coordinating the relief and rehabilitation effort, concluded.

"The crisis tested ASEAN's unity," Prime minister Lee said. "It forced us to consider what ASEAN meant to Myanmar and, in turn, what Myanmar meant to the group."