The Burma Asean chair issue is only first on lawmakers? list... "In the middle of 2004, both ruling Barisan Nasional Government MPs and those from the opposition benches of the Dewan Rakyat (People?s Assembly) established the Pro-Democracy Myanmar [Burma] Caucus of the Malaysian parliament. It was something of an historical event as it was one of the rare occasions when there was a consensus among Malaysian parliamentarians from a broad political spectrum that the region was about to encounter a major diplomatic crisis which would potentially have grave implications for the region?s political and economic future. Thus, as the MP entrusted with the task of finding a realistic and practical way out of the embarrassing prospect of Myanmar taking its turn as chairman of Asean in 2006, I drew up a plan, together with my fellow members of the caucus, to treat this as an Asean-wide concern. It was decided that the best way to assess the commitment of other Asean MPs was to gather them together on a friendly basis to hear their views regarding the impending dangers that the region would inevitably face in its relations with partners who had been traditionally engaged with Asean in bilateral and multilateral dialogues.Invitations were sent to other Asean parliamentarians. Positive responses were received from five of them: Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The outcome was the formation in Kuala Lumpur in November 2004 of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, of which I am privileged to be the chairman..."