[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

ASIAWEEK: MALAYSIA



        ASEAN LOSES CRITIC ANWAR

            And some nations may be glad to hear it

                           By Roger Mitton / Bangkok 


Anwar vs. Mahathir A battle of wills

Expulsion An UMNO tradition

Interview ASIAWEEK talks with Anwar Ibrahim

Counterpoint Ghafar's unofficially official point of view

Stocks Pumping up the bourse

THINGS HAVE BEEN GOING from bad to worse for the Association of Southeast
Asian
Nations. It had to delay admitting Cambodia last year because the country's
second prime minister
ousted the first. A noxious smog settled over the region like a divine
reprimand, and most leaders
just prayed it would go away. The Asian economic meltdown has scorched
confidence. Any notion
of a concerted ASEAN response to the Crisis never gathered force. The
group's hands-off policy
may have once been a strength; now many in the region believe it is a
weakness. Anwar Ibrahim
was the first one to say so. 

"Anwar emerged as one of the most interesting and forceful leaders in
Southeast Asia," says
Singapore-based academic Amitav Acharya. "He caught the imagination of a
lot of people." In a
July 1997 essay, Anwar advocated that ASEAN should cast aside its
long-cherished principle of
non-interference and embrace "constructive intervention." The official
response was an embarrassed
silence. The old guard apparently thought ASEAN was doing just fine, thank
you very much. 

Anwar was not the only leader to suggest that ASEAN needed to do better.
Thai Foreign Minister
Surin Pitsuwan, Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon and top
Singapore foreign ministry
bureaucrat Kishore Mahbubani took up the cause. Surin, with support from
Siazon, also advocated
constructive intervention. Then he softened it a bit - first to "flexible
engagement" then to "enhanced
interaction." Explained Surin: "My point is, hey, let's make ASEAN more
open." But many now
believe the chances of that are remote. Anwar is gone, Kishore was sent to
the U.N. and
everybody but Bangkok and Manila rejected outright the notion of flexible
engagement. Says
Amitav: "If Anwar would have been the next leader of Malaysia, then - with
Thailand and the
Philippines - you would have three founding members advocating some form of
flexible engagement
and more openness. That combination would have been quite formidable for
the prospects of
change in ASEAN. Without Anwar those forces will be weaker."

Still, not all observers are pessimistic. Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda,
executive director of the
Malaysian Strategic Research Center, contends that Anwar's initiatives will
not be forgotten simply
because he has been forced out. Regarding flexible engagement, Razak says:
"The baton has been
passed to Surin. Anwar brought it to the fore, and although he may fade
away, the issue is still
alive." Prudhisan Jumbala of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok agrees,
noting that others may
challenge the group's traditional ways. "There are a number of young,
up-and-coming people in
ASEAN, whom I can't believe would be conservative," he says.

Anwar was also one of the few senior officials who publicly criticized
Asia's political, social and -
more recently - economic shortcomings. Unlike the generation of
Independence leaders, he was not
still fighting against the West. Some, of course, saw that as one of
Anwar's failings. "The West will
miss him," says an ASEAN diplomat. "He always says what the U.S. likes to
hear." Certainly
Anwar's more balanced views on democracy and governance did not always go
down well in some
of ASEAN's autocratic states. Indeed, some believe that ASEAN's
totalitarian regimes in Brunei,
Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam may welcome his demise. Says Prudhisan: "Probably
they will be
happy to see him go."

Many think that even Singapore may quietly appreciate his departure since
the leadership there
considered him unpredictable, if not flaky. Mahathir, at the very least, is
a known quantity - and far
less of an Islamist (ever a worry in the island republic). Says a Singapore
academic: "Singaporeans
are always unsure of Anwar. His talk about 'going to the people' would
create a certain degree of
anxiety." An editorial in the government-leaning newspaper in Singapore,
The Straits Times, didn't
offer much of an opinion about Anwar's downfall. Instead the piece focused
on Malaysia's new
currency controls. The paper did report the allegations against Anwar, as
well as his denials. Thai
and Philippine columnists were more forceful: They called Mahathir
authoritarian for dismissing
Anwar before any formal charges had even been filed against him.

ASEAN's next years are uncertain. New and mostly untested leaders are in
power in Indonesia,
Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Authorities in Myanmar and
Brunei are facing greater
challenges than they have in a while. Cambodia is still in limbo. The loss
of a clear successor to
Mahathir only adds to the unease. "ASEAN is in trouble with or without
Anwar, but his sacking
adds to the chaos," says Charnvit Kasetsiri of Thailand's Thammasat
University. "The future of
ASEAN is not very promising at all. It's kind of dark and gloomy." If he's
right, then
ASEANleaders have a lot to talk about - or ignore.

- With bureau reporting