Singapore chastised for threatening to "marginalise" ASEAN by embarking on free trade agreements outside the region

A group of regional think-tanks today urged ASEAN to scrap its core principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of members, or risk becoming irrelevent.

They also chastised Singapore for threatening to "marginalise" ASEAN by embarking on free trade agreements outside the region.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must adopt new principles, build new institutions and expand alliances to keep pace with a rapidly globalising environment, they said.

Non-interference "is a core ASEAN principle but it's hampering us now," said Jusuf Wanandi, head of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Indonesia's main think-thank.

"If Indonesia goes down the drain, the entire ASEAN will go down the drain. How can you not comment on the internal affairs of Indonesia? ASEAN will become irrelevant if it continues with this policy."

The principle, held almost sacred by ASEAN since its founding in 1967, was "no longer conducive to solving our problems, it's hampering everything," Wanandi told AFP.

He said easing of the policy would fit well with moves toward greater economic integration -- a major theme during the two-day ASEAN summit starting Nov 24.

Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, said ASEAN leaders should exert more "peer pressure" on each other to solve regional problems.

"My fear is that ASEAN will become irrelevant if it will not change," he said at a forum to coincide with the ASEAN summit.

"ASEAN in the new millennium should play a new ballgame and we have to play under new rules."

ASEAN's non-interference policy has been widely criticised for stunting the group's ability to deal with pressing concerns such as alleged human rights abuse in Myanmar and in forging a united response to the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

Singapore Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar said at an ASEAN meeting in Bangkok in July that ASEAN was being perceived as a "sunset organisation."

ASEAN leaders have staunchly defended non-interference as being the "ASEAN way" of engaging members constructively rather than taking drastic actions such as sanctions.

But Suchit Bunbongkarn, of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said the hands-off policy has prevented ASEAN from dealing with Myanmar on the issue of drug trafficking along its border with Thailand.

New security issues were also emerging such as trans-national crime, cyber-crime, mass migration, environmental problems and drug dealing and members should be willing to "cede a degree of national sovereignty" in order to solve such issues.

"We cannot go on like this. Otherwise, we will not be able to solve all these trans-national security issues collectively," he said.

The Southeast Asian watchers said ASEAN must also take steps to build new institutions and mechanisms to review and coordinate efforts to solve differences.

Under a new gameplan, the influence of foreign ministers in setting policy should be diluted in favour of a council of ministers, they said, with non-governmental organisations and the private sector given a bigger role in setting the ASEAN agenda.

"Governments alone can no longer do the job," Indonesia's Wanandi said.

Former Philippine finance secretary Jesus Estanislao took issue with Singapore for embarking on a bundle of free trade agreements outside the region.

"Singapore is going to bed with almost every country but disregarding ASEAN," Estanislao said.

"This is not a coalition of the willing in ASEAN, it is a coalition with one economy jumping over the regional fence and dealing with everybody else.

"That doesn't build a structured relationship ... as a matter of fact that will marginalise ASEAN."

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.