Source - Bangkok Post Website (Eng)
May 15, 2006


EDITORIAL
An open region is a safe region
A remarkable meeting in Kuala Lumpur has pulled away four decades of suspicion, recrimination and paranoia _ but unfortunately only partly. Forty years after the idea was conceived for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Asean has achieved a military based, security role. Last week's gathering of defence ministers to enhance security cooperation has finally outdated the concept that international cooperation and military exercises are threatening, when in fact they are liberating. Now, only the most taciturn and generally unfriendly nations like Burma and North Korea do not accept that openness builds regional and world security.

Nine Asean defence ministers were charged by their governments to participate in the Kuala Lumpur meeting. Burma boycotted, claiming all its defence officials were too busy. But that is because the Burmese generals truly see a threat in international military cooperation. It was not long ago that the communist countries of the region agreed. Vietnam, especially, not only shunned Asean after its formal establishment in 1967 but vigorously attacked the group as a military alliance, the successor to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (Seato) and carrying out US policy.

Yet there last week in Kuala Lumpur were Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. All have become solid Asean members. The three Indochina states pushed as hard as any country to increase and improve military cooperation and the new security community which all nine countries agreed must be formed by 2020. By coincidence, the joint Thailand-US Cobra Gold military games begin today, and mark their 25th consecutive year. When Cobra Gold began in 1981, Vietnam was still occupying Cambodia and saw the exercise as a dagger aimed at Hanoi. Today _ literally _ Vietnam is entirely at ease as troops from Japan, Indonesia and Singapore join the exercise and military men and women arrive from Europe, Asia and Australia to observe.

Such openness brings trust. Such military games are neither threatening nor aggressive. For more than 10 years, Cobra Gold has focused on areas such as peacekeeping, border security and anti-terrorism. The exercise specifically enabled Thailand to be an effective peacekeeper in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. It literally saved lives by ensuring a rapid and competent response to the 2004 tsunami. Nations like Vietnam and Indonesia have seen, noted and accepted the advantages of public meetings, exercises and sharing information.

Other nations have not. Burma stayed away from the Kuala Lumpur meeting, and certainly will not be seen around Cobra Gold. The dictators of that sad, cloistered nation have recently blamed Thailand and America for conspiring in terrorist attacks in Rangoon and elsewhere. They remain securely insecure in their fantastical view of plots and secret plans against them. Similarly, North Korea is demanding that South Korea and America call off a joint exercise, which like Cobra Gold is held publicly each year.

Pyongyang calls such games "war manoeuvres" and insists they prevent peace on the Korean peninsula because the assembled troops only are looking for an excuse to invade the North. That was the former view of Hanoi and even of Jakarta, a founder of Asean which originally strongly resisted any presence of military officials at any Asean meeting. Asean used to bend over backwards not to offend such wrong-headed opinion.

Now, all members save one agree that the regional group must take a strong, cooperative security stand to help to defend against terrorism and other security threats.
Asean wants to form a security community which includes Burma, but has decided properly to go ahead without the military junta. Pretty well everyone except the Burmese generals and President Kim Jong-Il agree that military cooperation boosts security. Last August's massive China-Russia "Peace Mission 2005" war games boosted confidence with their openness, as Cobra Gold will do during the next month.

Six years ago, Thailand took a gamble and invited North Korea to join the Asean Regional Forum. The ARF specifically aims at wide cooperation and openness, in order to build confidence and, ultimately, regional and Asian security. The result has been disappointing. But along the way, every other country has come to see Thailand's side, that an open, trustful region is a safe region.

 

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