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Published on July 28, 2007

It is incredible that members of Thailand's Parliament had the audacity to hold a conference specifically talking about its role in promoting the Asean Community. Thai parliamentarians are ignorant when it comes to the subject of Asean. The conference yesterday at UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific's headquarters was a reminder of just how little knowledge Thai parliamentarians have of the region. To be fair, there are four exceptions to the rule: former MPs Surin Pitsuwan, MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra, and former senators Kraisak Choonhavan and Jon Ungpakorn. They have raised issues related to Asean and Thailand in various forums throughout the region in the past several years. Other Thai legislators are just extensions of the same pigeon brain when it comes to Asean affairs.

How many Thai legislators know about the Asean Charter and its progress? Have any of them, aside from the four above, made comments about Asean in recent years?

From 2001 until 2006, the role of Thai legislators was denigrated by the executive branch headed by deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Under his leadership there were no proper debates on foreign policy because Thaksin, who controlled a majority in the House of Representatives, made all the decisions and consulted nobody. Thai parliamentarians were treated like clowns. Politicians under the Thai Rak Thai banner undertook whatever Thaksin told them to. Politicians in other countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, have had the courage to speak out on regional issues of mutual concern.

For instance, it Malaysian parliamentarians were the ones who stood up and raised hell over the political suppression inside Burma and the ongoing incarceration of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They realised that their government had made a mistake by supporting Burma's admission to Asean in 1997, so they took the responsibility and attempted to right that wrong.

Eventually, after three years, they have convinced others to join the caucus on Burma and push regional governments to take concrete action against Burmese intransigence. Now the caucus encompasses the core members of Asean - minus Brunei - which are actively calling for sanctions against Burma. During this time, almost all Thai Rak Thai MPs kept their mouths sealed. They never made any comment on foreign policy issues at all, let alone those that dealt with a neighbouring country. They had to behave this way because their party leader was the strongest supporter of the military regime in Burma. For years these parliamentarians turned a blind eye and failed to speak out about the Burmese regime or act as a check on the executive branch.

It is sad that Thai parliamentarians have yet to become a part of the Asean Community due to their ignorance and naïveté. Legislators from core Asean members have been contributing their views about the future of Asean for a long time. The only contribution that Thailand has made so far has been through non-governmental organisations in dialogue with their Asean counterparts.

Asean is an elite organisation with a clear top-down decision-making process. So far the efforts of civil-society organisations to turn the grouping into a more people-oriented one have yet to bear fruit. Asean leaders are not used to taking into account the views of civil-society organisations and grass-roots groups. The group's past two meetings were formal, and input from civil-society organisations was excluded during the drafting of the Asean Charter. For any initiative, especially one of a cross-border nature, to succeed it needs the proper and timely support of Asean parliamentarians. At the moment it is extremely difficult to reach this objective because parliamentarians in Asean still do not think for the collective good of the organisation.

In other parts of the world, legislators are very much at the crux of every policy debate. In Europe, for example, they are fierce and take their responsibility seriously.

The current Asean Inter-parliamentary Assembly still has a long way to go to consolidate cooperation among parliamentarians. Asean must have its own parliament. The Asean Charter must contain a provision calling for the establishment of such a body. Then and only then can Asean legislators work together to promote the common good and realise the Asean Community.