Connectivity the next step in Asean community building

       THE 15th Asean Summit and related summits will be held from October 23-25 at Cha-am near Hua Hin. This summit will be a crucial milestone for the regional grouping.
       Community building is the essential task for Asean to become a successful regional body. The challenges are huge but the reward is sustainable peace and increased prosperity in the region.
       Highlights of the summit will include the inauguration of the Asean Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights, the adoption of a declaration on climate change to reaffirm the Asean position in the negotiation under the UN Frameworks Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as the adoption of a declaration on education cooperation to achieve an Asean Community.
       During last Asean meeting, Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said that when the member countries of Asean become a single economic bloc in 2015, the Asean Community should be "a community of action, connectivity and peoples".
       Asean must not fail in this goal. Actually there is no alternative to Asean as a leading political organisation. Political regionalisation is a worldwide trend that forces regions to overcome historical, religious or cultural differences.
       If Southeast Asia wants to play a role on the world stage, its individual nations have to move closer together. Developments within Asean - the increased cooperation, the further strengthening of its institutions - over recent years have been remarkable. However, Asean is running the risk that this increased cooperation among the member states is not taking the very bases of the organisation - its people - along with it.
       Many Southeast Asian countries not only lack the ability to communicate the challenges and benefits of Asean to their people, they also often see the development of a strong regional body as a threat to their own political power and their position in the region. This makes it easy for them to abuse Asean for internal political gain. Thailand is no exception.
       To emphasise the benefits of Asean to the grouping's people is essential for successful regional integration. Other regional organisations face the same problems. The European Union was developed to secure peace after decades of war on the European continent. The EU started slowly, with bilateral contacts between France and Germany, and moved on to the first inauguration within Europe with seven member states signing the first European contract. The focus was on initially on economic cooperation.
       Today, the EU has 27 members, no borders, and a common currency; even a single design for the license plates of cars has been adopted throughout the bloc. For a lot of Europeans, these smaller symbols of being part of a union are maybe more important than the high-level meetings of politicians.
       The only way to connect the people of Southeast Asia is by harmonising travel, and liberalising trade and investment in the region. There is also a need to make people feel Asean.
       Harmonised rules and legal certainty and security will unavoidably lead to increased investment. Exchange of goods and services, and contact between people of the member nations will lead to a better understanding of different cultural backgrounds. At the same time, an increased effort in the region's educational systems is crucial for the long-term success of the organisation. Also, the various nationalistic trends in some countries must be overcome.
       People must feel the benefits of Asean in their daily lives. Asean must strive to be a "community of action" that must be able to act decisively and in a timely manner to address both internal and external threats, and meet the challenges of its member states and peoples.
       Further, the Asean Community should become a "community of people" where all peoples of the region have equitable access to human development opportunities.
       Asean is in the process of creating dispute settlement mechanisms, developing new organs including a Committee of Permanent Representatives, and setting in motion various Community Councils that will drive its community-building forward under the Cha-am Hua Hin Roadmap for an Asean Community.
       Thailand will pass on its chairmanship of Asean to Vietnam in December. Until then, a lot of time and effort must be invested to bring the Thai chairmanship to a successful end.
       Alexander Mohr was a lecturer in international relations at the French university Institut d'ษtudes Politiques de Paris (SciencesPo) and is partner for international relations at the European government relations firm Alber & Geiger in Brussels.

MONEY AND MANDARIN LESSONS FUEL CHINA'S AFRICAN INVASION

       From Liberia to Ethiopia, Beijing is constructing a 21st century empire thousands of miles from home By Daniel Howden
       On a recent afternoon more than a dozen Liberians were expected at the Samuel Doe sports stadium in the capital,Monrovia. In a makeshift classroom with some plastic chairs and a whiteboard their teacher, Li Peng, was waiting to finish the group's second week of instruction in Mandarin. Early attendances at the free daily lessons provided by the Chinese embassy have been poor, but officials are blaming heavy rain rather than light interest. The class is still struggling with the basics and few Chinese listeners apart from their teacher would recognise the strange "hellos" and "goodbyes" being called out.
       "Learning Chinese may prove difficult,"Mr Li admitted."But if they work hard they will make it."
       The West African country set up to settle freed American slaves in 1843 is English-speaking and the going is hard.
       John Cooper, a 57-year-old who has been attending the two-hour classes and works at a nearby youth centre, is determined to master Mandarin.
       "Traditionally, we Liberians are closer to the Americans than we are to the Chinese," he says."But the irony is that the Chinese are more open to us than the Americans are."
       Liberia's government has no Mandarin speakers, and China's ambassador Zhou Yuxiao admits that he's uncomfortable that multibilliondollar accords between the two countries are signed with one side unable to read the documents.
       "We feel a little bit guilty at not being able to help Liberians to speak our language," he said.
       On the same day that the Mandarin lessons were getting under way at the stadium in Monrovia, a much larger crowd was gathering about 300 miles to the northwest at another sports stadium,this time in Conakry, the capital of Guinea.The people had gathered to protest against the military junta and a young army officer,Moussa Dadis Camara, who with wearying predictability has been considering going back on earlier promises to hold free elections.
       While Liberian students were grappling with Mandarin vowels more than 150 Guineans were being murdered. Scores of women were then raped. The massacre prompted international outrage, and the African Union meets in the coming week to discuss possible sanctions.
       But it was revealed last week that China was preparing to throw the regime a lifeline in the form of nearly ฃ4.3 billion (235 billion baht) in oil and minerals deals.
       It has left many wondering which is the real face of China in Africa. Is it the quest for understanding being led by Mr Li in Monrovia?Or the naked pursuit of raw materials whose sale props up abusive governments like the one in Conakry? China's engagement in Africa was supposed to have changed, experts say.
       Beijing's doctrine of "non-interference"in the domestic affairs of other countries was put to one side last year as it helped to nudge Sudan, one of its major oil suppliers, into allowing a beefed-up UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
       Then on a visit earlier this year China's president, Hu Jintao, signalled Beijing's intent to double aid to Africa.
       According to Ian Taylor, a senior lecturer in international affairs at the University of St Andrews, the apparent contradiction is the product of a "clueless" approach by Beijing,"a tendency to treat Africa as if it's 'China Inc'." Speaking from Beijing, he said:"There is no one Chinese policy towards Africa - it is a mixture of often-competing actors and influences that may or may not gel with official policy."
       Chinese trade with Africa has grown from less than ฃ6.3 billion at the beginning of the decade to pass ฃ60bn at the end of last year - only the European Union and the US do more business.
       There are now some 800 Chinese companies operating in Africa and the investors in talks in Conakry are not from Beijing, but from the Hong Kong-based China Investment Fund (CIF). Yet only two months ago officials in Beijing said that China would not be investing in Guinea.
       "It's not clear if the CIF has the support of Beijing," said Chris Alden, author of China in Africa ."Just like ordinary Western actors in Africa, China has independent actors who take decisions without reference to the central government."
       Some analysts suggest China's no-stringsattached approach in pariah states like Sudan and Zimbabwe is not the whole story.
       Some 25 years after Band-Aid seared Ethiopia into the Western consciousness and conscience, China's engagement with Addis Ababa may say more about the Sino-African relationship. Whatever the achievements or shortcomings of famine-inspired aid in the Horn of Africa nation, they are being dwarfed by the Chinese-backed transformation of the country.
       Ethiopia boasts none of the reservoirs of raw materials China is normally associated with, but Beijing has been doling out the credit to build roads and hydroelectric dams and is now financing a ฃ940m expansion of the state-owned mobile telephone network.
       In a recent paper for The South African
       Institute of International Affairs,Monika Thakur found China's role in Ethiopia contradicted the spectre of the hungry dragon invoked by some in the West.
       "China's activities in Ethiopia, and in Africa in general, are part of its continuing emergence as a global power, and as such are no different from what major powers traditionally have done," she wrote."Over-arching judgements as to whether China's engagement is a blessing or a curse for Ethiopia are still unclear. What is certain is that the country can derive much from China's economic engagement."IL The government in Addis Ababa has enjoyed the increased influence over Western donors that Chinese help has afforded.N"I think it would be wrong for people in the West to assume that they can buy good governance in Africa;Sgood governance can only come from inside," Ethiopia's prime minister,Meles Zenawi, told the Financial Times recently."What the Chinese have done is explode that illusion."Mr Zenawi's government does not attract headlines in the way that Sudan's Omar alBashir does, but his administration has overseen the violent suppression of opposition in the wake of disputed elections. And he has since jailed popular opponents, such as opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa.
       Ms Thakur warns that Addis Ababa could use Chinese assistance to avoid change which could lead to "authoritarian stagnation".
       However, China's own emergence as a great power, and the legitimacy of the oneparty rule in Beijing, has been based on economic growth. Those looking for a champion of human or political rights are likely to be disappointed.
       "The jury is still out on the significance of China's actions on Darfur," argues Mr Alden."It's up to Africans to decide if China is having a positive or negative impact on rights in Africa. On the whole China is having a fairly neutral impact - it's really more about economic development."

"PAKISTAN FIRST" MAY NOT PLEASE

       One of the ideas the Obama administration is considering in response to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan reportedly is called "Pakistan First". Championed by Vice President Joe Biden, the idea is to focus US efforts on attacking al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan's tribal areas with drones or special forces, while backing the government's efforts to pacify and develop the lawless areas where al-Qaeda and the Taleban are based. The battle against the Taleban, meanwhile, would be put on the back burner.
       "Pakistan First" would excuse President Obama from having to anger his political base by dispatching the additional US troops that his military commanders say are needed to stop the Taleban's resurgence in Afghanistan. It would nominally focus US efforts on a nuclear-armed country that is of far greater strategic importance.
       Funny, then, that Pakistan's government doesn't think much of the idea. Last Tuesdsay, Pakistani foreign Minister shah Mahmood Qureshi said withour reservation that Taleban
       advances in Afghanistan were a mortal threat to his country. "We see Mullah Omar," the leader of the Afghan Taeban, "as a serious threat. If the likes of Omar take over in Afghanistan, it will have serious inplllications for Pakistan," Qureshi said. "They have a larger agenda, and the first to be affected by that agenda is Pakistan... it will have implications on Pakistan and it will have implications on the region."
       Like a couple 's senior European leaders who visited Washingto last week, Qureshi expressed a diplomatic version of dismay at Obama's public wavering on fighting the Taleban, "If that is going to happen, why have we stuck our necks out?" he said. "Why did Benazir die? Benazir Bahtto, the former leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, was assassinated after she campaigned in favour of a decisiver moved by Pakistan to take on the Taleban- something the government and armay declined to do until this year. Elements of the military or its intelligence service may still quietly support some Taleban groups; if the US appears to retreat, those forces will be strengthened - at the expense of the pro-Western civilian government.
       Quareshi declined to express an opinion about the deployment of more US troops to southern Afghanistan, saying he was not a military expert. But he drew a contrast between Nato's operations in the south and Pakistan's operations against the Taleban this year. "Your troops went in and cleared the area. But once you came out, the Taleban came back in," he said. "What we do is, we go in, and we clear and we hold. When you do that, it requires more contact. It requires more resources. And it means more casualties."
       Qureshi was talking about Pakistan, but he was also describing the "counter-insurgency" strategy for Afghanistan that Obama embraced last March and backed until the general he appointed determined it would require more troops. It seems pretty clear that if Obama decides to abandon counter-insurgency in the name of something called "Pakistan First", America's best allies in Pakistan won't be happy.

Nobel is no real cause for a celebration

       Now that he is Nobel laureate Barack Obama, will he find smoother sailing for his plans to rid the world of nuclear weapons, to forge peace in the Middle East and stabilise Afghanistan,to halt climate change?
       Not likely.The Norwegian Nobel Committee members made no bones about it: helping Mr Obama achieve ambitious peacemaking goals was their purpose in awarding the prize on Friday to an asyet mostly unaccomplished US president.
       But while the prestige could give Mr Obama and his efforts a boost, nations steer their courses according to their own interests and little else.
       US lawmakers, too, are not going to be influenced in politically difficult votes on climate change legislation or nuclearreduction treaties by the Nobel Peace Prize, no matter whom it goes to.
       That is not to say it was not an impressive achievement.
       At just 48 years old and not even nine months in office, Mr Obama became only the third sitting US president to win the prize.
       The widespread reaction, however,when the stunning news hit the nation was: for what?
       Mr Obama said so himself."To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honoured by this prize," he said hours after being awakened, and surprised, by spokesman Robert Gibbs.
       Comments from Nobel committee members revealed that they fully intended to encourage, not reward.
       Consider this: the nomination deadline was only 12 days after Mr Obama first entered the Oval Office. It is an enduring myth that the prize is only about accomplishment; it was created as much to supply momentum for peace as to celebrate it.
       Indeed, with a leftist slant, the fivemember committee was applauding Mr Obama as much for what he is not: his predecessor.
       Former president George W Bush was much reviled overseas for "cowboy diplomacy", the Iraq war and his snubbing of European priorities such as global warming.
       So some celebrating probably cannot hurt, as Mr Obama presses forward on efforts to repair America's relations with Muslims, bring Israelis and Palestinians into fruitful negotiations and turn back climate change. The committee especially singled out Mr Obama's aims to create a world free of nuclear weapons and to set out a new, more cooperative diplomatic doctrine.
       "I hope it will help him," Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said of the award."Obama is the right man at the right time, and that's why we want to enhance his efforts."
       "I will accept this award as a call to action," Mr Obama said."This award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity."
       Still, Mr Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners'.
       For instance:
       He and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have set negotiators working toward an agreement to significantly reduce nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles. But getting to zero nuclear weapons across the globe, which Mr Obama acknowledged "may not be completed in my lifetime", means corralling both friend and foe abroad and lawmakers at home behind a mind-bendingly thorny web of treaties and agreements.
       Mr Obama said he would end the Iraq war. But he launches deadly antiterror strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere and is running a second war,in Afghanistan, that he already has escalated once and is considering ramping up again while trying to persuade mostly reluctant Nato allies to contribute more.
       He has pushed for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. But there has been little cooperation so far from them.
       His administration is talking to US foes, like Iran, North Korea and Cuba.But it has little to show from that, either.
       He pledged to take the lead against climate change. But the United States seems likely to head into December's crucial international negotiations in Copenhagen with legislation still stalled in Congress and nations crucial to global agreement, including China and India,showing reluctance to come on board.
       With many seeing the award as premature, there is the chance it could provoke a small backlash that makes Mr Obama's work harder.
       So, no doubt the news of the prize brought trepidation along with joy. As Mr Obama's former foe for the White House, Republican senator John McCain,said:"He now has even more to live up to."
       Perhaps one reason there was no public celebrating at the White House on Friday.

A FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

       In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the ConstantinopleBaghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers.
       The 40,000 or so women were all Armenians, separated from their men - most of whom had already had their throats cut by Turkish gendarmerie - and deported on a genocidal death march during which up to 1.5 million Armenians died.
       Subjected to constant rape and beatings,some had already swallowed poison on their way from their homes in Erzerum, Serena,Sivas, Bitlis and other cities in Turkish western Armenia."Some of them," Bishop Grigoris Balakian, one of Litzmayer's contemporaries,recorded,"had been driven to such a state that they were mere skeletons enveloped in rags, with skin that had turned leathery,burned from the sun, cold and wind. Many pregnant women, having become numb, had left their newborns on the side of the road as a protest against mankind and God."
       Every year, new evidence emerges about this mass ethnic cleansing, the first holocaust of the last century; and every year, Turkey denies it ever committed genocide. Yet last week, to the horror of millions of descendants of Armenian survivors, the President of Armenia, Serge Sarkisian, agreed to a protocol with Turkey to re-open diplomatic relations,which should allow for new trade concessions and oil interests. And he proposes to do this without honouring his most important promise to Armenians abroad - to demand that Turkey admit it carried out the Armenian genocide in 1915.
       In Beirut last Wednesday, outside Mr Sarkisian's hotel, thousands of Armenians protested against this trade-for-denial treaty.
       "We will not forget," their banners read."Armenian history is not for sale." They called the president a traitor."Why should our million and a half martyrs be put up for sale?" one of them asked."And what about our Armenian lands in Turkey, the homes our grandparents left behind? Sarkisian is selling them too."
       The sad truth is that the 5.7 million Armenian diaspora, scattered across Russia,the US, France, Lebanon and many other countries, are the descendants of the western Armenians who bore the brunt of Turkish Ottoman brutality in 1915.
       Tiny, landlocked, modern-day Armenia - its population a mere 3.2 million, living in what was once called eastern Armenia - is poor, flaunts a dubious version of democracy and is deeply corrupt. It relies on remittances from its wealthier cousins overseas; hence Mr Sarkisian's hopeless mission to New York,Los Angeles, Paris, Beirut and Rostov-onDon to persuade them to support the treaty,to be signed by the Armenian and Turkish Foreign Ministers in Switzerland.
       The Turks have also been trumpeting a possible settlement to the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh, part of historic Armenia seized from Azerbaijan by Armenian militias almost 20 years ago - not without a little ethnic cleansing by Armenians, it should be added.But it is the refusal of the Yerevan government to make Turkey's acknowledgement of the genocide a condition of talks that has infuriated the diaspora.
       "The Armenian government is trying to sweeten the taste for us by suggesting that Turkish and Armenian historians sit down to decide what happened in 1915," one of the Armenians protesting in Beirut said.
       "But would the Israelis maintain diplomatic relations if the German government suddenly called the Jewish Holocaust into question and suggested it all be mulled over by historians?"
       Betrayal has always been in the air. Barack Obama was the third successive US president to promise Armenian electors that he would acknowledge the genocide if he won office - and then to betray them, once elected, by refusing even to use the word. Despite thunderous denunciations in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide by Lloyd George and Churchill - the first British politician to call it a holocaust - the Foreign Office also now meekly claims that the "details" of the 1915 massacres are still in question.
       Yet still the evidence comes in, even from this newspaper's readers. In a letter to me,an Australian, Robert Davidson, said his grandfather, John "Jock" Davidson, a World War One veteran of the Australian Light Horse,had witnessed the Armenian genocide:"He wrote of the hundreds of Armenian carcasses outside the walls of Homs. They were men,women and children and were all naked and had been left to rot or be devoured by dogs."The Australian Light Horsemen were appalled at the brutality done to these people.In another instance his company came upon an Armenian woman and two children in skeletal condition. She signed to them that the Turks had cut the throats of her husband and two elder children."
       In his new book on Bishop Balakian,Armenian Golgotha, the historian Peter Balakian (the bishop's great-nephew) records how British soldiers who had surrendered to the Turks at Kut al-Amara in present-day Iraq and were sent on their own death march north - of 13,000 British and Indian soldiers,only 1,600 would survive - had spoken of frightful scenes of Armenian carnage near Deir ez-Zour, not far from Homs in Syria."In those vast deserts," the Bishop said,"they had come upon piles of human bones, crushed skulls and skeletons stretched out everywhere,and heaps of skeletons of murdered children."

New UN guide on dealing with human trafficking

       A guide is now available for relevant agencies to consult in upholding human rights and ethics during counter-trafficking operations.
       Published by the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), the guide will serve as a tool for policy makers, practitioners and researchers.
       Among the key principles are that all officials involved must prioritise personal safety and security, and that they must get informed consent with no coercion.
       "Do no harm. Be compassionate and neutral," the guide adds.
       It insists that relevant officials must ensure anonymity and confidentiality to the greatest extent possible.
       It also calls for the adequate selection and preparation of interpreters.
       This special guide is entitled, "Guide to Ethics and Human Rights in Counter Trafficking".
       In collaboration with Thailand's Department of Special Investigation, UNIAP has already translated the guide into Thai.
       There are now 8,000 copies of the Thai version.
       These copies are to be distributed to law-enforcement agencies and relevant officials across the country.
       "Rather than improving the lives of victims of trafficking, you can actually put them in greater danger if you don't apply some very basic rules on ethics", Ratchada Jayagupta said yesterday in her capacity as Thailand National Project Coordinator for UNIAP.
       She was speaking at a workshop in Bangkok.
       The workshop aimed at providing a strong and well-coordinated response to human trafficking among all partners and organisations engaged in counter-trafficking work in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS).
       The GMS countries are China, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam.
       "Counter-trafficking practitioners, especially law enforcement officials, must have a good understanding of the essence of human rights and the right to basic liberties of their fellow human beings, in order to be able to bring justice to everyone involved in a professional and ethical manner", Pol Colonel Tawee Sodsong said at the workshop.
       He is the Director General of Thailand's Department of Special Investigations.