Censorship Board bans Phoenix
Ministry wants to monitor schools
Myanmar delegation leaves for Thailand to attend 1st ASCC Council Meeting
First-ever Japanese fashion show opens in Rangoon
Hundreds Rally In Tokyo To Demand Burmese Opposition Leader’s Freedom
Myanmar, Turkey cooperates in garment manufacturing
Burmese NGOs lobby for aid delivery rethink
The Myanmar search engine competiton is probably a trap
Hundreds rally for Suu Kyi
Strategies of Dissent Evolving in Burma
Myanmar group’s visit here criticized
America’s political clout is rising in Asean
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Censorship Board bans Phoenix
by Phanida & Nem Davies
Monday, 24 August 2009 16:54

Chiang Mai & New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burma’s Censorship Board banned the Rangoon-based Weekly Journal, Phoenix on August 21, citing violation of censorship rules and regulations.

The Censorship Board, under the Burmese Ministry of Information, said that the weekly journal, published every Thursday, has been banned as the publication was found to have violated the rules set by the board.

“Yes, it has been put up on the notice board that the weekly has been banned from publishing,” said an official at the Board, but declined to provide details of the violation of the rules.

However, an official at the Phoenix Journal said, “Our officials are still trying to negotiate to get back the license for publication. But, there are only about 30 per cent chances that we will be allowed to publish.”

Phoenix, which has been into publication only for about seven months, was also banned earlier from publishing one of its issues, which carried news and articles sensitive to censorship.

The notice, which was undersigned by the Director of the Censorship Board, Maj Tint Swe, states that the weekly was banned for violating the rules and regulations of censorship time and again. The notice was circulated on August 20, and on August 21 and was put up on the notice board.

The publisher of the Weekly Phoenix Journal is a former Air force officer. It is published by Maj Mar-J, who is also popularly known as writer Mar-J. He was removed from his official post after writing satires on the Burmese junta’s shifting of the capital to Naypyitaw. Besides, his writings were also banned from being published in any other journals or publications.

“It is like he [Mar-J] had been marked. And when the journal violated the rules, it gave the authorities an opportunity to get even with him. If we had worked within the framework of the rules, I do not think there would be any problems,” an editor with another local weekly journal in Rangoon told Mizzima.

Sources close to the Phoenix Journal said as the publication was banned, nearly 20 employees of the journal are in a crisis, as they are no longer employed.
http://mizzima. com/news/ inside-burma/ 2663-censorship- board-bans- phoenix.html
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Ministry wants to monitor schools
By Chularat Saengpassa
The Nation
TAK
Published on August 24, 2009

As the number of illegal Burmese migrants in Thailand soars, so does the number of their children. Without any official or social status, these children have little, if any, educational opportunities.

It is estimated that there are well over 50,000 such children in Tak alone.

To help these children, many non-governmental organisations (NGO) have set up learning centres where non-Thai children can sit classes for free. Their courses are mostly based on the Burmese curriculum. Thai-language instruction is given at some learning centres only.

“Our students are of Mon, Burmese and Karen descent,” ethnic-Karen Raw Ray Rattanachairuedi said in her capacity as the chairperson of the Burmese Migrant Worker Education Committee (BMWEC). After spending more than 20 years in Thailand, Raw Ray has already been granted Thai citizenship.

Currently, BMWEC has run 35 learning centres in Tak’s Mae Sot district. These centres have taught up to 7,099 children.

“We don’t offer any subsidy to these learning centres because their operations receive funds from NGOs,” Tak Educational Service Area II Office director Chumpol Srisang said. “But we are now promoting the teaching of Thai language and have provided them with necessary teaching materials.”

He said 61 learning centres have registered their operations with his office. The students are all children of illegal aliens. Dozens of other learning centres have yet to be registered.

“If the aliens have work permits, their children will get proper documents to study at Thai schools,” Chumpol pointed out.

Deputy Education Minister Chaiwuti Bannawat said the learning centres for migrant children, though being run with good intention, could pose a threat to national security, the economy and society in the long run if left unregulated.

“We see the need to check their curriculum, their teachers and their educational services,” Chaiwuti said.

He said many learning centres did not teach Thai language and Thai laws, something migrants should know so that they could live in Thailand.

Chaiwuti said the Education Ministry was preparing to ask the Cabinet to approve a ministerial regulation on education for stateless children.

“When the regulation takes effect, we will closely monitor the registered learning centres to ensure that their children receive quality education. Credential evaluation by then will also be possible,” Khunying Kasama Varawarn, permanent secretary of the Office of Basic Education Commission, said.

She added that teachers at the learning centres would receive support from her office, too. Chaiwuti said many learning centres did not teach Thai language because their teachers were from Burma, and most did not have proper work permits.

Raw Ray was happy about the upcoming regulation, saying it would give the learning centres opportunities to seek help from Thai authorities.

“We must admit that some learning centres are not of good quality,” she said, “We still lack adequate funds”.

Regarding Thai language, Raw Ray said BMWEC had started classes at its learning centres three years ago after seeing the increasing number of migrants’ children born in Thailand.

“Nearly 40 per cent of the students are born here,” Raw Ray said.

Ban Ta-add School is a state school in Tak. It has now taught 777 students. Of them, only 50 have Thai citizenship.

“Most students are non-Thais,” the school director, Suthep Thammajak, said.

Ranee, a 16-year-old Karen student, said she was now in Grade 5 and was able to speak Thai though not fluently. “I hope my fluency will soon improve,” she said.

Not all non-Thai students at Ban Ta-add have proper documents to study at Thai schools, because up to 351 children sitting in Thai-language class here were born to illegal alien workers.

“We have a special agreement with five neighbouring centres. Under what we call School Within School project, we have allowed their students to learn Thai language from us,” Suthep said.

Sato, a 28-year-old teacher from Kwai Krabong Centre, said, “I bring my students here two days a week”.
http://www.nationmu ltimedia. com/2009/ 08/24/national/ national_ 30110463. php
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Myanmar delegation leaves for Thailand to attend 1st ASCC Council Meeting
by admin — last modified 2009-08-23 16:24

August 22, 2009: NAY PYI TAW, Member of Central Committee for Implementation of Myanmar-ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Deputy Minister for Education Brig-Gen Aung Myo Min left for Bangkok of Thailand by air to attend the first ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council (ASCC) Meeting to be held in Bangkok from 22 to 24 August.

Sources: New Light of Myanmar

The Deputy Minister was accompanied by Secretary of the Central Committee Director-General U Sann Win of Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library under the Ministry of Culture and Deputy Director-General U Tint Swe of ASEAN Affairs Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
http://www.thaiburm anews.net/ news-archive/ 2009/august- 2009/myanmar- delegation- leaves-for- thailand- to-attend- 1st-ascc- council-meeting/
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First-ever Japanese fashion show opens in Rangoon
By Deutsche Presse Agentur

Rangoon – In an effort to promote Japanese-Burmese friendship, the first-ever Japanese fashion show was held at the posh Strand Hotel in Rangoon Sunday, featuring a collection by well-known designer Junko Koshino.

“I hope friendship between Myanmar (Burma) and Japan can be promoted through this event,” Japanese Ambassador Yasuaki Nogawa said. The Tokyo government sponsored the event as part of the Mekong-Japan Exchange Year 2009.

“It is a very good opportunity for sharing culture between two countries,” Koshino said. Her collection was shown off by 17 Burmese models and four Japanese models.

In attendance were the members of the Japanese community in Rangoon, government elites and other invited guests.

“It is a new step for the history of Myanmar-Japan friendship,” a statement from the Japanese embassy in Rangoon said. http://www.nationmu ltimedia. com/2009/ 08/24/regional/ regional_ 30110511. php
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Hundreds Rally In Tokyo To Demand Burmese Opposition Leader’s Freedom
Agence France Presse  Published: Monday, August 24, 2009

Hundreds of people staged a rally in Tokyo yesterday and demanded the military junta in Burma release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended this month.

The demons t r a-tors, many of whom wore T-shirts with her picture, marched through the streets of the Shibuya district in downtown Tokyo, shouting slogans and handing out leaflets to weekend shoppers.

They carried signs that said “Unjustice Court of Burma” or “Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” using a Burmese honorific for Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years. Earlier this month a prison court in Rangoon convicted the Nobel Prize laureate for breaching security laws and sentenced her to house arrest for 18 months, drawing international condemnation.
http://www.national post.com/ todays-paper/ story.html? id=1923155
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Myanmar, Turkey cooperates in garment manufacturing
24.08.2009 14:43

Myanmar garment entrepreneurs and Tema textile group of Turkey have launched the cutting, manufacturing and packaging (CMP) operation in Yangon to boost production line using local factories, the local weekly Myanmar Time reported Monday.

The cooperative process started on last Wednesday, the report said.

The Tema group, largest textile retailer in Turkey, has set a target of producing 1.25 million clothing in the first half of 2010 as the first phase of the operation.

The operation will cost about 6.75 million U.S. dollars, the report quoted the group’s purchasing director Mr. Edward said, adding that the group will send raw textiles from Shanghai to Yangon by shipping and the accessories by land transport and provide designs and technical support to local manufactures, Xinhua reported.

The report quoted MGMA estimation that Turkey will become Myanmar’s third biggest garment exporting country after this development which also encourage the recovery of Myanmar garment industry as the manufacturing downsized since last year’s global economic downturn.

Garment export to Turkey fetched over 10 million dollars in 2008 and it is expected to increase to nearly 100 million dollars in next year, the report said.

Myanmar garment export hit 385 million U.S. dollars in 2008 up from 350 million dollars in 2007, statistic showed.

Japan takes up one third of Myanmar’s garment export standing as Myanmar’s largest garment exporting country, followed by England, Germany and Spain, according to statistics.

Myanmar garments have obtained markets in South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey, reports said.
http://en.trend. az/capital/ entrepreneurship /1527401. html
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Burmese NGOs lobby for aid delivery rethink
Updated August 24, 2009 12:03:41

A delegation of Burmese doctors and human rights activists, visiting Australia, is calling for a change to the way aid money is given to Burma. The group is calling for AusAID assistance to be re-directed towards the thousands of internally displaced people living in Burma’s east, saying without support for medical services, hundreds of people will die needlessly.

Presenter:Liam Cochrane
Speaker: Charm Tong, spokewoman for a Burmese delegation, calling on Australia to rethink the way it gives aid money to Burma. http://www.radioaus tralia.net. au/connectasia/ stories/200908/ s2664825. htm
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The Myanmar search engine competiton is probably a trap

Ich bin BurmeseBurma (Myanmar) launches a search engine contest. Pandia suspects it is a ploy designed to develop censorship technology.

According to Alt Search Engines The Myanmar Computer Professional Association (MCPA) has invited individuals and groups to compete for the MCPA Challenge Winner 2009 under the title of the Myanmar Search Engine Contest.

The Alt Search Engine article looks like a rewrite of a press release, and is fetched from TMC.net. It says:

“The research-based contest is held with the aim of encouraging the development of the country’s information and communication technology (ICT), expanding the use of the yanmar language in ICT sector and enhancing the youth’s interest in the creation and ICT research.”

The contestants are given six months’ time to prepare for the research and the best contributor will be awarded 3,000 U.S. dollars in cash. That’s a lot of money in a poor country like Burma.

This must be a ploy blessed by the Burmese military dictatorship.

Censorship in Burma

The Economist reports that in Burma (AKA Myanmar) access to the internet is so tightly controlled that the few people who are allowed to go online, mostly government officials, are easy to monitor.

The government restricts Internet access through software-based censorship, including software provided by U.S. company Fortinet.

There are apparently internet cafes that try to get around the government’s proxy servers, but they are having a hard time doing it. The government recently took over the second ISP of Burma, apparently for political reasons.

For the rest access to the web is banned. To enforce this, the country’s military regime imposes jail terms of up to 15 years for unauthorized use of a modem.

What do they want?

Such a competition could not have been launched without the blessing of the regime. The regime is not interested in developing an Internet infrastructure that gives people full access to the Internet. This means that the competition has been launched to help the regime control the use of digital technology.

As far as we can see, there may be two options:

One could be to smoke out young Burmese with computer skills. If you identify them, you can stop them from developing technology that threatens the regime.

We know of activists that have managed to get around the walls of the censors. The opposition often use proxy servers and special software to get access to information.

Another one could be to get the winners of the competition to serve the regime by developing a search engine that can be used to block any kind of unwanted information.

It seems like the competition is open for non-Burmese as well, which means that they could hope to enlist politically naive computer experts in their fight against democracy.

There is only one possible conclusion in our mind: a total boycott of this competition.  http://www.pandia. com/sew/2022- the-myanmar- search-engine- competiton- is-probably- a-trap.html
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Aug 23, 2009
Hundreds rally for Suu Kyi

TOKYO – SOME 300 Myanmar people held a rally in central Tokyo on Sunday, demanding the military junta release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended this month.

The demonstrators, many wearing T-shirts with her picture, marched through the streets of the Shibuya district in downtown Tokyo, shouting slogans in unison and handing out leaflets to weekend shoppers.

They carried signs saying ‘Unjustice Court of Burma’ or ‘Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,’ using a Burmese honorific for Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Earlier this month a prison court in Yangon convicted the Nobel Prize laureate for breaching security laws and sentenced her to house arrest for 18 months, drawing international condemnation. — AFP   http://www.straitst imes.com/ Breaking% 2BNews/Asia/ Story/STIStory_ 420387.html
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Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 24, 2009
Strategies of Dissent Evolving in Burma

Activists Find Political Breathing Room in Humanitarian Nonprofit Groups
Burmese men read news on arrested dissident Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this month. Many activists are shunning protests for work with nonprofit groups.

RANGOON, Burma — Call it the evolutionary school of revolution.
After years of brutally suppressed street protests, many Burmese have adopted a new strategy that they say takes advantage of small political openings to push for greater freedoms. They are distributing aid, teaching courses on civic engagement and quietly learning to govern.

“We are trying to mobilize people by changing their thought process,” said an entrepreneur in the city of Mandalay who is setting up classes on leadership. He added half in jest, “Civil society is a guerrilla movement.”

Government critics including many Burmese say opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s return to house arrest this month underscores the junta’s resolve to keep her out of reach of the population ahead of parliamentary elections next year that many dismiss as a sham. But a growing number of educated, middle-class Burmese are pinning their hopes on what they call “community-based organizations,” finding outlets for entrepreneurship and room to maneuver politically in a country with one of the world’s most repressive governments.

At first light on a recent Sunday, a dozen doctors piled into two old vans, stopped for a hearty breakfast of fish stew and sticky rice, then headed out to dispatch free medicine and consult villagers an hour outside Rangoon. The group first came together two years ago to care for demonstrators beaten by security forces during monk-led protests. When Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit in May 2008, killing an estimated 140,000 people, the doctors joined countless Burmese in collecting emergency supplies for survivors while the junta rebuffed foreign aid dispatches.

Like many of those ad hoc groups, the doctors have since developed an informal nonprofit organization, meeting regularly and volunteering at an orphanage and in villages near Rangoon. The group’s leader secured funding from a foreign nonprofit agency and named his team “Volunteers for the Vulnerable,” or V4V.

But to avoid having their activities labeled as activism, the leader negotiates weekly with the authorities for access to the villages under cover of an anodyne Burmese fixture — the abbot of a local Buddhist monastery.
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For their own safety, the V4V founder said, “not even all our members know the name of the group.”

Successive military governments in Burma since 1962 have clamped down on civil society and forbade associations of more than five people. Burmese say they have come to see the activities of semi-illicit groups such as V4V as rare outlets for entrepreneurship and for maneuvering politically.

“There is still room to change at the small scale,” said an AIDS activist, sipping juice in a teashop. “Many people say civil society is dead. But it never dies. Sometimes it takes different forms, under pretext of religion, under pretext of medicine.”

A 32-year-old writer here said his father was a local township representative for Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, which won 1990 elections but was never allowed to take power. Suu Kyi has been confined to house arrest for 14 of the past 19 years, and the number of political detainees is estimated at about 2,000.

But the young writer sees a role for himself beyond the opposition party.

He said his life was transformed after he took a three-month course at a Rangoon nonprofit agency called Myanmar Egress, which runs classes for Burmese interested in development. Like many of the people interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.     *

He then quit his job at a business journal to freelance opinion columns under a pseudonym and has co-founded a nonprofit with other Egress alumni.

“I came to realize my daily life is being involved in politics, in the political economy,” he said, a resolve triggered by the scenes of poverty he witnessed along his daily commute on a creaking, overcrowded bus through Rangoon. “My belief is that without political knowledge . . . people will just go around town and get shot. I am doing what I can as an educator and a journalist.”

Civic Duties

Many people in Rangoon expressed feeling a similar sense of duty as they have watched their military rulers decimate the education system and deepen poverty through mismanagement of the economy. In the past 50 years, Burma has fallen from among the richest countries in Asia to the bottom of regional development rankings.

“In Burma, the middle class is very thin,” said a 38-year-old graphic designer who in 2004 helped found an undercover nonprofit group that recruits potential political leaders. “We need to grow, strengthen that. Most democratic countries have a broader middle class. It is the only way to go forward.”

Such groups have also allowed urbanites to network in ways previously inconceivable.

Humanitarian and Political

On a recent afternoon, students crowded into a musty hotel conference room for a three-hour lecture on civil society sponsored by Myanmar Egress.

Ten minutes before the class was to begin, barely a seat was vacant and still the students poured in, laughing, chatting or rifling through notes that curled at the edges in the damp heat. “They have a thirst for knowledge. They want to know. . . . They don’t even take a break,” said a 28-year-old Egress teacher, observing the 105 young adults from the back of the room. “This place is quite free, the only place we can talk about these things.”
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Some members of the groups reject any political motive in their activities, describing them as purely humanitarian. But others say that in Burma the two are intrinsically linked.

“At every meeting of nonprofits, the solution is always, in the end, political,” said a Rangoon scholar who works with a foreign development organization.

The scholar is associated with a loose circle of influential academics, writers, negotiators between the junta and restive ethnic minorities, and businessmen at home and abroad who share a goal of finding a way through the political impasse.

“It’s not that we oppose the NLD, but at least we take advantage of the opening space. . . . The NLD can’t set a course. We have to find an alternative,” said the scholar, who served 15 years in prison for writing about human rights.

But Suu Kyi’s trial has made him less sanguine about prospects for change in next year’s elections, the country’s first since 1990. Going forward, he said, the key is “to prime the population for the transition.”   http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2009/ 08/23/AR20090823 02437.html
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Myanmar group’s visit here criticized
BY MAKOTO IGARASHI
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2009/8/24

A delegation from Myanmar (Burma) led by a top official of a group linked to attacks on supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in Japan on an agricultural mission at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry.

The visit has angered supporters of democracy campaigners in Myanmar, coming soon after a court ruling led to the extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest by 18 months.

The group is led by Myanmar’s minister for agriculture and irrigation, Htay Oo, secretary-general of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a political group that supports the country’s military junta.

The USDA is reported to have been involved in the May 2003 attack on Suu Kyi and members of her group, leaving many dead or injured.

Its senior officials are subject to sanctions by the United States and the European Union, including entry bans and the freezing of assets.

Supporters of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and others have voiced displeasure with the visit, which is being paid for by Japan.

“We find it hard to understand the Japanese government’s intention in inviting (Htay Oo) just after Suu Kyi was found guilty (of breaching the terms of her detention),” said Yuki Akimoto of BurmaInfo, a group analyzing Myanmar’s politics and relations with Japan.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Htay Oo’s group is visiting Japan for a week from Thursday.

After visiting the Great Buddha of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture, on Thursday, they were to meet Japanese lawmakers and farm ministry officials and visit farming facilities, according to officials.

“We have invited (Htay Oo) as minister for agriculture and irrigation,” said Keiichi Ono, director of the ministry’s First Southeast Asian Division.

“It is important to have them visit and see Japanese agriculture firsthand.”

The USDA is said to have played a part in the May 30, 2003, attack on Suu Kyi’s group while she was on a campaign tour. She and other officials were detained by the junta that day.

USDA members are also said to have joined Myanmar troops who used force in cracking down on citizens taking part in anti-junta demonstrations in September 2007.(IHT/Asahi: August 24,2009)
http://www.asahi. com/english/ Herald-asahi/ TKY200908240062. html
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REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE
America’s political clout is rising in Asean
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation
Published on August 24, 2009

WHEN THE AMERICAN EAGLE comes swooping down the Irrawaddy Valley, it can produce an interesting strategic chain of reactions. Within days, Washington managed to transform itself from a sanction crusader to a political facilitator. While the jury is still out concerning the US diplomatic dynamic on Burma, it has already swiftly shaken the stand-off between China and India. It is no longer business as usual in the Bay of Bengal.

Beijing and New Delhi must be scratching their heads now trying to figure out how to respond to the US’s strong overture into the Asean landscape, as never before seen. Doing nothing, on the part of India, is no longer an option. Protecting Burma at every twist and turn of events will not serve China’s best interest. Recently, the zero-sum game between the two Asian giants maintained the status quo of dynamics in Burma. Since last week, the US has injected something new into the equation of power here. Burma is sending signals that it now realises it could not and should not isolate itself and rely on Beijing’s support and protection exclusively. A once passive India will also see an opening to craft its own strategy, independent of China’s posturing over Burma. Rangoon still ignores the Asean appeal on Aung San Suu Kyi’s pardon with its strong objections from Laos and Brunei.

One attribute in understanding the latest development was the US accession to the 33-year-old Treaty of Amity of Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in Phuket last month. Two quite stark perspectives between Burma and the US must be discerned. From the Burmese junta leaders’ viewpoint, the US signatory would compel Washington to be more mindful of the principles enshrined in the TAC, in particular mutual respect for one another’s sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs. Since its admission to Asean, Burma has frequently invoked these principles to shield itself from peer and external pressure.

From Washington, however, joining the treaty has a different take. Like the other 26 signatories, the US can still continue with its position on human rights and level criticism against Burma – just like the good old days. What is more important for the US is the enhancement of its strategic interest and stronghold in this diverse region after the grouping was founded in 1967. Gone were the days the US was often accused of imposing its regional security designs to serve its own global ambition. Accepting an indigenous code of conduct of 10-member countries—pawns during the Cold War – proved a hefty US burden to come to terms with—altogether 17 years in the making. Indeed, the signatory gave value-added to the visits of US State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Virginia’s Senator Jim Webb as well as their Burmese overtures. Upcoming reviews on US policy on Burma would certainly contain new elements regarding sanctions and future terms of engagement. What prevails next would also impact on the US role on Burma and its overall ties with Asean. And how the junta leaders choose to play Suu Kyi’s freedom and upcoming election with Washington would soon be known. It could also define the new political parameter of US involvement in regional issues.

To understand the current US position in Asean, one needs to scrutinise the evolution of TAC. When Asean first approached all members of the UN Security Council after the Singapore Summit in 1992, the diplomats from US and dialogue partners represented at the summit were a bit bewildered. At the time, Asean and dialogue partners began to discuss the establishment of a multilateral security forum, which later became the Asean Regional Forum. In September of that year, the TAC became the first Asean treaty to be endorsed by the UN General Assembly. Unfortunately, none of the UNSC members have seriously studied the indigenous regional codes of conduct.

China did – and signed the TAC in 2003 after eight years of affirmative posturing. Throughout the 1995-2003 period, following the Mischief Reef incidents, Beijing painstakingly built up confidence among Asean members through the TAC—literally from zero to hero. That kind of level playing field was unprecedented for any major power, let alone China, which was still considered an arch-enemy in the early 1990s. India joined China as the first two nuclear powers to accede to the TAC. Then, the floodgate opened. Now Asean has a big headache concerning the ulterior motives of new signatories (Indonesia blocked Turkey’s TAC accession in Phuket). Truth be told, Asean originally wanted the international community to accept TAC but later on aimed at the big five nuclear powers—which mattered the most to Asean peace and security. That has been achieved. At present, Asean is no longer in a rush to get individual nuclear powers to sign on to the 1995 no-nuke treaty—known as South East Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ). China was supposed to be the first to do so this year but Asean has since deferred such efforts. Asean wants all the big five to sign it at the same time to avoid so-called preferential treatment – something which used to be Beijing’s purview. The Obama Administration has already shown its willingness to accede to SEANWFZ with some reservations pending further negotiations between the US and its allies and friends in Asean.

The US signature also provides much needed closure to the frequently asked question about whether the US remains interested in the region. Now with the hands of the world’s superpower untied by regional conduct, Washington is already waving and shaking delightfully. In months to come, the US will certainly have more regional initiatives regarding the Asean Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, Asia Pacific Economic Community and other bilateral endeavours. Later this year, the US will become the first country to announce its first Asean-in-residence ambassador, outshining all the 28 countries that have already attached their Jakarta-based envoys to Asean. With the US presence in Jakarta at full throttle, Asean needs to commensurate and shape up—an eagle is nesting among the paddy stalks.

But one thing is still missing. For the three-decade old Asean-US relations and US political clout to prosper in a sustained manner, extraordinary efforts from Asean and US leaders are still needed to push for the institutionalisatio n of the summit level meeting. In the past, they did meet for a few times; they piggybacked on other summits, but never exclusively on their own. Past attempts proved to be elusive. Under this circumstance, the role of Asean chair is pivotal to materialise this long-held plan. When Filipino President Gloria Arroyo visited Washington recently, she urged US President Barack Obama to meet with the Asean leaders. The Philippines is the new US-Asean coordinator. At the Phuket meeting, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan received strong words of support from Clinton on the proposed summit. Last week, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva accepted US President Barack Obama’s invitation as the Asean chair to attend the Pittsburg G20 summit on September 24 and 25 in the US. He will again join Indonesia, the only Asean member of G20, and the rest of Asean plus six members (Australia, India, Japan, China, South Korea). Like the prime minister did in the London G-20 summit in April, Abhisit must impress on the host, Obama, that Asean is no longer a faceless entity but a rising international actor capable of contributing to the recovery of current global financial crisis.

(The author wishes to express deep gratitude to well-wishers for his speedy recovery. His column returns this week.)  http://www.nationmu ltimedia. com/2009/ 08/24/opinion/ opinion_30110477 .php