On 8 August 1967, five
leaders - the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand - sat down together in the main hall of the Department
of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By
virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was
born. The five Foreign Ministers who signed it - Adam Malik of Indonesia,
Narciso R. Ramos of the Philippines, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S. Rajaratnam
of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand - would subsequently be hailed as
the Founding Fathers of probably the most successful inter-governmental
organization in the developing world today. And the document that they signed
would be known as the ASEAN Declaration.
It was a short,
simply-worded document containing just five articles. It declared the
establishment of an Association for Regional Cooperation among the Countries of
Southeast Asia to be known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) and spelled out the aims and purposes of that Association. These aims
and purposes were about cooperation in the economic, social, cultural,
technical, educational and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace
and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and
adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stipulated that
the Association would be open for participation by all States in the Southeast
Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes. It proclaimed
ASEAN as representing "the collective will of the nations of Southeast
Asia to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through
joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the
blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity."
It was while Thailand
was brokering reconciliation among Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia over
certain disputes that it dawned on the four countries that the moment for
regional cooperation had come or the future of the region would remain
uncertain. Recalls one of the two surviving protagonists of that historic
process, Thanat Khoman of Thailand: "At the banquet marking the
reconciliation between the three disputants, I broached the idea of forming
another organization for regional cooperation with Adam Malik. Malik agreed
without hesitation but asked for time to talk with his government and also to
normalize relations with Malaysia now that the confrontation was over.
Meanwhile, the Thai Foreign Office prepared a draft charter of the new
institution. Within a few months, everything was ready. I therefore invited the
two former members of the Association for Southeast Asia (ASA), Malaysia and
the Philippines, and Indonesia, a key member, to a meeting in Bangkok. In
addition, Singapore sent S. Rajaratnam, then Foreign Minister, to see me about
joining the new set-up. Although the new organization was planned to comprise
only the ASA members plus Indonesia, Singapore's request was favorably
considered."
And so in early August
1967, the five Foreign Ministers spent four days in the relative isolation of a
beach resort in Bang Saen, a coastal town less than a hundred kilometers
southeast of Bangkok. There they negotiated over that document in a decidedly
informal manner which they would later delight in describing as
"sports-shirt diplomacy." Yet it was by no means an easy process:
each man brought into the deliberations a historical and political perspective
that had no resemblance to that of any of the others. But with goodwill and good
humor, as often as they huddled at the negotiating table, they finessed their
way through their differences as they lined up their shots on the golf course
and traded wisecracks on one another's game, a style of deliberation which
would eventually become the ASEAN ministerial tradition.
Now, with the rigors of
negotiations and the informalities of Bang Saen behind them, with their
signatures neatly attached to the ASEAN Declaration, also known as the Bangkok
Declaration, it was time for some formalities. The first to speak was the
Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Narciso Ramos, a one-time journalist
and long-time legislator who had given up a chance to be Speaker of the
Philippine Congress to serve as one of his country's first diplomats. He was then
66 years old and his only son, the future President Fidel V. Ramos, was serving
with the Philippine Civic Action Group in embattled Vietnam. He recalled the
tediousness of the negotiations that preceded the signing of the Declaration
that "truly taxed the goodwill, the imagination, the patience and
understanding of the five participating Ministers." That ASEAN was
established at all in spite of these difficulties, he said, meant that its
foundations had been solidly laid. And he impressed it on the audience of
diplomats, officials and media people who had witnessed the signing ceremony
that a great sense of urgency had prompted the Ministers to go through all that
trouble. He spoke darkly of the forces that were arrayed against the survival
of the countries of Southeast Asia in those uncertain and critical times.
"The fragmented
economies of Southeast Asia," he said, "(with) each country pursuing
its own limited objectives and dissipating its meager resources in the
overlapping or even conflicting endeavors of sister states carry the seeds of
weakness in their incapacity for growth and their self-perpetuating dependence
on the advanced, industrial nations. ASEAN, therefore, could marshal the still
untapped potentials of this rich region through more substantial united
action."
When it was his turn to
speak, Adam Malik, Presidium Minister for Political Affairs and Minister for
Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, recalled that about a year before, in Bangkok, at
the conclusion of the peace talks between Indonesia and Malaysia, he had
explored the idea of an organization such as ASEAN with his Malaysian and Thai
counterparts. One of the "angry young men" in his country's struggle
for independence two decades earlier, Adam Malik was then 50 years old and one
of a Presidium of five led by then General Soeharto that was steering Indonesia
from the verge of economic and political chaos. He was the Presidium's point
man in Indonesia's efforts to mend fences with its neighbors in the wake of an
unfortunate policy of confrontation. During the past year, he said, the
Ministers had all worked together toward the realization of the ASEAN idea,
"making haste slowly, in order to build a new association for regional
cooperation."
Adam Malik went on to
describe Indonesia's vision of a Southeast Asia developing into "a region
which can stand on its own feet, strong enough to defend itself against any
negative influence from outside the region." Such a vision, he stressed,
was not wishful thinking, if the countries of the region effectively cooperated
with each other, considering their combined natural resources and manpower. He
referred to differences of outlook among the member countries, but those
differences, he said, would be overcome through a maximum of goodwill and
understanding, faith and realism. Hard work, patience and perseverance, he
added, would also be necessary.
The countries of
Southeast Asia should also be willing to take responsibility for whatever
happens to them, according to Tun Abdul Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister of
Malaysia, who spoke next. In his speech, he conjured a vision of an ASEAN that
would include all the countries of Southeast Asia. Tun Abdul Razak was then
concurrently his country's Minister of Defence and Minister of National
Development. It was a time when national survival was the overriding thrust of
Malaysia's relations with other nations and so as Minister of Defence, he was
in charge of his country's foreign affairs. He stressed that the countries of
the region should recognize that unless they assumed their common
responsibility to shape their own destiny and to prevent external intervention
and interference, Southeast Asia would remain fraught with danger and tension.
And unless they took decisive and collective action to prevent the eruption of
intra-regional conflicts, the nations of Southeast Asia would remain
susceptible to manipulation, one against another.
"We the nations and
peoples of Southeast Asia," Tun Abdul Razak said, "must get together
and form by ourselves a new perspective and a new framework for our region. It
is important that individually and jointly we should create a deep awareness
that we cannot survive for long as independent but isolated peoples unless we
also think and act together and unless we prove by deeds that we belong to a
family of Southeast Asian nations bound together by ties of friendship and
goodwill and imbued with our own ideals and aspirations and determined to shape
our own destiny". He added that, "with the establishment of ASEAN, we
have taken a firm and a bold step on that road".
For his part, S.
Rajaratnam, a former Minister of Culture of multi-cultural Singapore who, at
that time, served as its first Foreign Minister, noted that two decades of
nationalist fervor had not fulfilled the expectations of the people of
Southeast Asia for better living standards. If ASEAN would succeed, he said,
then its members would have to marry national thinking with regional thinking.
"We must now think
at two levels," Rajaratnam said. "We must think not only of our
national interests but posit them against regional interests: that is a new way
of thinking about our problems. And these are two different things and
sometimes they can conflict. Secondly, we must also accept the fact, if we are
really serious about it, that regional existence means painful adjustments to
those practices and thinking in our respective countries. We must make these
painful and difficult adjustments. If we are not going to do that, then
regionalism remains a utopia."
S. Rajaratnam expressed
the fear, however, that ASEAN would be misunderstood. "We are not against
anything", he said, "not against anybody". And here he used a
term that would have an ominous ring even today: balkanization. In Southeast
Asia, as in Europe and any part of the world, he said, outside powers had a
vested interest in the balkanization of the region. "We want to
ensure," he said, "a stable Southeast Asia, not a balkanized
Southeast Asia. And those countries who are interested, genuinely interested,
in the stability of Southeast Asia, the prosperity of Southeast Asia, and
better economic and social conditions, will welcome small countries getting
together to pool their collective resources and their collective wisdom to
contribute to the peace of the world."
The goal of ASEAN, then,
is to create, not to destroy. This, the Foreign Minister of Thailand, Thanat
Khoman, stressed when it was his turn to speak. At a time when the Vietnam
conflict was raging and American forces seemed forever entrenched in Indochina,
he had foreseen their eventual withdrawal from the area and had accordingly
applied himself to adjusting Thailand's foreign policy to a reality that would
only become apparent more than half a decade later. He must have had that in
mind when, on that occasion, he said that the countries of Southeast Asia had
no choice but to adjust to the exigencies of the time, to move toward closer
cooperation and even integration. Elaborating on ASEAN objectives, he spoke of
"building a new society that will be responsive to the needs of our time
and efficiently equipped to bring about, for the enjoyment and the material as
well as spiritual advancement of our peoples, conditions of stability and
progress. Particularly what millions of men and women in our part of the world
want is to erase the old and obsolete concept of domination and subjection of
the past and replace it with the new spirit of give and take, of equality and
partnership. More than anything else, they want to be master of their own house
and to enjoy the inherent right to decide their own destiny ..."
While the nations of
Southeast Asia prevent attempts to deprive them of their freedom and
sovereignty, he said, they must first free themselves from the material
impediments of ignorance, disease and hunger. Each of these nations cannot
accomplish that alone, but by joining together and cooperating with those who
have the same aspirations, these objectives become easier to attain. Then
Thanat Khoman concluded: "What we have decided today is only a small
beginning of what we hope will be a long and continuous sequence of
accomplishments of which we ourselves, those who will join us later and the
generations to come, can be proud. Let it be for Southeast Asia, a potentially
rich region, rich in history, in spiritual as well as material resources and
indeed for the whole ancient continent of Asia, the light of happiness and
well-being that will shine over the uncounted millions of our struggling
peoples."
The Foreign Minister of
Thailand closed the inaugural session of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations by presenting each of his colleagues with a memento. Inscribed on the
memento presented to the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, was the citation,
"In recognition of services rendered by His Excellency Adam Malik to the
ASEAN organization, the name of which was suggested by him."
And that was how ASEAN
was conceived, given a name, and born. It had been barely 14 months since
Thanat Khoman brought up the ASEAN idea in his conversations with his Malaysian
and Indonesian colleagues. In about three more weeks, Indonesia would fully
restore diplomatic relations with Malaysia, and soon after that with Singapore.
That was by no means the end to intra-ASEAN disputes, for soon the Philippines
and Malaysia would have a falling out on the issue of sovereignty over Sabah.
Many disputes between ASEAN countries persist to this day. But all Member
Countries are deeply committed to resolving their differences through peaceful
means and in the spirit of mutual accommodation. Every dispute would have its
proper season but it would not be allowed to get in the way of the task at
hand. And at that time, the essential task was to lay the framework of regional
dialogue and cooperation.
The two-page Bangkok
Declaration not only contains the rationale for the establishment of ASEAN and
its specific objectives. It represents the organization's modus operandi of
building on small steps, voluntary, and informal arrangements towards more
binding and institutionalized agreements. All the founding member states and
the newer members have stood fast to the spirit of the Bangkok Declaration.
Over the years, ASEAN has progressively entered into several formal and
legally-binding instruments, such as the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation
in Southeast Asia and the 1995 Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free
Zone.
Against the backdrop of
conflict in the then Indochina, the Founding Fathers had the foresight of
building a community of and for all Southeast Asian states. Thus the Bangkok
Declaration promulgated that "the Association is open for participation to
all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to the aforementioned
aims, principles and purposes." ASEAN's inclusive outlook has paved the
way for community-building not only in Southeast Asia, but also in the broader
Asia Pacific region where several other inter-governmental organizations now
co-exist.
The original ASEAN logo
presented five brown sheaves of rice stalks, one for each founding member.
Beneath the sheaves is the legend "ASEAN" in blue. These are set on a
field of yellow encircled by a blue border. Brown stands for strength and
stability, yellow for prosperity and blue for the spirit of cordiality in which
ASEAN affairs are conducted. When ASEAN celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 1997,
the sheaves on the logo had increased to ten - representing all ten countries
of Southeast Asia and reflecting the colors of the flags of all of them. In a
very real sense, ASEAN and Southeast Asia would then be one and the same, just
as the Founding Fathers had envisioned.
This article is based on the first chapter of ASEAN at 30, a publication
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in commemoration of its 30th
Anniversary on 8 August 1997, written by Jamil Maidan Flores and Jun Abad.
