Thai resolve tests SBY's regional clout

INDONESIA'S claims to regional leadership will be roughly tested at this weekend's ASEAN leaders' summit as Thailand continues to resist its attempts to mediate a volatile border dispute with Cambodia.



President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is controversially considering backing Burma to chair the group, and also losing his campaign to win a place at ASEAN's table this year for tiny neighbour East Timor.

Dr Yudhoyono and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa have been striving to crown Indonesia's 2011 ASEAN chairmanship, and to underscore Jakarta's regional leadership, by admitting East Timor as the 11th member.

But another foundation member, Singapore, backed by the more recent joiners Vietnam and Burma, is reportedly poised to block East Timor.

Mr Natalegawa confirmed yesterday that Burma's new President Thein Sein was seeking Indonesia's support for the army-dominated regime government to take the ASEAN chair in 2014.

"I have a feeling that this is not a matter that will be decided here and now but perhaps there will be a process to ascertain the readiness of Myanmar to assume then chairmanship in 2014," he said.

Human Rights Watch's Asia deputy director Elaine Pearson said giving Burma the chairmanship after last year's "sham elections" and while the regime still imprisoned 2000 political prisoners would render ASEAN a laughing-stock in world forums.

Nine leaders gathered in Jakarta last night, without Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong, whose government is up for re-election today.

Thailand's Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, flew in after obtaining a parliamentary dissolution from ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, clearing the way for an election next month. The election campaign, with nationalist fervour focused on the disputed Preah Vhihear temple complex, is likely to complicate attempts to settle the border dispute.

Mr Abhisit has refused a sideline meeting today with Cambodia's Hun Sen. The International Court of Justice in 1962 ruled the 10th-century temple, on an escarpment defining an eastern border, belonged to Cambodia, but the Thais continue to claim ownership. About 30 soldiers have died, and 150,000 villagers have been displaced, since the dispute erupted in clashes in February.

The fighting is an embarrassment to other ASEAN members, whose 2009 Political Security Community Blueprint pledges them to "rely exclusively on peaceful process in the settlement of intra-regional differences".

Cambodia's appeal for intervention to the UN Security Council, rather than ASEAN, was a slight, and even more so Thailand's reluctance to have Indonesia or other members involved.

After the February clashes, Mr Natalegawa brokered agreement with the other foreign ministers - including Thailand's Kasit Piromya and Cambodia's Hor Namhong - to station Indonesian civilian and military observers in the disputed areas, as first step towards a permanent ceasefire.

But Thai army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, a retired general, rejected the presence of foreign observers at Preah Vihear.

They asserted they were only supporting long-standing government policy that the dispute should be resolved between the two countries, not multilaterally.

But the Thai military is suspected of once again contemplating an intervention in civilian politics.

After meeting his Thai and Cambodian counterparts yesterday, Mr Natalegawa said they agreed Indonesian observers should be sent, but did not expand.

Mr Hor Namhong rejected a pullout of Cambodian troops from Preah Vihear, Thailand's pre-condition for allowing observers. "We can never withdraw our troops from our own territory," he said.