BRIDGING OFFICIALS AND THE PEOPLES OF ASEAN: THE ROLE OF THE ASEAN PEOPLE S ASSEMBLY 1

BRIDGING OFFICIALS AND THE PEOPLES OF ASEAN: THE ROLE OF THE ASEAN PEOPLE S ASSEMBLY 1 Katherine Marie G. Hernandez Asst. Professor, Department of Political Science University of the Philippines - Diliman Introduction Since the drafting, adoption, ratification and implementation of its charter during 2007 and 2008, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been in the process of transforming itself from a loose association of states to an intergovernmental organization that is more rules-based and with an international legal personality. 2 One might also add that the processes that led to the drafting of the ASEAN Charter evidence an incipient transformation of ASEAN as an association of Southeast Asia s elites in government, business, academe, and other sectors to one that is increasingly involving the masses of Southeast Asia s diverse populations organized as advocacy-based nongovernmental organizations in the broader civil society of this sub-region. Although civil society efforts towards the engagement with the ASEAN member states began much earlier than the making of the ASEAN Charter, 3 it was during this epochmaking timeframe when government-civil society engagement intensified and became more organized. Part of the reason is the adoption by the ASEAN leaders of the ASEAN Vision 2020 (AV 2020) in 1997 and its first seven (7) years of implementation through the Hanoi Plan of Action (HPA), the Bali Concord II of October 2003 and its implementation through the Vientiane Action Programme (VAP) in 2004, as well as their decision to appoint in succession an Eminent Persons Group for the ASEAN Charter (EPG-AC) in 2005 and the High Level Task Force (HLTF) to draft the ASEAN Charter in 2006, the adoption (ratification and coming into force) of the ASEAN Charter in 2007 as well as the blueprints for the three pillars of the ASEAN Community in 2008-2009. All of these episodes in the life of ASEAN provided either explicitly or implicitly opportunities for popular participation of the non-elites of Southeast Asian societies the peoples themselves in ASEAN processes. In particular, the formal acceptance of a people-oriented ASEAN Community in ASEAN documents was taken as a huge window of opportunity to broaden civil society engagement with official ASEAN. Moreover, community-building in itself also 1 A paper prepared for the Anniversary Conference of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 22 October 2010. 2 For insiders accounts of the drafting of the ASEAN Charter, see Tommy Koh, Rosario G. Manalo, and Waster Woon, eds., The Making of the ASEAN Charter (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2009), with sponsorship by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Institute of Policy Studies. 3 For instance, in 2000 two civil society events took place one in Bangkok, Thailand (Symposium on ASEAN 2000 and Beyond: Putting the People First) in July 2000 and the other in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (the South East Asia People s Festival 2000) on 5-10 November 2000. 1

highlights the importance of popular participation in the process towards communitybuilding. What is a community in a genuine sense of the term without people? This paper seeks to document and analyze the engagement between official ASEAN with its diverse peoples through the prism of the journey of the ASEAN People s Assembly (APA), a track two process that sought to bridge tracks one and three in the sub-region that was launched by the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN ISIS) in November 2000 and suspended in 2009. In this paper, official ASEAN refers to both ASEAN institutions such as the ASEAN Secretariat, the Leaders Summit, ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting, etc., and the officials and governments of member states, such as individual heads of state/government, foreign ministers, etc. Civil society will refer to voluntary and popular grassroots advocacy organizations, such as human rights groups, peace advocates, gender/women advocates, farmers and fisherfolk groups, migrant labor groups, environmental groups, etc. Track one refers to activities including meetings of official ASEAN, the sector that makes decisions. Track two refers to academic, think tank, epistemic communities seeking to influence official policy through open, inclusive, informal dialogues governed by Chatham House 4 rules of non-attribution and personal participation. An example of a track two actor in East and Southeast Asia is the ASEAN ISIS. Track three refers to the broader civil society and grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) already noted abaove. Track one and a half refers to governmentorganized activities that normally involve representatives of track two organizations an example of which is the roster of Eminent and Expert Persons (EEPs) of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Following this introductory section the paper discusses the origins of advocacy for popular participation in Southeast Asia in section two (2) and early encounters between official ASEAN and civil society in this sub region in section three (3) before discussing the ASEAN People s Assembly s origin, development, and meetings in section four (4). This is followed by an analysis of popular participation in ASEAN official processes, especially tensions between various tracks in section five (5) before concluding with an assessment of APA s role in bridging tracks one and two in ASEAN processes. Advocacy for People s Participation in ASEAN The advocacy for popular participation in ASEAN processes predated this present decade. Within track two events organized by the ASEAN ISIS, including the 27-year old Asia-Pacific Roundtable (APR) and wherever ASEAN is part of the agenda, it is usual for participants, especially critics of ASEAN to highlight the elite character of the grouping and the absence of the people s voices in its processes. The elite character of the grouping is also reflected in studies about ASEAN where the focus of analysis on the 4 Chatham House is the British Royal Institute of International Affairs noted for its open, frank, personal participation and non-attribution rules of participation in its meetings. 2

significance of the Association to individual member countries was their domestic political elite. 5 The need for bringing the people into ASEAN was seen as a challenge as late as 1992. At the First ASEAN Congress organized by ASEAN ISIS and ISIS Malaysia in October 1992, a speaker at the concluding session said that the successful handling of the challenge of bringing the peoples of the member states into ASEAN can only strengthen the social fabric of our ASEAN family..[an] imperative of bringing ASEAN to the level of the ordinary citizen., the ASEAN family s most numerous members. We need to demystify ASEAN for the ordinary people, to popularize it by expanding [their] level of knowledge, awareness and commitment to ASEAN. If we are to become truly an ASEAN family, we must go beyond the government, business and professional elites, groups that are already extensively interacting with one another, expanding and pushing forward, in their own respective ways, the ASEAN agenda We cannot be truly a family, much less a caring one if we remain strangers to one another below the level of our elites There has to be increased people-to-people contacts across many fields to promote a sense of ASEANhood. Beyond these is the need to further articulate ASEAN identity and sense of belonging. 6 And the late Hadi Soesastro in arguing the need for ASEAN to reinvent itself if it were to prosper beyond its achievements of more than three decades at the time of writing said, A new ASEAN must be invented A mature ASEAN is a prerequisite. Members must open up. This is where the ASEAN civil society can contribute greatly. They have to be incorporated into the agenda setting of the new ASEAN, otherwise, people will have a totally wrong idea about what ASEAN is all about. ASEAN s core institutions and initiatives should not be remembered in 2030 as that which Chatikul (2000) had noted: ARF : what Lassie said to Tigger. AFTA: Tigger s reply. 7 The notion of ASEAN processes as those of Southeast Asia s elites is also shared by one of Indonesia s former Foreign Minister, the late Ali Alatas, who is also one of the most influential and highly respected official in the region. Speaking at the first ASEAN People s Assembly (APA) in Batam, Indonesia, he asked: Is ASEAN an association in search of people, or a people in search of an association? 8 He further noted, NGOs have been active, but it s still the political elites who have been communicating with each 5 See for example Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia in ASEAN: Foreign Policy and Regionalism (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994). 6 Carolina G. Hernandez, ASEAN: the Next Generation Prospects and Challenges, in her Track Two Diplomacy, Philippine Foreign Policy, and Regional Politics (Quezon City: University Center for Integrative and Development Studies and the UP Press, 1994), pp. 90-91. 7 Hadi Soesastro, ASEAN in 2030: The Long View, in Simon S.C. Tay, Jesus P. Estanislao and Hadi Soesastro, eds., Reinventing ASEAN (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), p. 309. 8 As quoted by Rehman Rashid, Agenda Malaysia: The ASEAN People s Assembly, in Report of the First APA, Documents, p.239. 3

other, not the common people. It cannot be said that we have reached the goal of a people s ASEAN. 9 Although not perhaps intending to, one of the Thai Foreign Ministers in the 1990s urged the convening of an ASEAN Congress in one of the ASEAN Ministerial Meetings (AMM). When challenged what he meant and when reminded that not all the member states of the grouping had a national parliament or legislature, that idea became the basis for the development of the concept behind the ASEAN People s Assembly which will be discussed in section four (4) below. Official ASEAN and Civil Society in Southeast Asia: Early Encounters The third wave democratization that swept the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s also touched ASEAN. Liberal triumphalism in the West came with the end of the Cold War and found its way into global discourses on human rights and democracy as well as in the official development assistance (ODA) policies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In its London Summit in July 1991, the OECD sought to promote human rights and democracy through official development assistance, i.e., by making respect for human rights and democracy promotion as conditions for the extension of ODA. Other issues linked to aid include market liberalization and sustainable economic development, environmental preservation, reasonable levels of military expenditures, and non-production of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Civil society in ASEAN took this global opening of political space as an opportunity to engage official ASEAN on the issues of human rights, democracy and the environment. Their early encounters were in fact on these issues. Within societies of ASEAN member states, pro-democracy movements and those for human rights promotion emerged while official ASEAN raised the flag of cultural relativism and Asian values they claimed distinguish Asians for Western societies. 10 Among the civil society movements that arose during this period are Altsean (alternative ASEAN, a pro-burma democracy regional group), Forum-Asia (an Asia-wide group which takes up pro-people advocacies on many fronts), and Initiative for International Dialogue (IID, an alliance with branches in various countries and also focused on similar pro-people, pro-democracy, pro-human rights advocacies). The Focus on the Global South, an organization that has similar pro-people advocacies and particularly dedicated to take up issues in behalf of the global South (or the developing world generally) began to join the security discourses through the 9 Ibid. 10 See Diane K. Mauzy, Democracy, Asian Values and the Question of Governance, and Herman Joseph S. Kraft, Human Rights, Regional Institutions and the ASEAN Way, in Amitav Acharya, B. Michael Frolic, and Richard Stubb, eds., Human Rights, Democracy and Civil Society in South East Asia (Toronto: Joint Centre for Pacific Studies, 2001), pp. 107-122 and 165-182, respectively. See also, Carolina G. Hernandez, ASEAN Perspectives on Human Rights and Democracy in International Relations: Divergences, Commonalities, Problems and Prospects, Professorial Chair Papers, CSSP Publications, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman, 1995. 4

launching of its series of meetings on alternative security or security as viewed by the people of the global South. 11 If civil society were to include non-governmental organizations that deal with policy research and analysis, then ASEAN ISIS is very much part of civil society, although it is known as a track two actor as it conducts activities of the track two variety. In this case, it also engaged official ASEAN on these issues since one of the earliest memoranda submitted by the ASEAN ISIS was on the environment and human rights in international relations. 12 In 2000, two civil society groups got together and came up with policy recommendations and suggestions regarding the concerns of the peoples of ASEAN as noted earlier. The Symposium on ASEAN 2000 and Beyond: Putting People First held in Bangkok, Thailand in July 2000 came up with a document titled ASEAN People s Agenda for the 4 th Informal Summit. Dated 24 November 2000, Singapore, it was intended for submission to the ASEAN Leaders at their 4 th informal summit held in Singapore. It contained nine (9) items of concern to the peoples of ASEAN, namely (1) the need to review ASEAN s nature and to reform itself, (2) creating an ASEAN human rights mechanism, signing, ratifying and implementing international human rights instruments and dealing with use of land mines and small arms, (3) the need for a regional mechanism to resolve conflicts, (4) the need for further democratization in the region, (5) the need for effective policies to address poverty, (6) the ned to institutionalize, the decade for human rights education, (7) the need to institutionalize gender education and women s rights protection, (8) the need to put an end to human rights violations and to restore democracy and peace in Burma, and (9) the need to respond to other country specific problems that involves serious violations of people s human rights and their quest for justice and lasting peace (citing specific human rights concerns of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand thereafter). 13 Item one (1) of this document strongly urged the need for dialogue between official ASEAN and its peoples. It states: If ASEAN is to consolidate its people for peace and progress it must listen to them. It must refuse to relegate people s rights and well-being in favor of big business and multinational interests. It must treat its people with respect by allowing a mechanism for dialogue and a venue for redress. It must open avenues for conflict resolution within the regional formation, and it must establish 11 The websites for these civil society groups are: http://www.altsean.org/ for Altsean; http://www.forumasia.org/ for Forum-Asia; and http://www.iidnet.org/ for IID. On the role of civil society in the discourses on security in the region, see Pierre P. Lizee, Civil Society and the Construction of Security in Southeast Asia: Setting the Research Agenda, in Mely Caballero-Anthony and Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, eds., Beyond the Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities, Volume 2, Kuala Lumputr: ISIS Malaysia, 2000. 12 ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies, The Environment and Human Rights in International Relations: An Agenda for ASEAN s Policy Approaches and Responses, prepared for the AMM in Manila on 22-23 July 1992. 13 From An ASEAN of the People, by the People, for the People Report of the First ASEAN People s Assembly, Batam, Indonesia, 24-26 November 2000, (Jakarta: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2001), Documents, pp. 217-222. 5

an authority over internal affairs of its members, especially in matters of gross human rights violations and open ethnic, racial or religious violence. 14 This document also clearly articulates the people s concerns over the elite character of the grouping, as well as the absence of the people s voices in ASEAN processes. It also shows that human rights and democracy were important entry points for the civil society s early attempts at engagement with official ASEAN. The second event organized by civil society in 2000 is the South East Asia People s Festival (SEAFEST) 2000 held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on 5-10 November 2000, a few days ahead of the 4 th Informal Summit of ASEAN Leaders in Singapore. Organized by the South East Asia Popular Communications Programme (SEAPCP) of Malaysia, the Institute for Social Transformation (INSIST) of Indonesia, and the Center for Women s Resources Development (PPSW) of Indonesia, SEAFEST 2000 was attended by onehundred and twenty (120) participants from Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor Loro Sae, and Vietnam from various grassroots sectors including community organizers and leaders, women empowerment organizations, indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolks, urban poor, street children and youth. The SEAFEST 2000 declaration says that these participants met for five (5) days discussing six (6) issues, namely: (1) grassroots women s issues, (2) land rights of indigenous peoples, farmers and fisherfolks, (3) urban poor issues, (4) children and youth issues, (5) HIV/AIDS and reproductive rights, and (6) democracy, good governance and local autonomy. The participants listed a number of substantive ideas for each of these six (6) issues they discussed. The SEAFEST 2000 Declaration was apparently not directly intended for the ASEAN Leaders meeting at the 4 th informal summit in Singapore, unlike the Symposium held earlier in Bangkok in July. It is not clear whether the Bangkok Symposium s ASEAN People s Agenda in fact reached the informal summit as its drafters intended. However, the Report of the ASEAN Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on the ASEAN Vision 2020, a group appointed by official ASEAN was submitted to the 4 th Informal Summit. Attempts by civil society to engage official ASEAN appear to have grown out of the immediate post-cold War era within the context of third wave democratization and promotion of the norms of democracy and human rights as well as related values linked to development assistance from the developed to the developing countries. In addition, track two (2) activities that begun in the 1980s whose success in engaging official ASEAN in regular dialogue, such as those of ASEAN ISIS with the ASEAN SOM starting in 1992 must have also inspired grassroots NGOs and other civil society in track three (3) in organizing themselves for engagement with official ASEAN. During the decade of the 1990s, ASEAN ISIS increased its openness to cooperation with track three (3) organizations, including with various human rights advocacy groups and those that 14 Ibid., p. 218. 6

started to join security dialogues, sharing not only ideas, but also lessons learned in engaging official ASEAN. 15 The ASEAN People s Assembly: Origins, Development, and Suspension That the ASEAN People s Assembly (APA) was established as a track two (2) initiative rather than a track three (3) civil society process has to be stressed from the onset. This reminder is crucial because people s misperception that it was a civil society process contributed immensely to one of the most important problems it faced especially after 2005. As then ASEAN ISIS Chair Simon S. C. Tay explained in his introductory remarks at the First APA that through APA, track two (2) actors such as the ASEAN ISIS can serve as a bridge between the official track one (1) and the non-governmental civil society track three (3). In arguing for the need for inclusive dialogue beyond the horizontal dialogue across the broader civil society and non-governmental entities, for vertical dialogue, for ASEAN to be more open to people s organizations and nongovernmental organizations as track three For this, track two think tanks such as the ASEAN-ISIS can play a role as a bridge. 16 Origins As already noted, the opportunity that led to the conceptualization of the ASEAN People s Assembly (APA) came with an idea of convening an ASEAN Congress that was proposed by the Foreign Minister of Thailand Kasem Kasemsri at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Brunei Darussalam in 1995. Without further details, the AMM decided to request ASEAN ISIS, through ISIS Thailand to discuss what and how such a gathering might be organized and make recommendations. Two meetings of the ASEAN ISIS in Bangkok and Yogyakarta were spent to brainstorm the idea and the group subsequently submitted its concept paper on the ASEAN People s Assembly to the ASEAN SOM in May 1996. 17 It was during this period that a number of ASEAN s Dialogue Partners, principally Japan provided the grouping with new funds to set up an institution that was conceived as a private funding institution, not governed by official ASEAN. The ASEAN Foundation. as it was called, convened a brain storming meeting prior to its formal opening. The purpose of this meeting was to identify projects that might be considered for possible funding support by the ASEAN Foundation. As the meeting was held in Jakarta, CSIS Jakarta represented ASEAN ISIS, discussed and submitted the APA concept paper with an indicative budget for funding. As the mandate of the Foundation was to popularize 15 The collective memory of ASEAN ISIS and its partners on this track two institution is found in Hadi Soesastro, Clara Joewono, and Carolina G. Hernandez, eds., Twenty Two Years of ASEAN ISIS (Jakarta: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2007), a volume it dedicated to the memory of the first of its founding member to pass on. 16 Simon S. C. Tay, Introduction, in Report of the First APA, p.11. 17 See Hadi Soesasto, Foreword, in ibid, p. 3. 7

ASEAN among its peoples, the APA project was seen as having a perfect fit and was among the priority projects for the Foundation s work. However, APA never received any funding support from the Foundation when it began operations. The Foundation s decision-making organs, the Board and the Council, though conceived as private and therefore, independent from official ASEAN, was in fact composed of officials and diplomats of the member states of ASEAN, except for the Philippines and Thailand. Moreover, because the Foundation started to operate almost at the same time as the implementation of the Hanoi Plan of Action for the ASEAN Vision 2020, an overwhelming chunk of the Foundation funds were allocated for the HPA. Two subsequent attempts of ASEAN ISIS to seek Foundation support for APA failed. Even the support of ASEAN s Dialogue Partner which contributed fifty percent (50%) of the Foundation s seed money did not matter since decision making was in the hands of official ASEAN! Consequently, when the first APA was held, the funding partners were non-southeast Asian. The leadership of CSIS, the largest and most externally-networked member of ASEAN ISIS was critical to the successful launch of APA as one of three flagship programs of ASEAN ISIS 18 as well as its first meeting held in Batam, Indonesia on 24-26 November 2000, during the 4 th informal summit of the ASEAN Leaders in nearby Singapore. APA originally sought to time its meetings with the ASEAN Leaders summits to enable official ASEAN members to participate in APA. This best practice was learned from civil society meetings held in parallel with or in opposition to official meetings, such as that held in Bangkok prior to the Vienna Human Rights Conference. The first APA was attended by then Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), then ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino, former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, and former Philippine National Security Adviser (to former President Fidel V Ramos) Jose T. Almonte. APA s Journey as a Track Two Process 19 During APA s brief lifespan it held six (6) meetings with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS Jakarta) and the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies, Inc. (ISDS Philippines) as the local host and principal organizers. These meetings are: 1 st APA, hosted by CSIS Jakarta held in Batam, Indonesia, 24-26 November 2000 2 nd APA, hosted by CSIS Jakarta held in Bali, Indonesia, 30 Aug-1 Sept 2002 3 rd APA, hosted by ISDS held in Manila, The Philippines, 25-27 September 2003 4 th APA, hosted by ISDS held in Manila, The Philippines, 11-13 May 2005 18 The two other flagship programs of ASEAN ISIS are the 27-year old Asia Pacific Roundtable (APR) held annually in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia usually in late May- early June, and the 17-year old ASEAN ISIS Colloquium on Human Rights (AICOHR) held annually in Manila usually in February or March. 19 On APA as a multi-track process, see Mely Caballero-Anthony, ASEAN ISIS and the ASEAN People s Assembly (APA): Paving a Multi-Track Approach to Regional Community Building, in Soesastro, Joewono, and Hernandez, eds., Twenty Two Years of ASEAN ISIS, pp. 53-74. 8

5 th APA, hosted by ISDS in Manila, The Philippines, 8-10 December 2006 6 th APA, hosted by ISDS in Manila, The Philippines, 24-25 October 2007 The themes of the six (6) APA meetings reflected the people s aspirations and advocacies, as well as the issues seen as relevant to the ASEAN peoples within the context of political developments within ASEAN itself. Seeking a transformation of ASEAN from an elite-centered to a people-centered entity, the 1 st APA adopted the theme as An ASEAN of the people, by the people, and for the people. Its plenary and parallel sessions focused on (1) the role of the people in setting ASEAN s agenda, (2) the impact of globalization, (3) the power of women and their empowerment, (4) the role of the media, (5) the possibility of a regional human rights mechanism, (6) the role of civil society, (7) efforts to redress poverty, (8) the limits and opportunities of environmental management, (9) events in Myanmar and East Timor, (10), policies for education system reform, and (11) ASEAN s role in regional community building. 20 Issues and Challenges APA Faced When there is poor policy coordination among official ASEAN and its host of policy advisers, confusion is bound to develop. When this phenomenon takes place within the context of a grouping that is still seeking to become more cohesive in a context where the political reality is that its member states remain driven by separate national interests and aspirations, such confusion is inevitable. These conspired to create confusion as to what role APA is expected to play in ASEAN processes, especially since the adoption of the Bali Concord II seeking to build an ASEAN community of three pillars. The principal issue and challenge APA faced was the misperception among civil society groups in the sub region that APA was a civil society process. As such, civil society groups that answered the call of the Malaysian government to participate in the ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC) it convened in December 2005 during its chairmanship of the ASEAN Standing Committee (ASC). Kuala Lumpur scheduled a ten (10) minute slot in the Summit Agenda for the ACSC to report to the ASEAN Leaders. The official list of the participants to the ACSC included members of ASEAN ISIS who neither knew about the conference, nor invited to participate. They only knew about the ACSC in February 2006 as the Philippines prepared to host the Leaders Summit when Myanmar requested to skip its slot in the traditional ASEAN alphabetical rotation of hosting its annual events. This was the obvious start of the tension with civil society that APA began to experience, and also within the ASEAN ISIS. Due to the inclusion in the Summit Agenda of the presentation of the ACSC of its report with a set of recommendations from the conference to the ASEAN Leaders, the issue of which non-governmental group the Philippine government would agree to meet with the ASEAN Leaders at its 12 th Summit (that was subsequently held in Cebu, the Philippines in January 2007) turned into a form of competition between APA and other non-governmental groups. As APA was able to 20 From the agenda and program of the 1 st APA. 9

raise funds for its previous meetings independently of official ASEAN, making it thereby truly an autonomous and non-governmental process, it became the obvious choice of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs to have its report presented to the 12 th Summit as a report from a non-governmental group. Unfortunately, such groups were referred to in a broad sense as civil society. Within ASEAN ISIS tension also arose when in 2007, Singapore took over the chairmanship of the ASC. When CSIS Jakarta sought a guarantee that should APA be held in Singapore prior to the 13 th Summit of ASEAN Leaders that none of the members of the Indonesian delegation would be denied entry by Singapore s immigration officers ( a couple of them were in the immigration watch list for having participated in parallel civil society meetings in Singapore) and no guarantee could be given, even offers by ISDS for APA to be held in Manila with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) chairing it and the APA report to be submitted by the SIIA Chairman in his own stead, SIIA organized its own version of a non-governmental meeting. Fortunately, the Singapore Government did not follow the practice set in Kuala Lumpur in the 11 th Summit and adopted by the Philippines in the 12 th Summit of having business, parliament, and non-government groups report to the Leaders during its turn, thereby avoiding any further competition among non-governmental groups for space in the Summit Agenda. Meanwhile, those who participated in the ACSC organized by the Malaysian Government during the 11 th Summit continued to hold an annual ACSC in Manila and in Singapore. In Thailand, the ASEAN People s Forum (APF) was launched during its chairmanship of the ASC in 2008-2009. Subsequently, the ACSC and APF would merge and call themselves APF6. 21 Another important challenge faced by APA is the issue of hosting and organizing the meetings. During its lifetime, only CSIS Jakarta and ISDS Philippines have agreed to host and organize the APA meetings. Part of the responsibilities of serving in this capacity is networking with civil society, government officials, and other sectors within ASEAN to develop the theme, agenda, panel or session topics and role players, and raising funds for over two hundred (200) participants from the sub region. It was felt that these events needed to be held in countries where there is a wider political space for inclusive political participation as well as willingness of the relevant ASEAN ISIS member to assume this task. In the end, only two countries became the venues for the APA meetings, Indonesia and the Philippines with their respective ASEAN ISIS sister institutes, CSIS and ISDS. Finally, the enlarged ASEAN ISIS membership to include think tanks and research institutes from nine (9) out of the ten (10) ASEAN member states exacted its toll on the ability of the group to arrive at consensus on how far APA can go as a bridge between official ASEAN and civil society groups in Southeast Asia. Since many of the members of ASEAN ISIS are not independent organizations, they tended to how their positions and 21 From Basic Information for Participants, ASEAN People s Forum 6 (APF6) that was held in Hanoi, Vietnam on 24-26 September 2010. 10

commitments as close to their respective governments as possible. On critical issues including on which civil society organizations are acceptable or not, the divide tended to be too great to bridge, contributing to the issue of hosting and organizing the APA meetings. 22 Folding Up and Suspension of APA The year following the holding of the 6 th APA witnessed the process of assessing whether APA has achieved its main purpose of bridging Southeast Asia s tracks one (1) and three (3). Within ASEAN ISIS views regarding APA varied from those which fully understood and were seriously committed to the program, to those that did not understand the program and only observed the consensus built around it, to those who understood it but would not make any contribution to prosper the program other than to organize a group dominated by either government or the friends of the ASEAN ISIS member institute in the specific country, to those who did not understand the program at all and availed of the conference as some kind of junket for themselves and their friends. And within ISDS there began to develop serious concern about its future as an ASEAN ISIS flagship program due to the views and attitudes within ASEAN ISIS. Thus, it decided to convene an assessment conference to determine whether and how APA should remain as an informal non-governmental mechanism in ASEAN. The conference was attended by ASEAN ISIS representatives, civil society participants, and APA s funding partners. ISDS specifically informed its sister institutes to send only participants who had attended at least two (2) previous APA meetings. The discussions were on the whole supportive of keeping APA alive. Especially important is the reminder of a former official of the ASEAN Secretariat who reminded the conference that APA cannot be discontinued because it is recognized in the ASEAN documents as an important vehicle for raising awareness about ASEAN among its peoples, and for community building. 23 However, it was very disappointing in the following sense: (1) ASEAN ISIS members and civil society groups sent participants who never attended any previous APA meetings, (2) some ASEAN ISIS members forgot that APA is a track two process seeking to bridge tracks one (1) and three (3) contributing thereby to the misperception of APA among many civil society participants in the assessment conference and civil society groups in the sub region generally, (3) civil society groups that were perennial participants in previous APA meetings and knew the consultative process ASEAN ISIS has adopted in agenda setting, etc., criticized APA to gain legitimacy or credibility or to gain brownie points among their colleagues who never participated in any APA meetings before, and (4) ASEAN ISIS members who were fully committed to the process since its conceptualization were not able to come for extremely significant reasons. 24 22 Conversations with insiders who requested anonymity. 23 The reference is to the Vientiane Action Programme for the implementation of the Bali Concord II. The VAP has since been replaced by the blueprints for the three (3) pillars of the ASEAN community. 24 Culled from several conversations with insiders in APA who requested anonymity. The author was also a Rappoteur for this assessment conference. 11

Despite an overall positive assessment of APA, ISDS recommended to the next ASEAN ISIS Heads meeting held in Kuala Lumpur in the fringes of the 25 th APR to suspend the holding of APA indefinitely. One of the most important rationale for its indefinite suspension is the fact that official ASEAN had agreed to meet officially with the representatives of the newly-organized ASEAN People s Forum (APF), a civil society process initiated by People Empowerment Foundation of Thailand and ISIS Thailand funded by the Thai Foreign Ministry during Thailand s turn as chair of the ASEAN Standing Committee (ASC), the member state that took this position under the new ASEAN Charter. As such, Thailand was the first member state to host two summits of the ASEAN Leaders. Thailand s agreement to receive the representatives of the APF from the ten (10) member states of ASEAN in Hua Hin was an indication to ASEAN ISIS that APA as a bridge between the official and civil society tracks has perhaps outlived its usefulness. 12