Southeast Asian nations split over treatment of Burma

"[T]hose who support the [ASEAN] secretary-general could do so in concrete terms by encouraging the government of Myanmar to cooperate fully, regularly and authentically with United Nations good officers," [Gambari] added.

Treatment of Gambari and failure to pressure Burma had pro-democracy activists accusing the body of hypocrisy, according to a report in Britain's The Telegraph. Burmese dissidents staged protests around the region.

Many Western analysts point out that only one of ASEAN's members - Indonesia - is a functioning democracy and that members have no interest in promoting interventionist policies or political reform. Critics also say ASEAN is failing to tackle Burma over its human rights record because of financial concerns.

Singapore itself continues to have cosy business relations with Burma. According to Singapore's foreign minister, George Yoe, the city-state's trade with Burma last year amounted to only £336,000, just 0.1 per cent of his country's total foreign trade.

Bloomberg highlighted the importance of Burma's natural-gas reserves to ASEAN members like Thailand. With crude oil prices nearing $100 a barrel, gas brings a premium in Asia, the report noted, adding that nearly 10 years of sanctions against Burma have been undermined by Asia's – and particularly China's –quest for energy.

Even before the meeting, some analysts had suggested that the group would find it hard to discard the "ASEAN way" that prioritizes consensus over confrontation. Writing in the Asia Times, security analyst Stanley Weiss suggested Burma will be the litmus test not only for the organization's credibility but its willingness to change.

Indeed, comparing the charter's lofty rhetoric against the realities of ASEAN at 40 years old reveals a region that is either experiencing a mid-life crisis or finally coming of age. Culturally, the new charter proclaims Southeast Asia to be a single "community" united by "one vision, one identity". But given the extraordinary diversity of the region's 577 million people - Muslim-majority Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei; Buddhist-majority Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos; Christian-majority Philippines - forging a common sense of community will as ever be no easy task.

People "must develop a dual identity of being a national of a member state and an ASEAN citizen", says Surin [Pitsuwin, former Thai foreign minister and the next ASEAN secretary-general], a Muslim and intellectual from southern Thailand who has called for reconciliation to end his homeland's separatist Muslim insurgency.

… And the stakes couldn't be higher. "The road to reconciliation between the West and the Muslim world runs through Southeast Asia," argues Surin, noting that more than half the region's population will soon be Muslim. "We have to try to keep them moderate, accommodating, progressive and constructively engaged with the outside world."

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