The official toasting of Asean’s new charter in Jakarta on Monday marks a peculiar moment in regional political history.

While the officials themselves were full of praise and positive comments, the 500 million people in the region may be asking themselves whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) had ever done anything to change their lives since it was formed.

The objective answer is very little, certainly in terms of defining the regional bloc as a staunch defender of democracy and human rights.

When Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: “This is a momentous development when Asean is consolidating, integrating and transforming itself into a community,” people could rightly be skeptical.
 
After all, when Asean debated the new charter that also contains a human rights section, the rogue state of Burma — itself a full Asean member — was at the table arguing against any interference in its internal affairs. 
 
The Burmese government even signed the charter in July. Nyan Win, the Burmese foreign minister, said the signing “demonstrates our strong commitment to embrace the common values and aspiration of the people of Asean to build… a sharing and caring community.” 

This is the same rhetoric that has come out of Asean for decades, leading many observers to lose faith in the regional body as a defender of democracy and human rights.

Only a few months later, the junta’s puppet courts began handing out harsh prison sentences to more than 200 people from monks to relief workers to leading political activists, sentences of up to 68 years imprisonment.

The lengthy imprisonments were not enough for the junta. Only days later, almost all of the newly imprisoned activists were transferred to remote prisons outside Rangoon — a case of more systematic, psychological torture, not only for the political prisoners but also for their families who have to spend more time and expense to maintain contact.  

Most Asean officials have recognized Burma as a “problem child” ever since the grouping embraced the junta as a full member in 1997. At that time, some Asean officials may have optimistically believed that its fellow nations could influence the military government for the better. There is no evidence of that ever happening in the past 11 years.

For Asean to embrace Burma — giving it a protective cover of respectability — is surreal and macabre.

Asean has constantly been on the defensive, deflecting calls from Western nations to do more with its policy mantra of “non-interference” in domestic affairs.    

In fact, the new Asean charter has no provision to sanction anti-democratic members like Burma where human rights violations are rampant.

The updated rhetoric in the new charter will be a challenge for several member-nations to meet, especially authoritarian regimes like Burma, Vietnam and Laos. In fact, the whole issue of democracy and human rights in Southeast Asia runs hot and cold in all nations, including founders Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

All have blemished records, most recently Thailand, which postponed a scheduled Asean summit in December because of political strife. The summit is now set for February.

Human rights issues are clearly the new hot potato for Asean. Its charter has no teeth, no provisions for sanctions, suspension or expulsion against member states. You may rightly ask, what’s the point of having a human rights section if Asean can’t even expel a state for gross, systematic violations?

Will the Burmese generals fear the Asean human rights charter? The generals will continue to suppress the Burmese people and manipulate Asean, using the time-tested, non-interference principle in domestic policies.

As a result, Asean will continue to dance to the junta’s tune.

The real problem is in the politics within Asean member states. The governments simply lack a strong belief that democracy and human rights abuses are important enough to defend and fight for in ways that would effectively penalize member states.

In spite of the new Asean charter and its human rights pact, don’t expect any big changes to come from Asean in the future. It will be business as usual when it comes to member states that practice anti-democratic values and abuse human rights.