The 18th ASEAN Summit in Jakarta concluded with two significant results. First, the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia found a new way toward a pre-solution. Second, the Myanmar regime’s openness to adopting democracy progressed.
The credit should go to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), as he had allocated a considerable amount of time to reconcile Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia and Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Previously, Myanmar President, U Thein Sein, successor of junta leader Than Shwe, also met President SBY to discuss democratization in Myanmar.
In this context, President SBY has tried to maximize Indonesia’s strategic position in ASEAN and in the world. Becoming the chair of ASEAN alone is not sufficient without also having vision and leadership.
President SBY appeared when ASEAN was faced with problems. He also did essential jobs for Indonesia’s role in G20 and in United Nations (UN) bodies, including the Human Rights Council — a position which previously would have been impossible for Indonesia under the New Order regime.
SBY also has a vision of world peace, with his proposal for a triple-track solution for the future of Iraq as an example. However, the President’s most popular vision was perhaps on Indonesia’s soft power diplomacy, which he presented before a UN forum and USINDO in 2007. He envisaged that many conflicts in the world could not reach peaceful solution as actors pursued solely hard power.
The struggles of the United States in bringing peace to Afghanistan and Iraq showed that the world community needs more than military power to create peace. In this regard, soft power focuses more on bringing peace through different approaches such as economy, culture, education, sports and media publication.
In this regard, President SBY invited his colleagues from Thailand and Cambodia to pursue a peaceful solution to the conflict. When this issue was discussed in the ASEAN Summit, the atmosphere in the meeting was slightly warmer, as such an issue was not included in the initial agenda.
PM Hun Sen was confident to push the issue to be discussed, while PM Abhisit was not in favor of it. Upon learning the situation, President SBY offered to mediate and invited the two leaders to the Presidential Palace.
In fact, the meeting at the Presidential Palace did not run so smoothly. Both the Thai and Cambodian leaders had different proposals for peace solutions, especially on how bilateral negotiations should be held and how international observers should be involved.
As we know, Cambodia preferred international observers to come to the disputed border area first and then be followed by a bilateral meeting between Thailand and Cambodia. On the other hand, Thailand preferred a bilateral approach first before involving international observers.
In this situation, President SBY mediated the deadlock and proposed that both approaches could be implemented at the same time. It seems that both disputing parties can accept the idea. After the meeting, the two leaders instructed their respective foreign ministers to stay in Jakarta to follow up with the initiative until progress can be made.
