It started
at a banquet
in 1960s Jakarta,
Text Rachel Genevieve Chia
Photos various contributors
the same city that today hosts the 2018 Asian
Games. Neutral Thailand had just brokered a
reconciliation between Indonesia, Malaysia
and the Philippines – the beginning of an
effort to stabilise the region observers would
later say deserved the Nobel Peace Prize – and
champagne flowed as the foreign ministers, and
their respective nations, celebrated.
The disagreements that arose between the
three states over the territorially contentious
formation of the Federation of Malaysia
(comprising Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and
Singapore) marred 1960s Southeast Asia
with bitter intergovernmental relations. The
Philippines broke off diplomatic ties with
Malaysia, while a provoked Indonesia launched
konfrontasi: half a decade of armed incursions,
bomb attacks and cross-border altercations that
killed over 700 soldiers.
An early attempt at forming an
intergovernmental organisation – the
Association of Southeast Asia (ASA),
comprising Malaya, Thailand and the
Philippines – met its end precisely because
of politics surrounding the new Malaysian
federation. And ASA was never endorsed by
Indonesia, elaborates Shaun Narine in his
2002 book Explaining ASEAN: Regionalism
in Southeast Asia. But at that 1966 banquet,
spirits were high, and when Thai foreign
minister Thanat Khoman approached his
Indonesian counterpart, Adam Malik, to
propose another shot at regional cooperation,
he “agreed without hesitation,” Khoman
recalls in the commemorative publication
ASEAN at 30 by Jamil Maidan Flores and Jun
Abad. (It was also Malik who later suggested
the name “ASEAN”.)
“Within a few months, everything was
ready,” Khoman continues on. “I therefore
invited the two former members of the ASA,
Malaysia and the Philippines, and Indonesia,
a key member, to a meeting in Bangkok. In
addition, Singapore sent S. Rajaratnam, then
Foreign Minister, to see me about joining the
new set-up.”
Their second time at the negotiation table
fared better, and the terms of the charter for
this new Southeast Asian institution were
hashed out over four days of meetings at a
secluded seaside resort in Bang Saen, a coastal
town a little out of the Thai capital. But
researchers agree that the bulk of negotiations
really took place during the two days of
networking and golf Khoman had scheduled
for his guests preceding the conference.feature | aSeaN
THE ASEAN
EMBLEMTen rice stalks –
one for each
member – united
in solidarity
and coloured in
prosperous yellow,
rests on a circle of
red (representing
courage), white
(purity) and blue
(peace). The
emblem also
contains the colours
of all member
states’ state crests.right President
Sukarno announces
Indonesia’s refusal
to attend a peace
conference with
Malaysia at a May
Day rally in 1965