What is ASEAN?
ASEAN was
preceded by an organization called the Association
of Southeast Asia, commonly called ASA, an alliance consisting of the Philippines, Malaysia and
Thailand that was formed in 1961. The bloc itself, however, was established on
8 August 1967, when foreign ministers of five countries – Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – met at the Thai Department of
Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok and signed the ASEAN Declaration, more
commonly known as the Bangkok Declaration. The five foreign ministers –Adam Malik
of Indonesia, Narciso Ramos of the Philippines, Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S.Rajaratnam
of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand – are considered the organization’s
Founding Fathers. Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a geo-political and economic organization
of ten countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed on 8 August 1967
by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since then,
membership has expanded to include Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
Its aims include accelerating economic growth, social progress, and cultural
development among its members, protection of regional peace and stability, and
opportunities for member countries to discuss differences peacefully.
What
is United Nations?
After the League
of Nations failed to prevent World War II (1939–1945), there was widespread
recognition that humankind could not afford a third world war. Therefore, the
United Nations was established to replace the flawed League of Nations in 1945
in order to maintain international peace and promote cooperation in solving
international economic, social, and humanitarian problems. The earliest
concrete plan for a new world organization was begun under the aegis of the U.S.
State Department in 1939. Franklin D. Roosevelt first coined the term 'United
Nations' as a term to describe the Allied countries. The term was first
officially used on 1 January 1942, when 26 governments signed the Atlantic
Charter, pledging to continue the war effort. On 25 April 1945, the UN
Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco, attended by 50
governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting
the United Nations Charter. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October
1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the
Security Council—France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom and the United States—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.
The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, and
the Security Council, took place in Methodist Central Hall Westminster in
London beginning 6 January 1946. The organization was based at the Sperry
Gyroscope Corporation's facility in Lake Success, New York, from 1946 to 1952,
before moving to the United Nations Headquarters building in Manhattan upon its
completion.
Since its
creation, there has been controversy and criticism of the United Nations. In
the United States, an early opponent of the UN was the John Birch Society,
which began a "get US out of the UN" campaign in 1959, charging that
the UN's aim was to establish a "One World Government". After the
Second World War, the French Committee of National Liberation was late to be
recognized by the US as the government of France, and so the country was
initially excluded from the conferences that aimed at creating the new
organization. Charles de Gaulle criticized the UN, famously calling it a contraption,
and was not convinced that a global security alliance would help maintain world
peace, preferring direct defense treaties between countries.
Tan Boon Lek, 3B
No comments:
Post a Comment