ASEAN Nations Ignore Duterte's Death Squads

Democratic ASEAN did so well reining in the Philippines' own Marcos and Indonesia's Suharto that the Philippines' New President Duterte should be a cinch.

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long been a loose regional shell of authoritarian nations, barely talking to each other. The habit of non-interference into each other's affairs leads to extraordinary blindness over human rights abuses. Democracies like the US and Australia criticise such abuses, including death squads in some ASEAN nations. However actual ASEAN members seem frightened to speak out. Perhaps they are reticent due to their own human rights records and frequent border tensions with other ASEAN nations. 

So it is no surprise ASEAN is silent over decades of death squads controlled by Duterte. His ordering of killings started when he was Mayor of Davao City, Philippines, and since June 2016 he has risen to being Philippine President. Duterte, before he became President, actually admitted to controlling  death squads. 

Human rights failures in a key South China Sea state prompts strategic concerns. During the Marcos years the US could backup Marcos's power, but the US no longer enjoys such relative power. However the US may find itself pole-axed by Duterte's special brand of diplomacy. 

If the excesses of a dictator causes popular reactions then the Philippines may unfortunately entertain a PRC puppet master. First economic power (by a narrow margin China is now the Philippines' third highest trade partner). Money builds political influence. 

China taking over Subic Bay and Clark military facilities by 2040? Who knows? Certainly some try to insist things never change.

"More than 400 suspected drug dealers have been killed by police across the Philippines since Mr Duterte took over [a few weeks ago], officials say" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-08/philippine-officials-surrender-after-being-linked-to-drugs-trade/7702758

Britain’s Daily Mail advises “60,000 people turn themselves in to authorities in the Philippines after the president tells citizens to 'go ahead and kill' drug users”... “At least 43,000 alleged drug traffickers have been 'neutralised"' whatever that means.

  

“[Duterte] vowed on one occasion during the election campaign that 100,000 people would die, and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish there would grow fat from feeding on them, according to the South China Morning Post.”

Certainly a vision statement not to be emulated. But Suharto succeeded in his own violent rise to power. But as in 1965 the use of death squads to secure power is a bad look for any respectable member of ASEAN. ASEAN has just managed to lift Burma from dictatorship but now the Philippines appears to be slipping in to it.

See this article with useful comments on Duterte and ASEAN including:

-  leaders of ASEAN countries have noticed Duterte’s absence fron key ASEAN meetings

-  past ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan has been warning of the rise of new Southeast 

   Asian leaders less interested in regionalism, and

-  the Philippines is due to chair ASEAN in 2017.

Despite shared Spanish influences the Philippines is not Argentina on a bad day Mr Duterte.