Centrists' peace role quickly put to test

PHNOM PENH — Barely had four-dozen Asian leaders assembled here to declare a new role of peace brokering when they were quickly put to the test. Korean and Nepali politicians were hustled into side rooms to talk genially about cooling down tensions in their respective lands. Conclusive accords were not expected, only initial probes. There will be need for more formal pacifiers in the next few weeks. But before breaking up Wednesday, the centrist democrats from South and Southeast Asia agreed on tougher next missions: Afghanistan, Iran, and India-Pakistan.

Former Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla listed the flashpoints upon convening the Asian government, NGO, and business leaders. “If the 21st is to be Asia’s century, it must start with peace,” he said as chairman of the Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI). He knows whereof he speaks. As then-chairman of Indonesia’s ruling Golkar Party, he had forged peace with Aceh separatists in 2005, ushering progress at last in the province.

It so happened that, only days ago, Nepal’s three contending political factions separately had asked the CAPDI for help in settling their 14-year feuding. It so happened too that Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal was attending here the separate 6th International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) also this week. PM Nepal chairs the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) that is in three-way fight with the CPN-Maoist and the Congress Party to control the government. Peace efforts, albeit informal, could begin right away in this Cambodian capital, remarked incoming CAPDI secretary general Mushahid Hussain Sayed of Pakistan. His country has just hurdled internal political instability brought about by the 2007 assassination of presidential candidate Benazir Bhutto. Sayed, a senator who also run for president then, stressed the need for swift prevention of any more deterioration of situation.

Hosting both the CAPDI and ICAPP, Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen said Nepalis could learn from his nation’s end of a similar three-way feud. Backed by the royal family, Hun Sen’s government now works closely with the FUNCINPEC (National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia) and the Khmer Rouge. This, after two decades of violence.

As founder of both CAPDI and ICAPP, former Philippine Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. lost no time chatting up old pal PM Nepal. Within minutes schedules were set for a CAPDI peace delegation to Katmandu in January. For de Venecia, formalities matter less than friendships in shuttle diplomacies for peace. He too is familiar with peacemaking, having helped forge accord in 1996 between the Manila government and the separatist Moro National Liberation Front. He constantly communicates with college chum Luis Jalandoni of the communist National Democratic Front to sign a political settlement with the government.

De Venecia’s method with the Koreans also involves friendships. Leaving the thawing between North and South to major powers China, Japan, Russia and the United States, he focused instead on South Korea’s major formations to cool down conflict. “Officials from the North Korean Workers Party are to attend the ICAPP,” he said. Then pointing to separate dining tables, he added, “But look, the members of the South’s ruling Grand National Party and opposition Democratic Party aren’t even talking. The latter wants the former to take a harder line against the North’s recent shelling [of an island of the South]. We in CAPDI will strive to make them agree on a moderate stance. That would be less provocative.”

De Venecia, Indonesia’s Kalla, and Cambodian deputy PM Sok An had led the renaming of CAPDI from the Centrist Democratic International-Asia. This was to reflect Asia’s multicultural, multi-religion character, compared to Europe’s Christian democrats from which the CDI originated.

Former Afghan president Bur-hanuddin Rabbani, a co-founder of CDI-Asia, cancelled attendance at the last minute due to workload. Present President Hamid Karzai has just appointed him head of a 70-member High Council for Peace to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban. De Venecia offered the CAPDI’s help to yet another old friend.

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In the sidelights, meanwhile, de Venecia’s son Jose III attended both the CAPDI and ICAPP as secretary general of the PDP-Laban party. As well representing Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay, he committed the party founded by Ninoy Aquino to the principles of centrist democracy.

Aquino in his unfinished autobiography Testament from a Prison Cell had discussed the bases of his politics. He wrote that if he must be labeled, “my ideology flows from the mainstream of Christian Democratic Socialism as practiced in Austria, West Germany and the Scandinavian countries.” The Christian Democrats have evolved into today’s Centrist Democrats over the years of administering governments in Europe.

Ninoy had joined the Liberal Party on invitation of President Diosdado Macapagal. He later recruited the older de Venecia to the LP, but the latter formed the Asian political unions as co-founder of the Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats, similarly a branch of the European ideology.

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