Digital BABA

Dr. Surin Pitsuwan

Introduction to Surin Pitsuwan on occasion of Building a Better Asia Young Leaders’ Retreat in Goa on 17 Feb 2008

Our keynote speaker today, His Excellency Dr Surin Pitsuwan, who took over his position as Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) only 5 weeks ago, is our man for the future. He has come a long way from his humble origins in a remote village in the south of Thailand to now be responsible in the next 5 years for taking the group of 10 Southeast Asian nations into the next phase of its active involvement in the international community.

For those of you who have followed the affairs of ASEAN since it was founded 40 years ago in 1967 will know the important role that the regional organization has played in promoting peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. India, like most of the major powers including China, the US, Japan, Russia and the EU, are dialogue partners of ASEAN. ASEAN has also been the driver of important trade and security initiatives like the APEC (the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) and the ARF (the Asia Regional Forum). ASEAN has also been active in promoting free trade agreements with various countries including India.

As Asian giants like China and India emerge and rise the role of ASEAN will become even more important in giving voice to the large numbers of smaller countries in Asia who even fear being just under the shadows of their bigger neighbours.

Surin Pitsuwan, born Abdul Halim Ismail, was educated in a small madrasah school in the province of Nakorn Sri Thammarat (the city of Dharma/law). From these rural surroundings he went to the U.S to spend a year in high school as an American Field Service scholar. He completed his university education in the U.S. before he went to Harvard University to complete his Ph.D. in Political Science. His PHD dissertation was on the Muslims of Southern Thailand. His conclusions in that thesis are just as relevant then as they are now. He returned to Thailand to teach at Thammasart University.

However, the lure of politics was perhaps too appealing to Surin the scholar who after a few years of teaching in the university entered politics by joining the Democrat Party. He learnt his politics under the wings some of the best leaders that Thailand has produced. He became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992-95 and Foreign Minister in the post-financial crisis years from 1997-01. He was returned to parliament 8 times by which time he had risen to the position of Deputy leader of the Democrat Party. In the period following his years as foreign minister he was as active as he was articulate about the state of the world. He sat on the board of many important organizations including the following:

When he left government in 2001 he was appointed a member of the Commission on Human Security of the United Nations together with Amartaya Sen and Sadao Ogata. He also served in several other international capacities: advisor to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty from 1999-2001; the ILO’s World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization until 2004; the Advisory Board of the UN Human Security Trust Fund; the Advisory Board of the International Crisis Group (ICG); the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York; International Academic Advisor of the Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford University. Between 2002 and 2004, Surin was a member of the “Wise Men Group” under the auspices of the Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HDC) in Geneva, advising the peace negotiations between the Acehnese Independence Movement (GAM) and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia. He was a member of the Islamic Development Bank’s 1440 A.H. (2020) Vision Commission in 2005.

But the lure of regionalism, I believe, has been greater still. He has to sacrifice his service to the people of Thailand whom he had served for 20 years and more in order that he can serve a region of half a billion people. The challenges he will face in his new task are great but if you know his track record you will also believe that he is up to the task and worthy of our support.

For me personally our relationship has come a long way: Dr Surin was a founder member in 1985 with some of us of the Information & Resource Center which is the principle organizer of this Building a Better Asia Young Leaders Retreat. I should also mention that in 2006 he led a mission of the Asian Dialogue Society to the Northeast Region of India where many Pan-Asian ideas of community-building involving India, China, Japan and ASEAN were expressed and discussed. In the next 5 years he will have an opportunity to make some of these pan-Asian initiatives come alive- hopefully with some of you who in the audience this evening

I have the privilege and honour to call upon this scholar, ex-politician, diplomat, intellectual, travelling seminarian, colleague and friend to give the keynote address to this meeting here in Goa.

M Rajaretnam
Director/Chief Executive
International Centre Goa, India
Programme Director, BABA Retreats