The non-event recently held in Vientiane, that - as some sources claim was meant to be the latest Asean meeting, turned out to be a comedy of errors in more ways than one. First came the laughable drama of Thai Premier Thaksin Shinawatra playing the role of primadonna threatening to walk out of the proceedings should any pesky journalists or politicians raise the

embarrassing question of what actually happened in the town of Tak Bai where more than 80 Thai Muslims died at the hands of Thailand's security forces. Then came the equally shameless volte-face when Thailand chastised the regime of Burma for not doing enough as far as democratic reform was concerned.

Year in, year out, the people of Asean have turned to the Asean assembly with the feeble (and increasingly diminishing) hope that it would evolve into something more than a rulers' durbar or talking shop for the elite.

Time and again, we have been let down by the powers-that-be, who are clearly more interested in playing out their appointed roles in this farcical masque which despite the amount of orchestration and finance invested into it has produced precious little in terms of concrete and tangible results.