On 19 January 2001, General Angelo Reyes, then chief of staff of the armed forces, led a transfer of military support from democratically elected but disgraced President Joseph Estrada to his vice-president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. A day later, Arroyo became president. At the time, the general defended his action as "promot[ing] the public good under extreme circumstances." Soon thereafter, President Arroyo named him her secretary of defense. In July 2003, nearly 300 heavily armed junior military officers seized the center of Manila?s business district, rigged explosives around the buildings, and demanded President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s resignation. They accused Reyes of corruption and urged him to resign as well. Reyes denied the charge as baseless. Saying he wanted to spare his family and the armed forces further abuse, he resigned in August. In October, President Arroyo appointed him Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-Terrorism. What if any conditions justify military intervention in the name of the public interest? In this lecture, Reyes will argue that in certain extreme circumstances, civilian democracy can be served by military intervention. He will also warn, however, that such intervention can undermine democracy in the long run. Angelo Reyes' military career lasted thirty-five years. He commanded at all levels of the Philippine armed forces. His field experience included counter-insurgent operations in Mindanao and Luzon. He holds advanced degrees from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. On Wednesday, October 1, 2003 he was appointed Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-terrorism by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Potentially the most divisive issue to be addressed at the upcoming summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bali on October 7-8, 2003 concerns the membership of Burma. Traditionally ASEAN has been regarded as among the most successful regional institutions anywhere. Since its founding in 1967, ASEAN member states have never waged war against each other. Southeast Asia has become an enduringly peaceful security community. This achievement reflects ASEAN's commitment to the norm of national sovereignty, its refusal to violate that norm by interfering in a fellow member's domestic affairs, and its consensual style of diplomacy--the confrontation-shunning "ASEAN Way." But these facilitators of regional peace have at the same time reinforced the more or less authoritarian character of the Association's ten member regimes. Nowhere in Southeast Asia is this anomaly of an "illiberal peace" more acute than in the crisis now facing ASEAN over the lack of democracy in Burma. Recently the junta in Rangoon arrested and imprisoned the leader of the Burmese opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese regime was able to crack down partly because of ASEAN's adherence to the principle of sovereignty and its reluctance to allow criticism of one member state by other member states. Will ASEAN's faith in sovereignty survive? Or will the Burmese dilemma force ASEAN's leaders at the Bali summit to rethink the very meaning of the Association in a globalizing and democratizing world? Erik Kuhonta recently completed his dissertation on the politics of equitable development in Malaysia and Thailand. He specializes on the comparative and international politics of developing countries with a focus on Southeast Asia. A citizen of the Philippines, he was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Italy, and now considers Thailand his home. Kuhonta holds a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

About the Talk: In Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, initial reactions to the American war in Iraq were overwhelmingly negative. Nor could support for American action be found among Muslim minorities in the Philippines, Singapore, or Thailand. But Southeast Asian Muslims were not equally or uniformly outraged. Complex and distinctive local contexts and agendas shaped Muslim anger and the responses to it. Dr. Emmerson will highlight these Southeast Asian settings and analyze the politics of anti-American backlash along a critical periphery of the Muslim world. Donald Emmerson is director of the Southeast Asia Forum at the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He teaches courses in international relations and comparative politics. His research interests focus on Islamism, regionalism, democratization, and US policy regarding Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Emmerson has testified before Congress in 1998, 1999, and 2001 on East Timor, Indonesia, and Southeast Asian topics. He assisted the Carter Center in monitoring Indonesia's national election and the UN vote on autonomy in East Timor. Members of the World Affairs Council: $5.00 Non-members: $8.00 Students with ID: Free To make a reservation, please contact the World Affairs Council at 415-293-4600. Cosponsored by the Asia/Pacific Research Center and Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation at Stanford University and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Journalism in Southeast Asia is triply constrained. In a given country, the regime in power may impose censorship or induce self-censorship. Outraged by an article, headline, or photograph, a threatening mob can achieve the same result. Concern for the bottom line may pressure commercial media to avoid "serious" analyses in favor of "lighter" stories with ostensibly greater reader, listener, or viewer appeal. Violence and sex may be featured for the same material reason. What is it like to work under such constraints? What strategies are available to journalists for defeating or deflecting them? How do the news environments in Indonesia and Thailand differ in these respects? What about the prejudices and preferences of journalists themselves? How do all these limits, incentives, and propensities go into the making of the news in Southeast Asia? Yuli Ismartono is uniquely suited to answer these questions. As a correspondent for TEMPO, she covered wars in Cambodia and Sri Lanka, drugs in the Golden Triangle, the student uprising in Burma, the Soviet exit from Afghanistan, Russian elections, the first Gulf War, and events in Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and, of course, Indonesia. For five years while TEMPO was banned, she worked in television and corporate public relations while writing for The Indonesian Observer. Her current responsibilities as executive editor include managing TEMPOInteraktif (online news).

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently pointed to gold mining on the island of Mindanao as a possible solution to her country's chronic financial problems. Philippines gold reserves are among the world's largest, and gold prices are near a six-year high. But the metal is no panacea; damage to the environment and battles over land rights are among the risks and impediments. The president is not the first in her country to have focused on gold. In pre-Hispanic times the metal was both a medium of exchange and a sign of status. Ferdinand Marcos' rise to power is still widely, if credulously, attributed to his discovery of a famous hoard of gold. This lecture will show how scholarly attention to precious metals, including silver, can yield a perspective on Philippine history that challenges conventional narratives. By foregrounding precious metals, the archipelago's past can be relocated--away from the peripheral position it occupies in most world histories and toward a strikingly central role in global events and trends. About the Speaker: Martin W. Lewis came to Stanford in Fall 2002 from Duke University, where he co-directed the Program in Comparative Area Studies. His first book examined the interactions of economic development, environmental degradation, and cultural change on the Philippine island of Luzon. His other publications include The Myth of Continents (1997), coauthored with Karen Wigen. He received his PhD in geography from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987.

America has called for a multilateral solution to the recent crisis on the Korean Peninsula. As a result, Russia, China and Japan have been asked to play a more active role in contributing to a peaceful resolution. Drawing on years of experience in this region, Ambassador Armacost gives us his insights into this volatile area, including prospects for change. Most recently (1995-2002), Armacost served as president of Washington D.C.'s Brookings Institution, the nation's oldest think tank and a leader in research on politics, government, international affairs, economics, and public policy. Previously, during his twenty-four year government career, Armacost served, among other positions, as undersecretary of state for political affairs and as ambassador to Japan and the Philippines. Registration: 7:30 pm Program: 8:00 pm Students with ID - Free Members of the World Affairs Council - $5 Nonmembers - $8

Nearly 200 died in the bombing of Paddy's Irish Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia, on 12 October -- the worst toll from terror anywhere since 11 September 2001. In the Philippines, terrorists have struck five times in the last month alone. Also in September, suspected terrorist Omar al-Faruq apparently told his CIA interrogators that US $74,000 had been transferred from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to fund a planned attack on U.S. Navy ships docked in Indonesia. Cutting off terrorist financing has been and remains a priority in the American war on terror. What exactly is the nature of the problem of terrorist financing in Southeast Asia? How should the United States, other governments, and international agencies respond to this challenge? What strategies and tactics are most and least likely to succeed? What are the obstacles to that success, and how can these too be addressed? What has been and will be the role of the U.S. Pacific Command in seeking and implementing the answers to these questions? Leif Rosenberger has been the economic adviser to the commander of American forces in the Pacific since 1998. As chair of the Pacific Command's Economics and Security Working Group, he works at the intersection of economic and security issues related to the war on terrorism in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to coming to Camp Smith, where the Command is headquartered, Dr. Rosenberger was a professor of economics at the U.S. Army War College, where he held the General Douglas MacArthur Academic Chair of Research.

Press reports of rising anti-Americanism and Muslim militance in several Southeast Asian countries have fueled speculation that the United States may be planning to intervene against terrorist groups in that part of the world. How credible are these reports? In Indonesia, which has more Muslim citizens than any country with the possible exception of India, Islamist activists have demanded the severing of U.S.-Indonesian relations and threatened to expel Americans. There has been speculation that American advisers may soon arrive in the southern Philippines to help Manila root out ostensibly Islamist rebels operating there. While criticizing the bombing of Afghanistan, Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad has accused his Muslim opposition of links to Islamist subversion. Meanwhile, Malaysian jihadist elements are alleged to have been in touch with Osama bin Laden's network. How real are these perceived dangers? What do they imply for stability and democracy in Southeast Asia, and for the future of America's global coalition against terror? Bambang Harymurti has long been associated with Tempo, the leading newsweekly in Indonesia. He served on its editorial board from 1987. When the magazine was banned in 1994, he moved to the daily newspaper Media Indonesia. He returned to Tempo following its reappearance in printed form in 1998. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the East-West Center, among other institutions. He was also a finalist in Indonesia's astronaut program. Fortunately for journalism, he did not make the cut. Don Emmerson convenes the Southeast Asia Forum in the Asia/Pacific Research Center, a unit of Stanford's Institute for International Studies.