Democracy in development Perspective let me first express my deep gratitude for being given an opportunity and privilege of addressing his very distinguished forum. As the one with a certain nterest affairs, I should also like to congratulate this particular ASEAN initiative in bringing together leading journalists of the region to engage in a dialogue of common concern, that is to say, freedom of the press and democratic development. One would in- deed hope that it could be to represent a positive step further, if not quite a departure, from conventional and negative concern with a mere security matter. Now that ideological and military rivalries are becoming things of the past with the collapse rethinking is really needed so that we can have a pretty clear idea of our own future. In our topsy-turvy world, so much damage has been done the name of freedom