American scholar defends NGOs' rights roles

JAKARTA (JP): An American academic exalted yesterday the role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and defended the right to criticize governments which violated human rights.

Theodore S. Orlin, a professor of political science and criminal justice at Syracuse University, New York, said NGOs were important for the protection and promotion of rights, as a public means of ensuring that governments observed civil and political rights.

"This is not anti-state, this is pro-state," Orlin said of the activities of rights groups, adding that a true patriot was someone who insisted that the state obey the law just like an ordinary citizen.

Apart from being co-director of the Human Rights Advocacy Project at Utica College, Syracuse, Orlin has worked extensively counseling NGOs in Eastern European countries, such as Rumania and Albania.

In 1993, he worked as an advisor to Cameroon's Commission on Human Rights.

Orlin is currently on a tour of several Asian countries to gather information and share experiences regarding the role of NGOs.

Speaking here at the United States Commercial and Information Center yesterday, Orlin said that the number of NGOs in a country was "a test of the diversity, plurality of any system."

There are between 7,000 and 8,000 NGOs in Indonesia, concerned with a wide range of issues. This compares with an estimated 1.14 million NGOs in the U.S.

Orlin said the current number of Indonesian NGOs represented only the beginning.

The government has, in the past, been antagonistic to the existence of several NGOs, often suspending or prohibiting their meetings.

At a gathering of Indonesian ambassadors here last year, Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said that the activities of many NGO were inconsistent with the achievement of an integrated society and a unified nation.

Soesilo argued that, because of their dependence on foreign sponsorship, NGOs were inclined to forsake the concerns of a harmonious state.

Recently, however, the government has seemed to indicate a shift in attitude, with Jakarta military commander Maj. Gen Wiranto describing NGOs as good partners of the government, rather than "trouble-makers".

Orlin said yesterday that it was up to the NGOs to make respect for human rights a reality.

He said governments which signed international rights treaties, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter, were legally committed to adhering to human rights principles.

Indonesia is a signatory to both treaties.

Orlin said that if a state violated its commitments under international rights treaties, NGOs had a right to remind them of the fact.

"What good is a state that doesn't live up to its contracts?" he asked, adding that "you can't have democracy without human rights."

In their efforts to uphold human rights, Orlin said NGOs should use the international rights treaties to cajole governments into respecting human rights.

"The more treaties, the easier the job is for human rights groups and human rights commissions," he said.

With the world's increasingly sophisticated communications network, he said, it was becoming increasingly difficult for governments to conceal their neglect of human rights.

The advent of facsimile machines and computer communication networks, originally developed for business purposes, made it easy for people to draw global attention to domestic issues, he said.

"If you're going to do business, people are going to know about your civil society," he remarked.

Regarding the soon-to-be-announced UN decade of human rights education, Orlin said it was the public, through the various NGOs, who would be in the forefront of the campaign.

If a democracy is going to exist, the public must be aware of their rights," he said. (mds)