APA takes human rights, democracy as its agenda

Rita A. Widiadana and Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Sanur, Bali

The second ASEAN People's Assembly (APA) ended here on Sunday, coming up with recommendations on five key issues: human rights and democracy, gender, HIV/AIDS and global media.

Assembly organizing committee chairman Hadi Susastro said the recommendations would be submitted to the upcoming ASEAN Summit in November for consideration.

On human rights and democracy, according to Carolina Hernandez of the Philippines, the ASEAN principle of nonintervention has prevented the organization from taking up sensitive issues such as the deportation by Malaysia of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Malaysian activist Debbie Stothard questioned how ASEAN could so easily "criticize the conditions in other countries while it lets members treat their own people this way," she said.

Malaysia's crackdown against hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants has drawn criticism from Indonesia and the Philippines.

No less than 64 illegal Indonesian workers have died from illness in refugee camps in Nunukan, East Kalimantan, after they fled Malaysia.

Meanwhile, reports said no less than 16 Filipinos had died, half of them in Malaysia, some on board the vessels taking them home to the Philippines.

On a less politically sensitive issue, ASEAN has also failed to address the problem of HIV/AIDS, which has been spreading quite rapidly in some parts of the region.

The latest figure for HIV carriers in the Asia Pacific region stands currently at 7 million people.

But still the approach taken by ASEAN and its members has largely focused on the health aspects, while the Assembly is of the view that HIV/AIDS has become a "human security" problem -- affecting families, communities, food security and the economy.

Regarding the media, recommendations have come up for a regional press council as a self-regulating mechanism to bring an end to the intervention of "thin-skinned governments", such as Singapore's, when such governments are offended, particularly by the foreign media.

"We need to move away from a system in which the government decides when the media has gone too far," Cherian George of Singapore said.

Admitting the difficulty in bringing ASEAN closer to its peoples, Hadi Susastro said that "what's important is to continue this endeavor with the intention of expanding it, to political party members and the grass roots."

Former foreign minister Ali Alatas hailed the Assembly as a new experiment, as many people in Southeast Asian countries did not even know what ASEAN was.

"Ask them what ASEAN is, what its impact is on their lives, and they don't know."

Next year the Assembly is scheduled to be held in Manila. The first Assembly was held in Batam, Indonesia, in 2000.