ASEAN hears human rights appeal
JAKARTA (JP): Human rights activists from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand took their case to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) yesterday in a bid for a regional rights mechanism.
However, the association responded coldly, saying that in order to have a regional commission, body, or mechanism on human rights, each member country of ASEAN must have their own national commissions on human rights first.
"As long as we don't have yet a national commission in other ASEAN countries, it is very difficult to move toward a regional mechanism," Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, chairman of this year's ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, told journalists after the closing of the meeting.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Alatas, accompanied by Brunei Foreign Minister Mohammed Bolkiah and Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Badawi, met yesterday with human rights activists from Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
The rights activists included Aurora Navarrete Recina, chairwoman of the Philippines Human Rights Commission, Suthin, vice chairman of Thai Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Rights, Marzuki Darusman, vice chairman of Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights and other Indonesian rights promoters Asmara Nababan and Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara.
Marzuki noted that what he and his colleagues were seeking was only to push the process for the establishment of a regional mechanism on human rights, which was already mandated by the 1993 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Singapore.
"After three years, not much has been achieved aside from individual governments of ASEAN having their own commissions," Marzuki said, pointing to Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Other ASEAN countries -- Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam -- do not yet have their own rights commissions.
He noted that a regional mechanism on human rights would create an appropriate climate to address the issue of human rights more often and openly.
"That is a very important dimension in shaping out the process for everybody to feel comfortable in talking about human rights openly," Marzuki said.
He noted that such a regional mechanism will enable rights commissions in each ASEAN country to register the concerns of the public or the wide community of ASEAN, and then bring them to the attention of the respective ASEAN governments
The rights activists presented the three foreign ministers a proposed text on the promotion of human rights and ways and means to protect human rights in ASEAN for incorporation into the ASEAN foreign ministers' joint communique. The proposed text, however, was not printed in the communique, issued at the closing of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting yesterday evening.
"It's a good idea but we must take the reality into account. We cannot force the other ASEAN governments into a pace that is, according to us, desirable but is not according to them," Ali said.
"We are a democratic group, we cannot just tell the other countries: please make your national commission fast because of a regional mechanism. We can't. All we can say is, well, we hope you can see a way to at one point make a national commission so that we can make a regional mechanism," he continued.
Responding to Ali's view, Marzuki said that he had no target date in mind on establishing a regional rights mechanism. "If not this year, next year or the year after next year is all right." (pwn/rid)