ASEAN moves slowly on rights mechanism

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has failed yet again to keep its oft-repeated promises to establish a mechanism for the promotion of human rights in the region.

ASEAN senior officials yesterday concluded their three-day gathering without achieving any significant development or concrete steps for the promised mechanism, but only referred to it as an item for further deliberation.

Some officials were even "reminded" of their past commitment on the issue by foreign policy experts who briefed the meeting earlier on Wednesday.

The chair of the senior officials meeting, Indonesia's Izhar Ibrahim, said yesterday that officials have decided to continue deliberations on the matter in the future.

The senior officials meeting began here on Tuesday as a run-up to the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting scheduled for July in Jakarta.

"When I brought up the issue of human rights promotion yesterday, many had forgotten," said Izhar, who is the Foreign Ministry's director general for political affairs.

One of the most important elements in ASEAN's commitment to a human rights mechanism is the establishment of a human rights commission in all of the ASEAN states.

However, out of the seven ASEAN members only Indonesia and the Philippines have such a commission.

"So, our decision was to agree to continue discussions on the subject in future senior officials' meetings," Izhar said.

He added that such a matter needed further consultation because many members states were not yet ready to act.

While not a central issue among the ASEAN senior officials, the question of human rights is expected to crop-up during the start of today's meeting between member states of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), particularly with regard to Myanmar's application for membership.

The ARF is a multilateral political-security consultative forum which comprises several regional and non-regional states including Australia, Canada, the United States and the European Union.

Izhar yesterday acknowledged that there were concerns about the human rights issue. "I can't say that there weren't. There have been comments," he said.

He maintained, nevertheless, that political-security affairs are the main focus of the ARF and thus membership should be based on that.

"We have to be reasonable, human rights doesn't have a direct link with regional security," he maintained. (mds)