Disgraced Akbar adds spice to ASEAN parliamentarian meet
Disgraced Akbar adds spice to ASEAN parliamentarian meet
Ben Rowse, Agence France-Presse, Hanoi
Disgraced Indonesian parliament speaker Akbar Tandjung will be
among the Southeast Asian politicians who will gather on Monday
in the Vietnamese capital for talks on human rights, terrorism
and other regional issues.
A delegation from the European Parliament, which arrived in
Hanoi on Saturday in a bid to meet detained religious leaders,
amid concern it has been refused meetings with detained church
leaders, will also attend the 23rd general assembly of the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO),
The visit, led by Germany's Hartmut Nassauer, was prompted by
a resolution passed by the European legislature on July 5 last
year calling for the release of religious prisoners in Vietnam,
which maintains tight control on all spiritual activities.
Hanoi subsequently declared it would show zero tolerance to
any individuals or organizations asking to conduct human rights
investigations in Vietnam.
Other delegates arrived in the capital on Sunday for the
annual event, which was held last year in Bangkok.
AIPO is made up of the eight states with parliaments from the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.
The other two ASEAN members not part of the AIPO grouping,
Brunei and Myanmar, have no legislatures but will attend the
meeting as observers.
A spokesman for Indonesia's Attorney General Office said on
Saturday no travel ban had been imposed on Akbar preventing him
from attending the assembly.
The seasoned and shrewd legislator, who is also chairman of
the former ruling Golkar Party, was sentenced to three years in
prison on Wednesday for misusing some US$4.5 million in state
funds. He remains free pending appeal.
Nguyen Van An, chairman of the National Assembly, Vietnam's
rubber-stamp parliament and about whom murky rumors still linger
about his links to an explosive gangster scandal, will give the
inaugural address on Monday as the current president of AIPO.
Vu Mao, the body's secretary general, told reporters last week
that measures to boost economic, cultural and social cooperation
in the region, including the establishment of an ASEAN
university, were also on the agenda.
"AIPO will support ASEAN government efforts at promoting
economic integration and in other fields by providing a legal
framework to develop the spirit of ASEAN."
Mao, chairman of Vietnam's parliamentary external relations
committee, said the general assembly would also strive to
strengthen the relationship between ASEAN and AIPO, which he
compared to that of a country's executive and its legislature.
"In each of our countries the relationship between these two
branches is very close, however in ASEAN this relationship has
not been as we have hoped for."
Delegates from 10 countries, including Australia, Canada,
China, Japan and the United States, will also attend the meet as
observers.
But, in what is likely to fuel further skepticism over the
usefulness of yet another regional talkshop that operates on a
consensus basis, the wives and spouses of delegates have also
been invited for "sightseeing and shopping".
On Thursday, the day after the formal closing ceremony, the
legislators will travel to Vietnam's UNESCO world heritage site
of Halong Bay to visit its 3,000-plus towering limestone islands
rising from the Gulf of Tonkin.
AIPO was initiated by Indonesia in 1974 and officially
established as an organization in 1977.