Efforts to block SE Asian rights meeting backfire

Efforts to block SE Asian rights meeting backfire

BANGKOK (Reuter): Thailand's attempts to block a Southeast Asian human rights conference coinciding with this week's ASEAN ministerial meeting have backfired, drawing even greater attention to rights problems in the region.

Despite Thailand's efforts to keep human rights issues from interfering with the July 22-28 meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it was virtually inevitable rights questions would be raised by ASEAN members or dialog partners, diplomats said yesterday.

Thai human rights groups told a crowded news conference on Monday that they will proceed with the conference later this week despite government attempts to stop foreign guests from attending.

The Southeast Asian Human Rights Network will hold the meeting between July 20 and 25.

Among the guests and observers joining the ASEAN meeting is Myanmar, widely regarded by international human rights groups as Southeast Asia's worst rights violator.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The controversy over the rights meeting, now hitting the front pages of Thailand's newspapers, is virtually a repeat of an episode in the Philippines in May when the government there, bowing to pressure from Indonesia, prevented foreigners attending a meeting on East Timor.

"It's unfortunate that they didn't learn the lesson from the Philippines, that by trying to block the conference they've given it much more publicity than it would have had in the first place," one political analyst said on Tuesday.

The government announced last week that foreigners planning to attend the rights conference should have applied for work permits 30 days in advance.

Authorities refused to confirm earlier newspaper reports that 11 East Timorese activists had been blacklisted to prevent them from coming to Thailand for the meeting.

Officials have said that the presence of the East Timorese activists would be an embarrassment to Thailand and a violation of the ASEAN spirit of not allowing one member to be used as a platform to criticize another.

"ASEAN has unanimously resolved not to intervene in the East Timor issue. Thailand has acted in line with the ASEAN resolution. We will not allow them to use our country to attack our neighboring countries," Foreign Minister Prasong Soonsiri told reporters on Monday.

Thai law

"If foreigners (hoping to attend the rights conference) do not apply for permission police can arrest them because they are violating Thai law," he said.

It was almost inevitable that the human rights issue would be raised in talks among ASEAN members or at the very least in discussion with its dialogue partners -- the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, diplomats said.

"I expect that within the context of the agenda items the question of human rights will come up," one Western diplomat said.

"They're going to talk about regional issues and included in that will be Burma... And how can you talk about Burma (Myanmar) without discussing human rights?" he asked.

An Asian diplomat said: "The Thais are nervous about anything controversial but I wonder how the discussions could not touch on the human rights issue."

The Thai authorities' blunt reaction to the rights meeting was a disturbing development but also a valuable insight, the political analyst said.

"It shows that when it comes to the crunch bilateral relations are more important than human rights and democracy," he said.