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.