EU, ASEAN end meeting skirting rights issue

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign Ministers from the European Union (EU) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) ended their two-day meetings in Karlsruhe, Germany, on Saturday by adopting a declaration which scarcely touched on the issue of human rights.

In a 35-chapter declaration, the human rights issue was alluded to in general terms with reference to the United Nations charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

"Not just Indonesia, but all the ASEAN countries feel satisfied that the meetings have produced a rather substantive declaration," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas at the close of yesterday's meeting in Karlsruhe, according to a report by the Antara news agency.

ASEAN is made up of Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, while the EU includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Holland, and Portugal.

Despite being dominated by the controversial hanging of a Dutchmen in Singapore under charges of heroin smuggling, the bi- annual meetings between the two regional groupings were relatively free of the customary debates on human rights.

The end of the conference was a far cry from its opening on Friday when on the same day Dutchman Johannes van Damme was hanged in Singapore after being found guilty in 1992 of smuggling heroin.

Singapore mandates capital punishment for such offenses and has executed 76 people in the last two decades. Though half were foreigners, van Damme is the first European to have been executed.

The execution itself nearly jeopardized the conference, threatening to turn the discussions into a debate on human rights and values.

The situation was worsened with the absence of Dutch foreign minister Hans van Mierlo at the opening on Friday.

Improvement

Nevertheless, the release of the declaration on Saturday signifies a marked improvement in common understanding between the EU and ASEAN.

As reported by Antara even the perennial issue of East Timor was not brought up during the meetings.

In a joint press conference at the end of the conference on Saturday, German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel said that the participating countries agreed not to raise the issue of East Timor.

He said the participants viewed East Timor as an issue to be dealt with by Indonesia and Portugal. Kinkel added that he was not going to bring up the issue in the UN General Assembly which got underway in New York last week.

This is a major development given that Portugal in the past had insisted to raise the East Timor issue during the annual meetings between the foreign ministers of the European Union and ASEAN.

Alatas and his Portuguese counterpart are scheduled to hold another round of talks on East Timor at the United Nations next January. (mds)