EU, ASEAN end meeting skirting rights issue

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)