Asean rights body better than nothing

PHUKET: Southeast Asia’s first rights body panders to abusers like Myanmar and is virtually powerless, but remains a “historic” step in the right direction, analysts and activists said.

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) defended the proposed rights commission against criticisms that it would be toothless as they endorsed final terms for the watchdog on Monday.

The group’s democratic members led by Indonesia had pressed for a body with more power, while countries with poor rights records, including military-ruled Myanmar and communist Laos and Vietnam, have tried to water it down.

“There’s probably a lot of people who are skeptical of the whole process,” David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch told Agence France-Presse.

“But the point is—it’s been a long time coming and Asean is pretty weak on a lot of issues, and they have got to start somewhere. It’s a first step and it’s an imperfect first step.”

Rights commission

The long-awaited commission, to be formally launched at an Asean leaders’ summit in October, is designed to address criticisms throughout the bloc’s 42-year history that it is soft on human rights.

Yet its terms of reference show that it will focus on the promotion of rights rather than protection, with the body having no power to punish members that violate their obligations.

It also follows Asean’s underlying—and controversial—principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, which has been used by some members to fend off criticism about alleged rights abuses.

Activist Debbie Stothard of the Alternative Asean Network on Burma said civil society groups had lobbied the bloc’s top levels to “make sure the human rights commission actually has teeth”—but to little avail.

“It’s pretty clear that the human rights body is being developed to fit the lowest common denominator, to fit the comfort level of the most repressive regimes in Asean, such as the Burmese junta,” Stothard said.

Stothard said the watchdog is “supposed to set the standards and aspire to them” rather than accommodate “people who don’t even like human rights.”

Notorious abuser

Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma, is the most notorious rights abuser in the region, with more than 2,000 political prisoners in detention, including Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The ruling junta sparked international outrage in May when it put Aung San Suu Kyi on trial for an incident in which an American man swam to her house, and then refused to allow visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to see her this month.

Vietnam has meanwhile faced criticism from the United States and European Union over a series of recent arrests including that of a prominent human rights lawyer for “propaganda” against the state.

Laos has faced criticism for the alleged persecution of members of the ethnic minority Hmong community, while Cambodia’s rulers have faced calls to end a spate of legal action against critics.

Even democratic Thailand and Indonesia have come under fire from rights groups for alleged abuses by their security forces in recent months.

But while Mathieson warned that the new Asean body faced a “lot of work” in the region, he added: “Overall the fact that they are even thinking about it is the first step and that’s to be welcomed.”

He said it was up to all Asean countries and civil society groups to “turn the whole mechanism into something useful.”

“I think it’s a very good step to set up a permanent [rights] organization,” said Ukrist Pathmanand, an associate professor in political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

“It’s a historic step for human rights in this region,” he said. “I think whether we criticize it or not depends on what is next for the role of this organization.”  –Rachel O’brien, Agence France-Presse