Asean human rights mean no foreign interference

But a senior official at the Asean summit here said Wednesday the new body was a genuine effort to promote and protect the basic rights of the group's citizens. It was not a "shield to foreign meddling".

Asean signed its first charter on Tuesday. It decided to establish a body to "promote and protect" rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Asean foreign ministers' meeting commissioned a task force to write the body's terms of reference. These are expected to be completed within a year at about the time the charter comes into force after ratification.

However, a confidential report leaked to the news media yesterday suggested the body should not intervene in domestic politics, such as the current situation in Burma.

"Its recommendations confirm the humanrights agency will be a toothless body with no power to rein in blatant violators such as Burma," a story carried by the Associated Press said.

The leaked report reveals the extent to which Asean is reluctant to hold any of its members accountable, or to shame them for outright human rights violations - such as the Burmese junta's crackdown on street protests in September that killed at least 15, it added.

The rights body should draft a "longterm roadmap" for the promotion of human rights, according to the leaked report.

Such a body should also have "respect for national independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all Asean member states".

The task force recommended the rights body uphold Asean's bedrock policy prohibiting member countries from interfering in one another's domestic affairs - an edict Burma has often invoked to parry criticism.

The report adds the rights body should oppose attempts by foreign countries to interfere in any Southeast Asian country's humanrights problems.

Thailand's Foreign Ministry deputy permanent secretary Pradap Pibulsonggram, who led the Thai team on the highlevel task force that drafted the charter, dismissed the report.

He said the body's real intention was to protect and promote basic rights. "The charter addresses clearly in article 14 that the body must promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms," Pradap said.

He said Burma did not object to the language used in the charter or the terms of reference for the rights group.

"We will protect human rights in accordance with our Asian values; nobody can use any other values to judge us," Pradap said.

Asean countries, as members of the United Nations, will guarantee human rights to a standard not less than that of the UN, he said.

Supalak G. Khundee

The Nation