[Tlc] TLC-ASEAN human rights

[justinm at ucr.edu]

2007-0730 - AP - ASEAN to set up human rights commission

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070730/ap_on_re_as/asean_070730074743

Yahoo! News

ASEAN to set up human rights commission

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer 30 minutes ago

Southeast Asian foreign ministers agreed Monday to set up a
regional human rights commission, overcoming fierce resistance
from military-ruled Myanmar.

A charter being drafted for the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations will include a provision mandating the
creation of the human rights body, officials said.

"We have agreed that there will be a human rights body,"
Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said after the ministers
met for four hours to discuss the draft. "There was a consensus."

Yeo said details will be settled later but that the foreign
ministers hoped to have everything worked out by the time that
ASEAN leaders hold their annual summit in November, when they
plan to approve the charter.

"I'm very optimistic," Yeo said.

Asked about Myanmar's resistance and reaction to the
agreement, he said: "I think Myanmar takes a positive attitude
toward all these developments."

Myanmar is widely accused of human rights violations and
continues to hold Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
under house arrest.

Details of the agreement were not immediately available.
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam had suggested earlier that they
were not ready for the immediate establishment of such a body,
and ASEAN members might be allowed to join the commission at a
later date.

Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam — ASEAN's most recent
members — all have authoritarian or single-party governments.

The Philippines had pressed strongly for an ASEAN rights body,
with Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo saying it
would give the bloc "more credibility in the international
community."

"I would say most of the ASEAN countries were in favor of this
from the very beginning. We had to agree on this, we had to
get a consensus. Now we have the consensus," he said.

Some ASEAN countries fear any scrutiny of their human rights,
and the group has traditionally held to a cardinal policy of
noninterference in each other's affairs. Human rights groups
complain that this noninterference principle fostered
undemocratic governments in the region.

>From Cold War-era protagonists, ASEAN's members have evolved
into a solid bloc that is now negotiating free trade accords
with wealthier neighbors and spearheading Asia's largest
security forum, she said.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu