Rights Groups Call on Asean to Focus on Human Rights

By THE IRRAWADDY

International human rights advocacy groups have called on leaders attending the 14th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Thailand to put human rights issues, including widespread abuses in Burma, at the top of their agenda.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the regional grouping to improve treatment of refugees and asylum seekers and strengthen protection for migrants through its new Asean human rights body, which is to be discussed at the summit taking place from February 27 to March 1 in Hua Hin, Thailand.

Burma was singled out as an area of special concern to rights groups, who accuse the country’s ruling military regime of committing some of the most egregious abuses in the region.

“One of the challenges facing a future Asean human rights body is the dire human rights situation in Myanmar [Burma],” said Donna Guest, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Deputy Director. “Violations in this Asean member state have been going on for decades, and include crimes against humanity. To be worthy of its name, the body must be empowered to effectively address human rights in Myanmar.”

Human Rights Watch pointed to the Thai navy’s alleged mistreatment of ethnic Rohingya boat people from Burma as proof of the need for regional solutions to Southeast Asia’s human rights problems.

Despite the attention this incident has received, however, the Rohingya issue, which was expected to be on the agenda during formal talks, will now be discussed only during informal bilateral meetings, according to Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.

Discussions about the global financial crisis and its economic fallout in the region are likely to dominate the summit. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the summit would provide a forum to “discuss ways and means to mitigate the effects of the financial and economic crisis on the Asean community.”

In December, Asean signed a landmark charter which includes a commitment to human rights and humanitarian principles. The document made Asean a legal entity and moves it a step closer toward the goal of establishing a single market by 2015 and creating a European Union-like community.

Rights groups say they fear the global economic downturn will provide Asean with an excuse for putting sensitive rights issues on the back burner, at a time when the need to address these issues is more urgent than ever.

“Many migrants are deceived about their working conditions, cheated out of their wages, abused by their employers, and deported without access to redress,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The economic downturn places migrants at heightened risk—desperation and gaps in legal protections provide a recipe for exploitation.”

Millions of men and women from Southeast Asia work as migrants in both Asia and the Middle East, typically in domestic work, construction, manufacturing and agriculture. Trafficking within, and emanating from, Southeast Asia remains a serious problem, and harsh immigration enforcement measures have fueled additional abuses in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.

The recent crisis of the Rohingya boat people—Muslims from western Burma and Bangladesh—illustrates the regional dimension of human rights problems.

The Burmese junta rejects the claims of the Rohingya, who live in Arakan State in western Burma, that they are one of the country’s many ethnic groups. Bangladesh similarly denies them citizenship.

Their lack of any clear nationality makes the Rohingya particularly susceptible to exploitation by international human traffickers. Thailand’s House Committee on Security recently blamed the massive influx of Rohingya boat people into Thailand and other countries in the region on human smuggling rings.

However, rights groups were quick to reject any suggestion that governments were absolved of responsibility for the plight of the Rohingya.

“Both Malaysia and Thailand have failed to investigate allegations of collusion between government officials and trafficking gangs,” Pearson wrote in an open-letter to the Asean secretary-general.