16 Nov 2007William Boot
World Politics Review
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Refugees from the horrors of Burma face legal limbo and police harassment inside Thailand. Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia complain of mistreatment amid police attempts to lock them in their workplaces at night. The Hmong minority in Laos are hunted like animals by their country's repressive communist regime. In "sophisticated" Singapore it's illegal to congregate and raise a voice of protest in public.
Against this depraved everyday background, the Association of Southeast Nations is about to create some form of human rights agency as part of its dream to become the European Union of Asia.
Fat chance, say the 10-country organization's critics, while it tolerates such goings-on, and procrastinates about "brother" Burma's internationally condemned military regime.
Pushing Ahead Despite Events in Burma
There was a moment toward the end of October when ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong thought the recent repressive events in Burma might prevent the signing of the organization's human rights charter later this month, he admitted.
The leadership of the disparate group of countries with a combined population of more than 500 million was briefly numbed by the open brutality of the Burmese military in quashing peaceful street demonstrations calling for economic and political reform.
ASEAN includes Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and tiny oil sultanate Brunei.
But if ASEAN has achieved few concrete results during its 40-year life, it has become expert at compromise and pragmatism, say its critics.
ASEAN national leaders will now go ahead as planned and assemble in Singapore later this month to sign a charter that they say will set the organization on the road to creating a European Union-like open community by 2015.
But there has been no consultation with grassroots communities in the 10 countries. Few outsiders have any idea what is in the charter, and virtually no details are available on the objectives of the human rights body being formed.
"Civil society groups are very unhappy with the charter process," an international human rights organization campaigning for change in Burma told World Politics Review.
"The situation is a scandal in the eyes of the ASEAN human rights community," said Debbie Stothard, Coordinator for the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, a grouping of human rights NGOs based in Bangkok.
"We understand that many ASEAN governments want to water down the human rights 'body' into a consultative one and deny any mandate to investigate problems or incidents.
"It was originally proposed that there would be an ASEAN Human Rights Commission but this was quickly altered."
A Test Case: Migrant Workers' Rights
Perhaps a test of ASEAN resolve is the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, signed by the 10 countries last January and much-trumpeted at the time.
That declaration, sponsored by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo -- now beleaguered by allegations of corruption in her government -- says ASEAN countries "shall strengthen the political, economic and social pillars of the ASEAN community by promoting the full potential and dignity of migrant workers in a climate of freedom, equity and stability in accordance with the laws, regulations and policies of respective ASEAN member countries."
Critics say the declaration is hot air because it has no legal status and does not commit member states to amend their national labor laws to comply.
ASEAN, which first raised the concept of a community-wide human rights standard in 1993, says the process is a first step to stronger commitments in the future.
One of ASEAN's biggest recipients of migrant labor, Malaysia -- with 1.9 million registered foreign workers -- has been accused by NGOs of trampling on basic rights.
Limited-contract foreign workers in Malaysia -- mostly from Indonesia but also Burma -- are often accused by Malaysians of being responsible for much of the country's crime.
The Kuala Lumpur government now requires all registered foreign workers to carry biometric ID cards.
Attempts by the Malaysian Inspector-General of Police earlier this year to severely restrict the movement of migrant workers outside their workplaces have been suspended -- though not categorically discounted by the government.
The bad word on working in Malaysia has spread so far round Southeast Asia that Indonesians are shying away, forcing employers to hire from South Asian countries instead.
Much Talk, Little Action
Singapore Institute of International Affairs chairman Simon Tay, who monitors ASEAN affairs, says the organization's human rights ideas might yet founder because, other than a form of words, there is no plan of action.
"It is likely that habits of consultation will continue, and states remain cautious about clashing over matters solely within another's sovereign territory," Tay recently wrote in a report on ASEAN charter plans.
"To be a community, mutual understanding needs to be fostered, including on the rights of individuals -- not just between governments, but also the peoples of the region.
"While there are universal norms of human rights, differences in the levels of economic development, religion and other characteristics can make understanding and practices vary from one society to another," said Tay.
"Without a similar commitment to a political union [on the EU model] in the immediate future, ASEAN cannot realistically emulate Europe.
"It would be like comparing apples to durians [a popular pungent East Asian fruit]," Tay said.
In Thailand, the status of many tens of thousands of Burmese is blurred, with some working -- legally or illegally -- and many others confined in border refugee camps.
Burma's reviled leader, General Than Shwe, and Thailand interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will be signatories to the ASEAN charter and human rights clause in Singapore on Nov. 20.
And Thailand is the only country of the 10 members whose parliament or national assembly -- ironically an unelected one installed by the military coup of 14 months ago -- has even debated the ASEAN charter ahead of its signing.
But a baby born to Burmese refugee parents in Thailand is stateless, says the aid agency Refugees International, based in Washington, D.C.
"When the child of a Burmese asylum seeker or migrant worker is born in a Thai hospital, the birth record is removed," said Maureen Lynch, an expert on statelessness, in a report for Refugees International.
"Minority families who flee arbitrary arrest, forced labor, rape, and killing by the Burmese military arrive at the border of Thailand with hopes of leading a life free of human rights abuse. Thailand's narrow definition of who qualifies to be considered a refugee prevents many who have fled Burma from obtaining recognition and assistance as refugees," said Lynch.
"Because Thai law does not recognize the children of Burmese as citizens or legal residents, they are greatly at risk of hazardous or exploitive labor conditions, sexual and other abuse and denial of education, health care, and the right to a nationality."
Thai police are known to be sending small groups of Burmese back across the border to uncertain fates.
The dispossessed of Thailand include minority tribes who inhabit some of the country's northern mountain regions. A long time ago they sneaked over the border -- from Burma, China or perhaps the other side of the moon -- when no one was looking, goes the nationalistic argument.
"Reluctance to establish a mechanism to resolve regional human rights issues, especially those that have a cross-border impact, such as Burma, will only worsen and deepen the problem," said Stothard.
"[The charter] certainly makes ASEAN look like a bigger hypocrite. It will not improve human rights in the region; in fact it will create more problems. ASEAN will be sending out the message 'go ahead and abuse human rights because we are not really going to do much about it.'"
ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong gave a speech in Singapore on Nov. 6 about the economic opportunities for the organization. He also laid out its three critical challenges.
"These three challenges of modernization, competition and absence of an adequate legal regime need to be addressed in order to advance regional integration in East Asia," Ong said.
"It is clear that in doing so governments should closely interact with the relevant stakeholders, i.e. the private sector, civil society and academia."
Analysts say Ong's comments sadly illustrate the enormous gulf between the dreaming bureaucrats of the ASEAN secretariat based in the Indonesian capital Jakarta -- a kind of European Commission without teeth -- and the harsh realities of life in a Burmese refugee camp on the Thai border, or in a Hmong mountain village-on-the-run in Laos.
It is unlikely that such groups' plights will be mentioned during the five-day drum-banging jamboree of ASEAN leaders in Singapore Nov. 18-22.
William Boot is a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
