[asia-apec 193] ramos-horta news from phil-seti

[kakammpi]

"WRONG MISTAKE" by Conrado de Quiros, Columnist, Phil. Daily Inquirer, 25
October 1996, p.8, editorial and opinion page.

Well, there's no sign of Fidel Ramos relenting and letting Jose Ramos-Horta
--his "distant cousin" as Ramos-Horta playfully puts it --into the country.
And so what was once touted as the crowning glory of Ramos' administration,
which is Apec, might well turn out to be its albatross. None of those
elaborate preparations could be worth a hoot with the sight of this year's
Nobel Prize winner for peace being gagged with Apec streamers. It's the
small thing that wreck the best laid out plots of mice and presidents.

Though it's hard to see how a human rights issue could be such a small
thing. You grant that the people who invited Ramos-Horta to their conference
wanted only to embarrass Ramos--which takes a lot of granting --and you
still have to ask why the correct response to that would be stopping
Ramos-Horta from coming in. People who are struggling for freedom will
naturally use any forum --bigger the better --to press their cause, and the
people who are supporting them will strive to accommodate them, even at
risk, or with the express intention, of embarrassing their own governments.

That was how it was with us too, during Marcos' time. The American groups
who supported the anti-Marcos struggle in the Philippines did openly invite
anti-Marcos Filipinos to rally against him during his state visit to the US.
No American public official said it would embarrass the US government and
cause a security risk. No American public official said the groups should be
prevented from coming in, or shouting themselves hoarse. Nobody said the
protesters could have their say at another time and another place.

Some things may not wait. Stopping wholesale slaughter may not wait.

Surely, Ramos-Horta will compete for attention against Apec. Well, what of
it? Lest we forget, that is what Apec is all about. It is all about
competition, it is about allowing goods to flow freely into countries, it is
about letting the best things win in the market. Or has Ramos suddenly
forgotten all that talk of globalization and competitiveness? If you can
allow goods to flow freely into countries, why can't you do the same thing
for ideas? If Apec can only lose out in competition with the struggle of the
East Timorese to be free, then it ought to.  That is the law of the market.
That is the message of Apec.

But even more than this, why should Ramos-Horta's message naturally compete
with, or run counter to, the message of Apec? Why shouldn't it naturally
blend with, or even enhance, it? Why should human rights and human striving
be naturally antithetiical to a conference that means to chart the course of
human progress? For that is what many of the world's leaders are flying here
for. They are not flying here just to sign a document about trade, and
finance, and investment. They are flying here to carve out the vision of a
new world. 

What a vision that would be if human rights has no place in it. What a world
that would be if material progress should rise above the bones of the dead.
Of course, Ramos-Horta's message will naturally embarrass Indonesia --as it
should. But is pleasing Indonesia worth incurring the ire of the civilized
world? For Ramos-Horta is this year's Nobel Prize awardee for peace, one of
the highest honors known to civilization. Is pleasing Indonesia worth
painting a bloodstained picture of development? For Ramos-Horta has a right
to cry out against slavery, which is anathema to civilization.
	
Elsewhere  in the world, freedom is the condition of development. Elsewhere
in the word, freedom is the end of development. A development by slaves and
for slaves is not development. It is retrogression.

That's the monkey, the size of King Kong, that will ride on the back of
Apec. The critics of Apec couldn't have said it better. None of their barbs
has been this devastating. By preventing Ramos-Horta from talking about the
struggle of his people, a struggle not unlike the one Corazon Aquino waged
in this country not too long ago, Ramos has said a mouthful about what Apec,
and his concept of development, really are. Or more importantly, what they
are not.

They are not about justice, they are not about dissent, they are not about
people being free to say what kind of development they want. Freedom has no
place in economic progress. Human rights have no place in economic progress.
AT the end  of the day, principle must give way to expedience. Growth must
take precedence over the moral imperative to right wrongs.

It is the national doctrine all over again, gone globally competitive. Or
desperately trying to do so, since it can hardly stand up to the mere
presence of one single solitary individual. Truth is the loudest whisper of
all,  justice is the keenest competitor of all.

But surely we ought to look after ourselves first? Surely we ought to scorn
other people's struggle to be free and embrace first our own struggle to
survive?

Well, the East Timor people's struggle to be free is our own too. Not least
in a literal sense. You agree to a concept of development that serves human
rights and dissent and justice up the altar of material progress, and you
agree to the tribal communities being pushed off the land to make way for
golf courses, you agree to them being murdered when they protest. The East
Timor people's cry to be heard is our own cry to be heard too.  The East
Timor people's cry to stop the murder is our own cry to stop the murder too.

But more than this, the East Timor people's struggle to be free is our own
too in that we belong to the same human community. If that community had not
felt that way toward us when we were struggling to throw off the yoke of
oppression  , we should not be there to host anything. Least of all a
conference that means to bring the world together to share a common vision,
to build a common dream. That is what Apec says it wants to do.

How can Ramos-Horta's cause possibly thwart that?