[asia-apec 1299] the copping out of asean

[Victor C. Sapar]

IID: http://www.skyinet.net/~iiddvo
East Timor: http://www.skyinet.net/~apcet (updated daily)
BIMP-EAGA: http://www.skyinet.net/~iiddvo/mppn
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Note: APCET is encouraging all peace-loving peoples to affix your
signature to this letter before we send copies to the heads of ASEAN
states. Reply with a message indicating that you are endorsing this
letter, including your name and the organization(s) you represent. Send
your reply to apcet at skyinet.net

Send this letter to as many people and ask them to do the same.
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THE COPPING OUT OF ASEAN

If there is anything that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) has been consistent with, it is their conspiratorial silence
over human rights transgressions in the region.

This has again starkly come to the fore in the ongoing turmoil in East
Timor.   At best, the ASEAN states have paid lip service to the
universal call to put a stop to the carnage saying that any effort to do

so by the international community should first have the blessing of
Indonesia.

Not wanting to ruffle the sensibilities of its prima inter pares member,

the ASEAN states have again buried whatever’s left of its credibility
deeper in the ground.  It has squandered a golden opportunity to assert
a moral authority in the region giving pretenders like Australia the
chance to potentially run roughshod over us and eventually gain a
foothold in the area.

It has adamantly stuck to its warped policy of avowed non-interference
of each other’s internal affairs for fear that by doing so runs the risk

of engendering an open season on their own foibles in the human rights
arena.

Now that the United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved
the sending of a peace enforcement force to East Timor, the ASEAN states

are parroting the line of fascists within Jakarta.

They are echoing the call of some quarters in Indonesia – particularly
the military—to bar any perceived non-neutral entity in the
multinational force.

Malaysia has even gone on record to protest the participation of
Australia— who for whatever intentions it may have—is the most willing
and capable to respond immediately to the crisis.   This government,
which has been accused of allegedly poisoning its own former deputy
prime minister—is even not sure whether it will indeed join the
multinational force.

Thailand, the current chair of the ASEAN standing committee, has not
exercised its leadership in galvanizing a more forceful and
comprehensive response of the association to the crisis.  Instead, its
foreign minister paid a solidarity visit to Jakarta while the genocide
was ongoing.

There is nothing to be heard from Singapore and Brunei aside from
concerns to resolve the situation.

And the Philippines—claiming to be the bastion of human rights in the
region – has cited its avowed friendship with Indonesia as the reason
for not trying to “rock the boat”.   It spurned a request to mediate in
the crisis even before the UN Security Council’s decision.  It did not
accommodate a meeting with Jose Ramos-Horta in Auckland.  It was more
concerned of its “friendship” with Jakarta than the plight of its fellow

Catholics and even of its own missionaries in the territory.  It
reprises the position taken by then President Ramos’ who bowed to the
dictates of Gen. Suharto in the wake of the watershed Asia-Pacific
Conference on East Timor in Manila in 1994.    And to think that the
incumbent President’s handlers have taken pains to sculpt his image as a

human rights champion such as in the advocacy of his friend, Anwar
Ibrahim’s rights.

Nothing of course can be expected from the likes of that other pariah
state Burma.  Nor from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia .

What is striking is that there has been no public recognition whatsoever

of the results of the historic ballot of independence by the East
Timorese last August 30 by ASEAN’s individual governments more so as a
collective entity.    Not even a whisper.  The least they could have
done was to use its “fraternal” influence to call on Indonesia to
respect the results.

Shame on ASEAN.

The irony is that the position of ASEAN does not reflect its own
peoples’ aspirations.    From Bangkok to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to
Manila and even Jakarta, peoples’ and sectoral movements,  NGOs, civil
and civic groups, churches, political parties, students, scholars,
professionals , have taken to the streets, to the pulpits, to the
airwaves, to the media, and besieged Indonesian ligations to
unequivocally express support for the  battered people of East Timor.

It is the peoples of ASEAN, and not their governments, who recognize and

are unconditionally and steadfastly accompanying the birth of the new
Timor Lorosae nation.

Perhaps it is time that the peoples in these countries transform, nay,
reclaim ASEAN.

If not, ASEAN should be dumped.