The Associated Press
Published: February 26, 2009
CHA-AM, Thailand: International human rights groups urged leaders of Southeast Asia gathering for their annual summit Thursday to press military-ruled Myanmar to end its rights abuses.
The United States also blasted Myanmar's junta for having "brutally suppressed dissent" through a campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture.
London-based Amnesty International said the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations "must be empowered to effectively address human rights in Myanmar."
The criticism comes as the 10-member bloc — long slammed as a talk shop that forges agreements by consensus and steers away from confrontation — prepares for a three-day summit at Cha-am, a Thai beach resort. Preliminary meetings began Thursday.
The group's defense ministers, meeting separately at the seaside resort of Pattaya, were met by about 300 anti-government demonstrators aligned with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who are also staging protests in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The protesters, dubbed "red shirts" because of their favored attire, say they want ASEAN leaders to know that the current Thai government came into power last December not through elections but through a court order that dissolved the ruling pro-Thaksin political party.
Although reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma, may be discussed on the sidelines of the conference, ASEAN traditionally shies away from criticism of its members.
"I think we are an ASEAN family — anything of concern we can talk to one another without making demands and questioning, so the possibility of having a discussion is always there," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters when asked about the pressure from human rights groups to focus on the Myanmar issue.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he urged Myanmar's foreign minister, Nyan Win, to fully follow through on pledges of democratic reforms and elections by 2010.
"We wish too that Myanmar is actively engaging with the international community," he said.
He said Nyan Win noted that Myanmar had recently released a handful of political prisoners. "We encouraged him to do more," the Indonesian minister said.
The delegates are expected to devote most of their time to grappling with how the region can best cope with the global economic crisis.
Thailand, which currently holds ASEAN's rotating chairmanship and is hosting the summit, bills the meeting as a turning point for the bloc.
It is the first time leaders will meet since the group signed a landmark charter in December. The document made ASEAN a legal entity and moves it a step closer toward the goal of establishing a single market by 2015 and becoming a European Union-like community.
The charter includes several provisions addressing human rights, including one that calls for the establishment of a human rights body.
New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a letter to ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, urged the summit to address "the dire human rights situation in Burma" and also improve treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the region.
Thailand has come in for international criticism for its treatment of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Hundreds of the Muslim asylum seekers went missing, feared drowned, as the Thai military forcibly expelled approximately 1,000 who had arrived in southwest Thailand.
The plight of the stateless Rohingya boat people who have recently also washed up on the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia will be another issue discussed on the sidelines but not as part of the summit's formal agenda.
ASEAN's 10 members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In its annual report on the state of human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department on Wednesday criticized Myanmar's junta for a range of abuses including the holding of more than 2,100 political prisoners, the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and a brutal military campaign against ethnic minority groups.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/26/asia/AS-ASEAN-Summit.php
Published: February 26, 2009
CHA-AM, Thailand: International human rights groups urged leaders of Southeast Asia gathering for their annual summit Thursday to press military-ruled Myanmar to end its rights abuses.
The United States also blasted Myanmar's junta for having "brutally suppressed dissent" through a campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture.
London-based Amnesty International said the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations "must be empowered to effectively address human rights in Myanmar."
The criticism comes as the 10-member bloc — long slammed as a talk shop that forges agreements by consensus and steers away from confrontation — prepares for a three-day summit at Cha-am, a Thai beach resort. Preliminary meetings began Thursday.
The group's defense ministers, meeting separately at the seaside resort of Pattaya, were met by about 300 anti-government demonstrators aligned with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who are also staging protests in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The protesters, dubbed "red shirts" because of their favored attire, say they want ASEAN leaders to know that the current Thai government came into power last December not through elections but through a court order that dissolved the ruling pro-Thaksin political party.
Although reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma, may be discussed on the sidelines of the conference, ASEAN traditionally shies away from criticism of its members.
"I think we are an ASEAN family — anything of concern we can talk to one another without making demands and questioning, so the possibility of having a discussion is always there," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters when asked about the pressure from human rights groups to focus on the Myanmar issue.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he urged Myanmar's foreign minister, Nyan Win, to fully follow through on pledges of democratic reforms and elections by 2010.
"We wish too that Myanmar is actively engaging with the international community," he said.
He said Nyan Win noted that Myanmar had recently released a handful of political prisoners. "We encouraged him to do more," the Indonesian minister said.
The delegates are expected to devote most of their time to grappling with how the region can best cope with the global economic crisis.
Thailand, which currently holds ASEAN's rotating chairmanship and is hosting the summit, bills the meeting as a turning point for the bloc.
It is the first time leaders will meet since the group signed a landmark charter in December. The document made ASEAN a legal entity and moves it a step closer toward the goal of establishing a single market by 2015 and becoming a European Union-like community.
The charter includes several provisions addressing human rights, including one that calls for the establishment of a human rights body.
New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a letter to ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, urged the summit to address "the dire human rights situation in Burma" and also improve treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the region.
Thailand has come in for international criticism for its treatment of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Hundreds of the Muslim asylum seekers went missing, feared drowned, as the Thai military forcibly expelled approximately 1,000 who had arrived in southwest Thailand.
The plight of the stateless Rohingya boat people who have recently also washed up on the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia will be another issue discussed on the sidelines but not as part of the summit's formal agenda.
ASEAN's 10 members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In its annual report on the state of human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department on Wednesday criticized Myanmar's junta for a range of abuses including the holding of more than 2,100 political prisoners, the continued detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and a brutal military campaign against ethnic minority groups.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/26/asia/AS-ASEAN-Summit.php
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