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Rights tops Jakarta's ASEAN agenda
Indonesia will highlight issues of human rights, climate change, disasters and the global economy, at the 15th ASEAN Summit in Thailand this weekend, amid pressing concerns over Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and the Copenhagen climate talks
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ndonesia will highlight issues of human rights, climate change, disasters and the global economy, at the 15th ASEAN Summit in Thailand this weekend, amid pressing concerns over Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and the Copenhagen climate talks.
In its efforts to push forwards with democratic reforms, Jakarta would voice concerns over the extension of the house arrest of Suu Kyi at a meeting with Myanmar, Foreign Ministry's ASEAN Affairs Director General Djauhari Oratmangun said.
"Concerns about Suu Kyi will remain one of the main topics of discussion at the meeting, as Indonesia has remained firm in promoting rights enforcement and democratic reforms in Myanmar," Djauhari said.
Despite Indonesia being consistently critical of Myanmar's poor human rights record, it has not supported sanctions against Yangon as imposed by the West. The Indonesian government had said that imposing sanctions would not help to pressure on the Myanmar junta, and could have an adverse impact on its people, whose economy has already been hurt by the global crisis. Myanmar has imprisoned more than 2,000 political activists.
The ASEAN Summit will commence on Oct. 23 and close with the ASEAN+3 Summit and East Asian Summit on Oct. 25.
The 42-year-old ASEAN grouping will soon establish its own human rights commission, but at this stage this will not have the power to punish perpetrators of human-rights abuses.
Responding to critics saying Indonesia had watered down its commitment to rights enforcement in Asean, Djauhari said Jakarta expected within the next five years to see the commission having the power to protect human rights.
The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, to be launched during the weekend summit, has just selected its ten commissioners representing each member state, and Indonesia is represented by activist Rafendi Djamin, who will become the only commissioner from a civil group.
"We envision that the commission will be able to apply international conventions in future," Djauhari said, requesting the public to allow the chosen commissioners to "further discuss the mechanism to be used *in seeking justice*".
Indonesia's delegates would also brief the 10-nation ASEAN grouping on the results of the G20 meeting in Pittsburg, since Indonesia was the only ASEAN member state present at the developing and developed nations meeting. ASEAN chair Thailand was also present at the G20 meeting, but attended as representative of ASEAN.
"We will also discuss climate change, ahead of the Copenhagen meeting this December. Indonesia was the host of the Bali climate talks, back in December 2007, and we want to make sure the Bali talks can lead to significant results at the Copenhagen meeting," Djauhari said. The Copenhagen meeting will determine the future successor of the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire in 2012.
ASEAN member-states would also discuss the possibility of establishing a body similar to Indonesia's Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Body (BRR) for disaster management in the ASEAN region. The BRR was established to cope with the 2004 tsunami in Aceh province.
The ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.
ASEAN+3 comprises of the ten nations, together with Japan, China and South Korea. The East Asian Summit will convene the ASEAN+3 members, together with India, Australia, and New Zealand.
