Posted on 07/29/2007 5:34:38 PM PDT by Valin
MANILA: Southeast Asian diplomats have completed the first draft of a landmark charter for the region, but left out a provision creating a human rights body after a row, a senior official said yesterday. The issue will now be decided at a meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) today in Manila. “We’ve done our part,” said the official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak for the task force that is drafting the charter. “We’re leaving it to our ministers to decide on how to deal with the creation of a human rights mechanism,” he said.
The first draft agreed to maintain the bloc’s traditional way of deciding issues through a consensus and made no mention of sanctions for member states guilty of serious violations of the charter. The three issues have polarised Asean, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia among those pushing for a human rights body and for a departure from Asean’s time-honoured consensus diplomacy. Myanmar, criticised by the West for its poor human rights record, is among those blocking the moves, diplomats have said. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are also not comfortable with the idea, they have said. Asean has been derided by the West for decades because of its reluctance to get involved in the internal affairs of member countries and its insistence on deciding issues only by consensus.
The United States and European Union have particularly blamed the group for not bringing enough pressure on Myanmar’s military rulers to end rights abuses and their crackdown on the opposition. An Asean charter is seen as a milestone for the bloc because it would create a rules-based community. An Asean task force has been working for months to complete the first draft for discussion at today’s 40th ministerial meeting, which will endorse it for adoption at a leaders’ summit in November. “Today, tonight and tomorrow is not the deadline for the high level task force to complete their work,” said Philippine foreign ministry spokesman Claro Cristobal. “They will continue to exist until such time as they have completed the mandate they receive from the leaders.”
Earlier yesterday, Asean foreign ministers adopted a five-year work plan to strengthen the implementation of a treaty banning nuclear weapons in the region. Since 1997, the treaty creating the South East Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) has been in force in the region, limiting the use of nuclear power by members to peaceful purposes, such as power generation. The 10 Asean nations have all signed the treaty. “The work plan was formulated to provide tangible plans and benchmarks that will align the activities of member-states under the treaty,” said Cristobal.
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