Whereas UN protects and blocks real action against evil, ASEAN embodies it. If Australia's commitment to democracy and human rights transcended our commitment to further enriching Mr Greed we would be having no dealings with ASEAN. ASEAN should be renamed ADRA -- Association of Debased Regimes of Asia. The following is reposted from a posting on another public list. Dion Giles Fremantle, Western Australia --------------------------------- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Victor C. Sapar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (by way of Bruce Morrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) Subject: [aus4freetimor] The copping out of asean IID: http://www.skyinet.net/~iiddvo East Timor: http://www.skyinet.net/~apcet (updated daily) BIMP-EAGA: http://www.skyinet.net/~iiddvo/mppn -------------------------------------------------- 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send this letter to as many people and ask them to do the same. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 [against] 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 [Philippines] 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web archive: http://www.c2o.org/mailinglists/aus4freetimor
