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Peoples' summit: How about rights?



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<font size=3>Philippine Daily Inquirer<br>
Sunday, November 28, 1999<br>
Associated Press<br>
<br>
Peoples' summit: How about rights?<br>
<br>
People power advocates are trying to make sure that Southeast Asian
Leaders, who have been trumpeting their countries' economic rebound, do
not forget that poverty and human rights abuses still abound in the
region. <br>
<br>
About 30 activists from Burma, Indonesia, Cambodia and five other
countries, took part in a so-called &quot;people's summit&quot; on
Saturday to urge leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to
pay more attention to democracy and other grass-roots issues.<br>
<br>
&quot;Asean as a regional organization has to clean up its backyard when
it comes to the human rights record,&quot; Djorina Velasco of Amnesty
International's Philippines branch told a news conference.<br>
<br>
Velasco said delegates to the alternative summit were alarmed by human
rights abuses in Burma and Indonesia.<br>
<br>
&quot;We are here to extend our solidarity to the various people's
leaders who have gathered here,&quot; she said<br>
<br>
While Asean leaders, including the fabulously wealthy sultan of Brunei,
were getting the red-carpet treatment at a convention center along Manila
Bay, the people power advocates crammed into Niko's Music and Wine Bar in
the heart of Manila's former red-light district of Ermita.<br>
<br>
Their final declaration makes a series of demands, including &quot;the
alleviation of the impoverished majority of Asean peoples.&quot;<br>
<br>
&quot;We have to keep pushing the leaders of Asean,&quot; said Soe Aung,
a member of the National Council of the Union of Burma, an Umbrella
opposition group in Burma. <br>
<br>
Burma is a perennial target of human rights groups which were outraged
that the military-rum nation was granted Asean member-ship.<br>
<br>
Soe Aung said Asean's &quot;constructive engagement policy (to ward
Burma) is a failure.&quot;<br>
<br>
He was surrounded by posters urging more respect for human rights in his
native country, as well as Tibet and other Asian nations.<br>
<br>
Evelyn Balais-Serrano, of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and
Development, said harsh internal security laws had enabled Southeast
Asia's leaders to stay in power unchallenged for decades. <br>
<br>
&quot;These national security laws have been used to arbitrarily arrest,
torture and detain anyone suspected to be a threat to national
security,&quot; she wrote in a report to the Asean People's Summit.<br>
<br>
One of the countries where the government trampled human rights was
Indonesia, symbolized be a quarter-century of military occupation in East
Timor.<br>
<br>
&quot;Not a single Asean country has lifted a finger to stop the
Indonesian military rampage in East Timor,&quot; said Abel Guterres of
East Timor's CNRT independence movement. <br>
<br>
Guterres group is transforming itself into a nation-building force after
East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence in August. <br>
<br>
&quot;We hope that Asean will welcome East Timor into its midst as a new
country,&quot; said Guterres, but he added it was too soon to say whether
the fledgling nation would seek membership.<br>
<br>
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