PHNOM PENH: Southeast Asian leaders endorsed a controversial human rights pact yesterday at an annual summit in which they also sought to step up pressure on China over a bruising territorial dispute.
Heads of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) hailed their declaration on human rights as a landmark agreement that would help protect the region’s 600 million people.
“It’s a legacy for our children,” Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters after the signing ceremony.
But critics said it allowed too many loopholes for Asean, which groups a diverse range of political systems ranging from authoritarian regimes in Laos and Vietnam to freewheeling democracies such as the Philippines. “Our worst fears in this process have now come to pass,” said Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson.
On the day the pact was signed, leaders were having to discuss the ethnic violence in Asean member Myanmar, where clashes in Rakhine state between Muslim and Buddhists have left 180 people dead since June.
Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday that the violence was disturbing and risked destabilising the region.
He said leaders would discuss the bloodshed and potentially include a statement referring to it in their end-of-summit communique.
The Asean event will be expanded into a two-day East Asia Summit starting today that includes the leaders of the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Russia. US President Barack Obama is due to arrive in Phnom Penh today after making an historic visit to Myanmar.
Obama decided to make the trip to Myanmar, the first by a sitting US president, to reward and further encourage political developments by the new reformist government there.
However, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which on Saturday described the Muslim Rohingya minority as victims of “genocide”, has urged Obama to pressure Myanmar’s government to stop the bloodshed.
AFP
