Myanmar has ratified a proposed international charter that includes controversial human rights provisions, officials said yesterday, a day after regional powers slammed the nation’s ruling junta for extending opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention.
Myanmar’s ratification of the ASEAN charter was to be formalized at a ceremony later yesterday.
But question marks remained about whether Myanmar’s junta, which has jailed hundreds of political dissidents, including Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was willing to adhere to the principles of human rights and respect for rule of law enshrined in the charter.
It was also unclear whether the proposed ASEAN human rights body, the details of which have yet to be hammered out, would have any substantive enforcement or monitoring power.
The charter, expected to come into force by next year, would aim to strengthen the 10-member group of Asian nations, giving it power to sue and be sued, and establishing enforceable financial, trade and environmental rules.
The most controversial part of the charter was a proposed human rights body.
“It’s high time that we concretize the human rights of the people of ASEAN,” Philippine representative to the panel Rosario Manalo said.
Still, it was clear that the body would not have the power to sanction countries that have violated the rights of its citizens.
The Philippines and possibly Thailand would push for the body to have the power to at least monitor human rights violations, one Southeast Asian diplomat said, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.
Myanmar was the seventh member of ASEAN to ratify the charter. The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have balked at endorsing it, demanding that Myanmar first give firmer commitments to democracy.
The human rights panel, which was to hold its first meeting yesterday to determine the scope of the human rights body, was expected to submit a draft of its recommendations to the ASEAN leaders’ summit in December.
Ignoring international criticism, Myanmar’s junta on May 27 extended Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention by another year, drawing an extraordinary rebuke on Sunday from ASEAN members who usually shy from criticizing each other.
Myanmar officials have issued no public response to that criticism, although its representative at the meeting, Foreign Minister Nyan Win, suggested on Sunday that Aung San Suu Kyi could be freed from house arrest in about six months.
Aung San Suu Kyi has now been detained for more than 12 of the last 18 years at her home in Myanmar.
In a address yesterday to ASEAN foreign ministers, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said ASEAN had only implemented 30 percent of its agreements.
The charter, he said, would help improve that ”somewhat patchy” record as a bulwark against crises, such as the 1997 Asian financial storm.
“If another test comes, ASEAN must not be found wanting again,” Lee said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS