1
Wong Kai Shing
(specially presented to the Regional
Workshop of “Building Solidarity in Asia pacific Region” organized by the World
Student Christian Federation – Asia Pacific Region on 4-15 November 1996, held
in Chiang Mai, Thailand.)
Asia is the home of over half of the
world population. It is the cradle of major civilizations and religions 1. in
the past two decades, the Asian economy has been growing rapidly. It is
expected that Asia will become the locomotive of the world economy in the 21st
century. However, behind the scene, a lot of Asian people have paid a high
price. Their basic human rights, both civil and political rights and economic,
social and cultural rights have been seriously trespassed.
According to the Asian Development
Bank, there are between 700 million and 800 millions of poor people in Asia,
about 500 million of them are in absolute poverty 2. They are denied the rights
to all basic necessities including food, housing, health care, education and
social security. They cannot share the fruits of economic prosperity. At the
same time, in most Asian countries, people have been constantly suppressed by
repressive regimes as they demand for equal political participation and
improvement of their livelihoods.
Civil and Political Rights and Repressive Regimes
In Asia, the Civil and Political
rights of the people have been seriously violated. Most Asian
1 they are the Chinese civilization,
the Indus civilization, religions namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Taoism, Christianity and Islam
2 Asian Development Bank. Asian
Development Outlook 1994 Hong Kong: Oxford University press, 1994 p. 187
2
governments are authoritative regimes
in which the military often hold the leadership or take a key role. They use
repressive means to suppress the demands of people for human rights and
democracy. Each year, thousands of people are imprisoned or even killed. These
people so-called the prisoners of conscience or political prisoners are
constantly tortured or receive inhuman treatment in prisons. For instance, in
1988, the Burmese military junta brutally suppressed the pro-democracy movement
initiated by Burmese students. The military troops fires to civilians. More
than 8,000 people were killed. Thousands of students and pro-democracy leaders
were put in jails. Similar events of repression have happened in Thailand,
China and East Timor under the occupation of Indonesia.
Many Asian countries have used
repressive laws to control their people. The notorious are those security laws
or international security acts. These laws usually allow governments to
arbitrarily detain people as long as they like without trial under the pretext
of protecting national security. For instance, the Singaporean government
arrested and detained 22 people without trial under the Internal Security Act
for involving in a Marxist conspiracy to subvert the government in 1987 3.
Around the same time, the Malaysian government arrested and detained 117 people
without trial under its Internal Security Act 4. In South Korea, the National
Security Law has long been used to silent opposition. Furthermore, harsh laws
and strict license systems have been enforced in many Asian countries to
control newspapers and electronic media. People are denied the right to freedom
of expression, assembly and association. In relation to the problem of
repressive laws, most judiciaries in Asian countries are not independent from
intervention by their governments. Without the right to fair trial, the
judiciary become a tool for the governments to legitimate their repression instead
of a safeguard for the rights of people.
3 Chee, Soon Juan. Dare To Change: An
Alternative Vision for Singapore: Singapore Democratic Party, 1994 p. 132
4 Hot-Line. “Ammendments to ISA
(Malaysia)” Urgent Action Appeal. July 11, 1989
3
Economic and Social Rights and Mal-development
In the quest for development, many
Asian governments have invested most of their resources in industrialization
and urban development to pursue economic growth. In order to attract foreign
investment, Asian governments have advocated a cheap labor policy and minimized
regulation on the conduct of foreign enterprises. The urban biased development
have resulted in the imbalance development between the rural and urban areas.
Constant extraction of rural
resources to subsidize urban development has impoverished the rural areas where
the majority of the Asian population live. Development projects such as the
construction of dams have displaced a large number of peasants and indigenous
peoples from their land which support their living. One example is the
construction of dams in the Narmada Valley which will be displace about 20
million people and submerge extensive areas of irreplaceable forest 5. As a
result, the income gap between the urban and rural areas are widening. To escape
from destitute life, many rural poor move to cities to look for work. Most of
them finally have turned into urban poor. They also become a source of cheap
laborers. Rapid urbanization and the influx of rural poor have caused problems
including shortage of housing, lack of health care, inadequate provision of
social services and education, increase of crime, etc. however, many Asian
governments have done little to improve the social and economic conditions of
the poor. Either they are incapable to do or they do not take them as priority.
To maintain the cheap labor policy,
many Asian governments used various means to suppress labor rights to maintain
low wage rates, such as passing laws to outlaw strikes and independent trade
unionism. Workers usually have to work long hours in bad working condition.
Also the safety of workers in their working place has not been safeguarded.
Many workers have been killed or seriously injured in a large number of
industrial accidents in Asia. In Thailand, the Kader toy Factory, a joint
venture between
5 Hot-line. “Protest Against Narmada
Project (India).” Urgent Action Appeal. October 5, 1988
4
Thailand and Hong Kong, was on fire
on May 1993. In the fire, 188 workers were killed, 500 injured, 500
handicapped. The factory lacked most basic safety protection 6. To attract
foreign investment, many Asian countries allow hazardous industries to operate
near inhabited areas without sufficient regulation. The leakage of these
hazardous industries have seriously polluted the environment and water at their
surroundings. Many people in their neighboring community have suffered unknown
diseases. The world’s worst disaster causing by hazardous industry was happened
in Bhopal of India. On 2-3 December 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide
manufacturing plant in Bhopal leaked a lethal gas that caused the death of over
2,000 people. About 200,000 people in the community were injured. Until now,
the Bhoal victims still cannot receive meaningful relief and injustice 7.
Another important factor that
seriously affects the livelihood of Asian People is the domination of
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and international economic agencies,
especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on the
economic policies of Asian countries. The aforementioned Kader’s fire and
Bhopal’s leakage of poisonous gas are examples that reflect the irresponsible
operation of some of the TNCs. Many TNCs exploit those favorable conditions
provided and concessions made by Asian Developing countries to maximize their
profits that have resulted in violations of worker’s rights, exploitation of
natural resources and destruction of environment.
Through conditionalities attached to
their loans, the World Bank and IMF have forced the developing countries to
follow their requirement in local economic policies. Since 1980, the World Bank
and IMF required countries to carry out a structural adjustment is to orient
the debtor country’s economy towards the global market and transnational
capital which requires the liberalization of domestic market, the promotion of
exports, cutting
6 “Kader: The World’s Worst Factory
Fire”. Asian Labor Update 21 (1996): 6
7 “Bhopal.” Communique Nos. 14, 15
& 16 (1992): 15
5
of public expenditure,
privatization of public enterprises, etc. The implementation of this program
has increased the hardship of people in Asian developing countries.
Rights of Women, Children and Indigenous Peoples
In Asia, discrimination against
women is prevalent in both public and private domains; under patriarchy that
deeply rooted in our cultures. Most Asian women face unequal treatment in their
economic status, education, and political participation. Violations of women's
rights are common in the region including sex-ad harassment, rape, sexual
slavery and trafficking, domestic violence, etc. Women's workers face harsh
working condition and receive low salary in the course of economic development.
To support their families, many
women leave home to work as migrant workers, mostly domestic helpers, in other
wealthier countries. They are very vulnerable to be exploited as separating from families and
homeland. Another massive violations of women's rights occur in the situation
of armed conflicts. Women and children are always the chief victims of war.
Many women lose their home and are subjected to rape, mass rapes, military
sexual slavery, and forced labor.
Under
the widespread of poverty and armed conflicts in Asia, many children are deprived of food, shelter,
education, and health care. They are also subjected to various abuses taking
such forms as child labor; sale and trafficking of children, child prostitution,
infanticide, etc. As a result, more and more children are forced to be wandering on the streets of
Asian cities to struggle for survival on their own.
The indigenous peoples are the descendants of the original inhabitants of territories. Asia has the largest number of indigenous peoples in the world of about 150 millions representing various cultures. Their basic rights have been seriously violated throughout the colonial history and under the rapid economic development in the past decades in Asia. Most of their land and natural resources, which are their means of subsistence, have been grabbed away. Deforestation, logging, infrastructure programs have seriously destroyed the living environment and thus the way of life of the indigenous peoples such as the Penan people of Sarawak, the indigenous people in Narmada valley of India, the hill tribes in Thailand, etc. They are striving for self-determination against forced assimilation and invasion of their ancestral land.
6
The demand for human rights
in Asia has been rising in the past decades in response to the widespread
suffering and inhuman treatment experienced by most Asian people under
repressive regimes and
mal-development. Under such oppressive situation, people
are brutally denied of their inherent dignity. For the Asian people, the
aspiration for human rights is to reclaim our right to be human and to
reassert our human dignity. Human rights are not given and protected in the
Asian context. We have to fight for them.
By asserting human rights, people realize that it is our right to fight
against oppression. The principles of human rights are used to assess the
present repressive political regimes and unjust economic systems. As a result,
the aspiration for human rights has empowered people to fight for the
transformation of society. This involves institution building such as
establishing a participatory democratic system and legal protect of rights
through an independent and accessible judiciary and other national human rights
mechanisms. At the same time, the human rights movement in Asia is advocating
for sustainable development. From this perspective, the concept of human rights
is not static. The experience rooted in the suffering and struggles of the
Asian people can enrich the content of human rights and foster a culture of
human rights in Asia.
The human rights movement in Asia affirms that human rights are universal encompassing all cultures and traditions, which provides the basis of protection to all humanity 8. Therefore, the argument of cultural relativism against human rights posed by some of the Asian governments should be rejected. The respect for different cultures should not be interpreted as a kind of cultural exceptionalism to exclude human rights. Throughout the history, cultures are not static but have been constantly learning
8
This affirmation appears in three documents, which are widely accepted by Asian
non-governmental organizations: Human Rights in Asia: The Struggle for Human
Dignity (December 31, 1992); The Bangkok NGO Declaration on Human Rights
(March 27, 1993). Our Common Humanity: The Draft Asian Human Rights
Charter
proposed by the Asian Human Rights Commission
7
from each others. There
are many good things in our cultures, but there are bad things. Thus,
"while advocating cultural pluralism, those cultural practices which
derogate from universally accepted human rights, including women’s rights, must
not tolerated.
In response to the Asian
government's assertion of the supremacy of national sovereignty over human
rights, the human rights movement in Asia stands for the view that ”as human
rights are of universal concern and are universal in value, the advocacy of
human rights cannot be considered to be an encroachment upon national
sovereignty 10. Also it should be the people of a country that hold the
sovereignty. This means that a government can represent the sovereignty of
people only if she upholds "the human rights of her people. Therefore,
there should, be no conflict between human rights and sovereignty.
The human rights movement
in Asia also affirms that human rights are indivisible and interdependent and
therefore a holistic, integrated approach to human rights should be pursued 11.
The Asian authoritarian governments justify their violations of civil and
political rights under the pretext of economic development. These governments
argue that economic development can ensure the economic rights of people.
However, as discussed before in this article, most people are not benefited
from the economic development policies advocated by these Asian governments.
The disparity between the rich and the poor is widening. In fact, civil,
political, economic, social, and cultural rights are indivisible. Without civil
and political rights, economic, social, and cultural rights cannot be
protected. Without economic, social, and cultural rights, civil and political
rights become seriously restricted, because people have no resource to exercise
these rights.
While affirming the
rights of individuals, the human rights movement in Asia
9 The Bangkok NGO Declaration on Human Rights (March 27, 1993)
8
emphasizes the protection
of the rights of groups which have been consistently violated such as women,
children, indigenous peoples, minorities, workers, peasants, refugees and
displaced persons, the disabled and the elderly.
The non-governmental
organizations play a very important role in promoting human rights in Asia. It
is difficult to say which group is human rights organization and which group is
not; because human rights involve a wide range of work, from the provision of
legal assistance to the promotion of sustainable development. Some groups focus
on the rights of particular
groups of people such as women, children, indigenous peoples, workers,
refugees, etc. Anyway, there are a range of activities that most human rights NGOs involve.
One of the main work of
human rights NGOs is to monitor the human rights situation in their countries
generally or focusing on particular vulnerable groups. This includes
investigating human rights violations, documenting cases of abuses, keeping an
eye on the impact of national legislation and government policies on human
rights, and preparing reports to publicize their findings. Fact-finding
missions have been frequently conducted which involved respected human rights
experts and activists to investigate serious and massive human rights
violations. Monitoring and investigating are very useful means to hold the
governments accountable on the protection of human rights.
Public action campaigns
and urgent appeals are conducted to arouse public and international concern on
particular human right issues or violations. These include petitions,
demonstrations, public assemblies, signature campaigns, street dramas, public
forum, etc. It is very important to organize the victims of human rights
violations to involve in these campaigns to arouse public concern. In recent
years, there are increase of international solidarity campaigns such as the
campaigns on Burma, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Thailand, scrapping of foreign
debts, etc. international people's tribunals have been organized to provide a
channel for victims to voice out their cases and seek for justice.
Another important work of
human rights NGOs is standard setting Many Asian NGOs
9
have been actively
participated is human rights standard setting in national, regional, and
international levels. This includes drafting of people's charters on different
human rights issues, initiatives on introducing national human rights
legislation, involving in UN efforts on setting standards on various human,
rights issues, etc.
Moreover, to foster a
human rights culture in Asia, more and more human rights NGOs involve m human
rights education. This includes designing curriculums and teaching packages on
human rights and developing different medium such as drama, cartoons, videos,
games and songs to promote human rights.
Positively, people's
awareness of and discussion on human rights is increasing in the last decade.
Even the Asian governments have to admit that "states have the primary
responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights" 12
although probably they do not truly believe it. Many things have yet to be
done. Besides the promotion of human rights and monitoring of violations, we
should increase our efforts to improve the actual implementation and
enforcement of human rights in Asia. It is very important to develop our own
national and regional human rights mechanisms, which suit our context. These
mechanisms should not only provide legal remedies but also social and political
remedies to enhance sustainable development and equal political participation.
At the same time, a culture of human rights that make people respect each
other's rights should be fostered. It is still a long way to go to realize
human rights in Asia.
12 The Bangkok Declaration, adopted by the Asian governments in the Regional Meeting for Asia of the World Conference on Human Rights