IN JAKARTA
THE committee in charge of promoting human rights throughout the Asean bloc is set to find its work a little easier, now that it can tap on information and statistics from an independent research centre.
The Human Rights Resource Centre for Asean was formally launched yesterday and will be housed at the University of Indonesia’s campus an hour outside Jakarta. It will play a supporting role to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). For instance, by carrying out bloc-wide surveys on the rule of law and research into migrant workers, while conducting training for activists on pertinent human rights issues and advocacy work.
To do this, the centre itself will tap on a host of universities and academic institutions in the region. They include the Singapore Management University, the National University of Singapore, the University of Malaya and Pannasastra University in Cambodia.
But the centre’s work can only be as good as the quality of the academics involved. And this is why it is important for other top institutions in the region to come on board.
At yesterday’s launch, representatives from Vietnam and Brunei institutions, among others, were conspicuously missing.There was some talk that some Asean members had preferred that the resource centre be based in Singapore, as it would be more of a "middle ground". Indonesia, despite grappling with its own alleged human rights violations in the western province of Papua, has been extremely proactive in pushing Asean's human rights agenda. It has been among the most vocal in suggesting that Myanmar embark on a democratisation process.
The resource centre’s chairman, a former Attorney-General of Indonesia, Mr Marzuki Darusman said the centre had issued an open invitation to institutions in Asean through a post on its website. But not all schools were able to commit, due to "administrative issues". This included not having a focus on human rights research at their schools.
"We had to get on with this launch. But we are still open to any institutions who are keen to participate. We will keep them posted on what we do," he said.
He added that he was hoping to see more interest from other institutions if the centre kickstarted its survey on women’s and children’s rights.
The centre has received great support from foreign embassies and even the United Nations’ Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
Mr Homayoun Alizadeh, who represented the UN office at the event, spoke of how individual countries were grappling with their own challenges when it came to human rights. Thailand for instance, was still dealing with issues of child pornography and prostitution, while accusations of rights violations by the military continued to swirl in the Phillipines and Indonesia, he said.
Most recently in Indonesia, a video allegedly showing Indonesian security forces torturing two separatists in Papua have caused a major uproar among activists. The government has promised to look into the matter, but activists say there are countless other cases of military abuses that have gone unreported.
For now though, it seems as though the centre and the commission will not be conducting any country-specific studies, or use its mandate to pressure individual countries to buck up when it comes to their human rights track record.
More cynical activists have said that this is why Asean’s human rights efforts could end up being a mere public relations exercise.
This is why it is all the more crucial for more academic institutions to get on board with the centre’s aims. Creating a network of experts and encouraging a greater focus on human rights research could be the first step towards more hard-hitting advocacy.