DAP calls on 13th NAM Summit to break
tradition to "revitalize" the moribund and almost dead organization by
establishing a NAM Human Rights Commission to protect and promote human
rights in the 114 NAM member nations
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang
(Petaling Jaya,
Friday):
In the past few days, one of the pet subjects of the speeches of Malaysian
leaders including the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the
Foreign Minister, in the run-up to the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
summit, is about hypocrisy and double standards in global politics, directed
particularly against the world's hyperpower, the United States of America.
While many of the strictures against the arrogant and supercilious foreign
policy of the Bush Administration are valid and justified, the time has also
come for the leaders of the Third World to demonstrate that they are not
equally guilty of such sickening hypocrisy and double standards in their
speeches and statements at the 13th NAM Summit in Kuala Lumpur.
A Hypocrisy and Double-Standards Watch can profitably be established to
monitor the speeches and statements of the NAM leaders at the Kuala Lumpur
Summit if NAM is to discover a new relevance or succeed in the task of
"revitalization" - the theme of the NAM summit.
If the NAM Summit is to revitalize the moribund and almost dead
organization, and not be a colossal waste of public funds by all
participating countries and in particular for Malaysia as the host nation,
then it must be courageous and imaginative enough to break with tradition
and pioneer the organization in new directions, as for instance,
establishing a NAM Human Rights Commission to protect and promote human
rights in the 114 member nations.
The Durban Final Declaration issued by the 12th NAM Summit in South Africa
in 1998 committed all member nations "to provide an effective framework for
the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms in
accordance with the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the International covenants on human rights and other relevant
international instruments on human rights".
Is there a report and review of the status of human rights in each of the
114 member states of NAM five years after this declaration and commitment in
Durban, South Africa?
On Wednesday, Zimbabwe's Permanent Representative to the United Nations,
Ambassador Boniface Guwa Chidyausiku said that revitalization of NAM must
top the agenda of the KL summit despite the impending war in Iraq. (Star
20.2.03)
How can such a call carry any credibility when Zimbabwe is one of the worst
states in human rights violations?
In fact, it was only two days ago that the United Nations Special Rapporteur
on the Independence of judges and lawyers, Dato Param Cumaraswamy, condemned
the Zimbabwe government's arrest on Monday of a High Court judge, Judge
Benjamin Paradza, who had previously handed down decisions that were
unpalatable to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.
Cumaraswamy described Paradza's arrest as "one in a series of institutional
and personal attacks on the judiciary and its independent judges over the
past two years, which have resulted in the resignations of several senior
judges and which have left Zimbabwe's rule of law in tatters".
By arresting a judge a few days before the 13th NAM Summit, Mugabe had shown
utter contempt not only for the 12th NAM Summit Declaration in Durban but
also for the 13th NAM Summit in Kuala Lumpur.
Last June, Amnesty International published a special report entitled
"Zimbabwe: The toll of impunity" which documented serious human rights
violations by Mugabe over the past two years, including extrajudicial
executions, torture, denial of the rights of freedom of expression,
association and assembly.
At the end of last year, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum released
figures of about 58 politically-motivated killings and over 1,050 cases of
torture in 2002 alone.
If the official Zimbabwe delegation is allowed to pontificate and moralise
about democracy and human rights at the 13th NAM Summit without having to
account for such gross and blatant violation of human rights, including the
just rule of law and a truly independent judiciary, how can NAM ever find a
new relevance, let alone "revitalize" itself, when it continues to be "talk
fest" of hypocrisy and double standards?
Will the 13th NAM Summit grapple with such moral dilemmas and human rights
crisis in the NAM countries?
(21/2/2003)
*
Lim Kit Siang, DAP National
Chairman
|
http://dapmalaysia.org