ASEAN’s response over the Rohingyas casts doubts over its seriousness in community building
19 February 2009 2:32 am

ASEAN’s response over the Rohingya boat people issue last month casts doubt over its seriousness to put people at the centre of its community building efforts, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).

asean.jpg(Bangkok, 19 February 2009) – ASEAN’s response over the Rohingya boat people issue last month casts doubt over its seriousness to put people at the centre of its community building efforts, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), a regional human rights organisation with 42 members across 16 countries in Asia.

ASEAN’s aim to place people at the centre of its community building is stipulated in Article 13 of the ASEAN Charter. With the enforcement of the ASEAN Charter on 15 December 2008, ASEAN intends to operate under a new legal framework and establish a number of organs to boost its community-building process and create “a caring and sharing society”.

The 14th ASEAN Summit scheduled on 28 February in Hua Hin, and themed “ASEAN charter for ASEAN people” – aimed to be the stepping stone towards the realisation of this vision. In this summit, two of the three blue prints – political security and social cultural – will be endorsed by all ten nation members of ASEAN, while the economic community blue print was approved in 2007.

Meanwhile, Article 14 of the ASEAN Charter provides the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body. The purpose of the body is to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of the peoples of ASEAN.

However, the latest human rights issues in the region related to the Rohingya boat people last month had put ASEAN’s promises to create a caring and sharing community and to protect human rights of the peoples of ASEAN in a tight spot. 

FORUM-ASIA’s Executive Director Yap Swee Seng said it was very obvious that ASEAN’s  credibility and relevance as a regional bloc is currently in a vulnerable position as it had done nothing to address the issue of the Rohingyas.

He added that in the Summit, ASEAN leaders planned to  table the problem of Rohingyas into a bilateral or informal discussion to show the actual level of importance of human rights issues for ASEAN.

“By failing to properly and effectively address human rights and democracy in Burma, ASEAN risk losing its credibility and relevance as a regional bloc especially when Burma is a member state of the grouping”, Yap stressed.

Earlier this year, news reports and images of Thai authorities reportedly dragging some 1,000 Rohingyas out to sea without adequate water, food or engines on their boats had surfaced. Many Rohingyas were believed to have died at sea, but some 200 drifted on to Indonesian shores. With no particular country of destination and determined not to return home, the displaced Rohingyas are stateless and can only hope for asylum in order to rebuild their lives.

For more information, please contact: 

  1. Mr. Yap Swee Seng, FORUM-ASIA Executive Director, +66 (0) 81868 9178, [email protected] 
  2. Ms. Yuyun Wahyuningrum, East Asia Programme Manager, +66 (0) 87991 4451, [email protected]