Since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the anniversary of which was recently
celebrated, it has been ideologically manipulated by
liberal regimes as well as autocratic ones. The
historical context surrounding the birth of the
Declaration was already heralding a division of the
world with the creation of NATO on one hand and the
Warsaw Pact on the other hand.
While the eastern bloc was adopting a model of socioeconomic
development implying a considerable
reduction of personal initiative and its means of
expression, these very regimes were challenging very
strongly the nature of the Declaration and its validity,
denouncing it as an ideological and artificial creation
from the West. However it would be naive to think that
western democracies have not misused the contents
of the Declaration to their advantage. It is impossible
not to denounce the hypocrisy of countries like the
United States or France which have violated the
fundamental human rights in the very name of the
defence of these rights.
As France loses its influence in Vietnam, the United
States comes to the rescue of western civilisation and
its values. Two images confront each other in front of
my eyes without me being able to accept either of
them : the deathly figure of Pasternak in the shade of
a goulag and a puny-looking child under the bombing of
My Lai.
The main debate changed its geographic zone with the
emergence of the "Asian tigers" at the end of the
eighties; The example of asian development undoubtly
produced incomparable results during the last two
decades. The regimes which benefited from this
exceptional economic growth used it to establish their
legitimacy and took up the challenge of the universal
nature of human rights in the name of their cultural
particularities. Thus the notion of “Asian values” has
appeared and been strongly supported by ASEAN,
Mahatir Mohamad, Suharto then Jusuf Habibie, Lee
Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong, and the Burmese SLORC
(renamed SPDC) supported by China. These dictators
claim that the Asian paradigm-"consensus and
stability"-prevail over the values of freedom and human
rights; They pretend that a strong state which guides,
organises and protects the conduct of affairs is
necessary to development. Malaysia has used this
argument with particular skill to refute any accusation
from human rights campaigners during meetings of the
United Nations Human Rights Commission, advocating
interference with the affairs of the Malaysian "
democratic kingdom".
No more pretending. The Asian economic miracle
proves to be an illusion when one contemplates the
reverse of the medal and studies the socio-economic
evolution of each of these countries. The fabulous
economic indicators put forward by Indonesia or
Thailand for example hid an obscene and increasing
gap between the rich and the poor. This model of
development enabled the subsequent increase of a
middle class which also benefitted from the economic
growth. The cultural background of these nations , with
their centralised tradition, constituted a favorable
ground for an ideological isolation established by each
dictator to reinforce their power. This is how they
managed, with unconditional support from the Army, to
initiate such strong censorship that, to avoid
repression, the people had to practice self censorship.
A self censorship that the same middle class refused
to accept any longer when they realised that the price
which they had paid for years to benefit from privileges
did not compare to those enjoyed by the dictatorial
elite. The economic and financial crisis in Asia since
the Fall of 1997 has highlighted what the western
countries, which had unquestionably invested
massively in the region, had refused to see : a
creeping corruption, the reign of nepotism and cronycapitalism,
the institutionalisation of prostitution (in
Thailand in particular), the suppression of freedom of
expression, the reign of terror as a means of political
control.
Now that there is no more pretending, Stanley Fischer
of the IMF reckons that the main question regarding its
intervention in Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea is
to know whether the urgent measures set up to rescue
the economies of these countries are the appropriate
answers to the real causes of the crises. According to
Fischer there is no point in pouring money into a
system whose failure is mainly structural without
undertaking reforms of a same nature. The example of
the Philippines demonstrate that the financial and
political reforms undertaken towards an increasing
democracy have enabled the country to deal with the
crisis which has provoked the collapse of its ASEA
partners.
The people who have suffered from these repressive
and corrupt regimes did not need clever theories of the
IMF and World Bank economists to show their
disregard for these Asian values.
Did the Tien An Men students die in the name of these
"Asian values"? Do the Burmese people risk their lives
to support Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi in defence of these
"Asian values"? Isn’t Anwar Inbrahim the victim of the
same values? Too many Asian people have sacrificed
their lives to defend their aspirations for freedom and
the respect of human rights for this argument to be
regarded as valid. It only takes the observation of the
situation in Indonesia during the last six months to
realise the complete failure of the "new order".
In spite of the fall of the dictator Suharto, the regime
has not changed its nature with the coming to power of
B.J. Habibie. The public relations campaign launched
on that occasion misleads no one any more and even
less the Indonesian students who risk their lives to
demonstrate that these promised reforms may be
implemented at least; even less the people from East
Timor, my people, invaded by Indonesia in 1975 whose
fate is personified by Xanana Gusmao, illegally
imprisoned in Jakarta by a regime which had no
jurisdiction over him.
The international community cannot let Asia collapse
without endangering the world economy even further.
But above all, one can no longer ignore the Asian
people ’s aspiration for freedom and the respect of
their elementary human rights. It is they who loudly
claim the aims of the Universal declaration, whose
anniversary is being celebrated, to defend universal
human rights. For, as Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes
Belo declared during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony
in Oslo in December, 1996 : "O homen e um ser para
liberdade" (man is made for freedom)
Jose Ramos-Horta
Joint winner of the Nobel peace prize in 1996