Aliran Kesedaran Negara

Oral intervention at the UN Commission on Human Rights, 57th Session
Item 19: Advisory services and technical co-operation in the field of human rights

Help Needed to Differentiate Fantasy from Reality

(Delivered by Deborah Stothard, April 20, 2001)

Owing to time constraints, content in [ ] will not be uttered

Mr/Madam Chairperson,

I speak on behalf of .

Last year, under this item, I called for the provision of refresher courses on human rights to some government delegations. This was to address the yawning gap between the human rights that some delegations speak of, the human rights violations their governments practice and human rights as is understood by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights.

Last year, I also sought that technical and advisory services be provided to help governments overcome the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome which induces them to vociferously proclaim their human rights achievements while they perpetrate yet more violations at home. Just last week, as the Malaysian National Human Rights Commission was congratulating itself on its achievements here in this very room, the Kuala Lumpur home of Muslim legal expert Dr Badrul Amin Baharom was being surrounded by more than 20 police. Dr Badrul was taken from his home at 2 a.m. local time, [obviously at an hour that he was less likely to be in a militant mood]. He is now being detained without trial at a secret location under the Internal Security Act [a similar fate to that being suffered by the seven other ISA detainees. ]

[Dr Badrul Amin Baharom has a degree in Syariah Law from the Al-Azhar University in Egypt, studied comparative law at the University of Kent and obtained a doctorate in philosophy from Birmingham. He is a former law lecturer at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, is a well-known preacher and motivational speaker, and is Youth Exco member of the National Justice Party. It is anticipated that activist Abdul Malek Hussein and Justice Party Youth leader Lokman Noor Adam are also targets for detention without trial under the ISA. Abdul Malek Hussein was subjected to various forms of torture, including sexual abuse, when he was last detained under the ISA in 1998.]

The Jekyll and Hyde situation has not changed, so we are here again to report and discuss issues that may not be discussed at home. It is also tragic to note that many governments continue to be misguided by the precept that depriving people of their human rights is the best way to increase people s value for their rights.

Therefore, you can imagine my concern when I discovered another urgent need for technical assistance to help governments differentiate between reality and fantasy. I am not addressing the general tendency to diplomatic euphemism, or to embroider and/or stretch the truth. I am referring to situations where governments rip the truth to shreds, throw the pieces to the ground and then proceed to dance a jig upon the remains.

A compelling example is document E/CN.4/2001/140 in which the Myanmar delegation claims the country is free of human rights abuses. It claims such concrete achievements as the significant economic progress, and the social and cultural uplift and the improvement of the living standards of the people .

May I remind the Commission of the World Bank s findings that government spending on education [as a share of national income is amongst the lowest in the world], in real terms has fallen to less than a tenth of what it was ten years ago. [Official data shows that it has fallen from about 1,200 Kyat per child (5-9 years) in 1990-91 to 100 Kyat in 1999-2000. Source: Myanmar:

An Economic and Social Assessment World Bank 1999]. The Asian Development Bank has highlighted the disturbingly high rate of child mortality and the higher than average rate of infant mortality. [The ADB finds the declining expenditure on health and education particularly worrisome and notes that the benefits of economic growth do not seem to be well distributed with wide regional and ethnic differences Source: Asian Development Outlook 2000, Asian Development Bank 2000]. The SPDC s achievements include the following realities:

* Four per cent of men and 2 per cent of women in Burma are heroin abusers [compared with the global population average of 0.22%. Source: World Drug Report 2000, UNDCP 2001]

* UNAIDS figures estimate that 530,000 HIV infections occurred in the year 2000. The regime only admits 25,000 HIV-positive people.

* An estimated 2 million people have been displaced by military activities in recent years [Burma Ethnic Research Group]

* State parties have killed Hundreds of people in massacres and other extra-judicial killings.

* Hundreds of pro-democracy and human rights activists have been subjected to a revolving door system of detention, torture, release and re-arrest. There are also long-term prisoners, some of whom have been permanently disabled by the conditions of their detention, and some of whom have already served their sentences but not have been released.

* A significant number of the 35,959 primary schools claimed by the SPDC were actually

established and maintained by local communities, not public spending. [The only contribution of the regime has been to install its own notice board.]

The vivid imagination of the SPDC has no place in this Commission. Urgent technical assistance of various kinds is needed to help the Myanmar regime, and certain other governments in this Commission, understand what is acceptable as the truth and what is not. Otherwise, the threat of infection is great. It would be a global tragedy indeed, if the U N Commission on Human Rights were to become a hostage to fantasy and deceit.

Thank you.