ASEM pledges respect for human rights

SEOUL, OCT. 21. Leaders from Europe and Asia today endorsed the respect for human rights as an integral part of their common goals despite reported Asian objections.

The Chairman's statement by the South Korean President, Mr. Kim Dae-Jung, the host of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) meeting here, included for the first time human rights as a common value for the four-year-old organisation.

``Leaders committed themselves to promote and protect all human rights including the right to development and fundamental freedoms, bearing in mind their universal indivisible and interdependent character,'' the statement issued at the end of the two-day ASEM meeting said.

The Asia-Europe Cooperation Framework (AECF 2000), a blueprint for ASEM's future, also said: ``ASEM leaders envisage Asia and Europe as an area of peace and shared development with common interests and aspirations such as... respect for democracy ... justice and human rights.''

China, Malaysia and Singapore had opposed including democracy and human rights in the framework, citing concerns over intervention in internal affairs, diplomats had said.

In an apparent compromise, leaders of the two continents agreed to insert ``non-intervention'' in internal affairs in the AECF document as a concession to the Asian countries.

ASEM groups South Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam from Asia. From Europe there are Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the European Union Commission.

The approval of the AECF document represented the cementing of the relationship between Asia and Europe, the Danish Prime Minister, Mr. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, said in Seoul. The next ASEM summit will take place in two years in Copenhagen.

The ASEM summit is a mechanism that allows the two regions to deepen their partnership.

A South Korean official acknowledged that there had been some ``frank'' talk during the leaders' discussion of democracy and human rights. ``There were two schools of thought - one from Europe, the other from Asia,'' he said.

The E.U. External Affairs Commissioner, Mr. Chris Patten, said earlier this week in Seoul that the communique contained a ``perfectly sensible and satisfactory reference to the promotion and protection of human rights''.

While the European side should not address human rights in a sanctimonious way, it should not be coy about discussing them, he said.

ASEM in future will focus on strengthening arms control, tackling global environmental issues and combating trans-national crime, including money-laundering, smuggling of immigrants, international terrorism and drug-trafficking, it says.

Meanwhile, the Seoul police congratulated themselves today on the handling of the two-day summit, which some had feared could turn into a flashpoint for anti-globalisation protests similar to those seen in Prague and Seattle over the past year.

In the event, there were scuffles during several protests and marches by thousands of students and trade unionists on Friday in which six police officers and two demonstrators were injured, police said.

But the protests were held some distance from the conference centre, which was guarded by thousands of baton-wielding riot police.

The Seoul police issued a statement saying their preparations, which included the non-confrontational tactic of lining the march route with women police officers and traffic police, led to a successful conference.

- Reuters

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