Asean may call for pardon

Portraits show pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during a rally calling for Suu Kyi's release on August 11. Suu Kyi was found guilty of breaching the terms of her house arrest. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Aug 19, 2009
AFP

UPBEAT ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH
MR WEBB, the first US official to hold talks with Than Shwe, was upbeat about the prospects of a breakthrough.

'I think we have a moment here we might be able to do something,' he told CNN, speaking from Bangkok.

'We had about a 40-minute conversation on a wide variety of issues,' he said of his landmark meeting with the junta leader.

'And with respect to her (Suu Kyi's) situation, I also want to emphasise that I made a request of the government that they consider releasing her from detention and... (said) no future election process would have any credibility with the outside world unless she were able to participate in the political debate.' -- AFP

REGIONAL officials will discuss a proposed joint call for Myanmar to free democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during a meeting in Jakarta later this week, a diplomatic source said on Tuesday.

Thailand, the current chair of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), said on Friday it was pushing for a consensus among member states to ask Myanmar's military rulers to pardon Ms Suu Kyi.

'We will discuss it at a senior officials' meeting this week in Jakarta,' the source, who asked not to be named, told AFP. The meeting will be held on Thursday and Friday in the Indonesian capital, the diplomat said.

'We support it, but I don't know if all Asean (members) support it,' the diplomat said, when asked about his country's position. 'There's nothing firm, only a proposal so far,' he added.

US Senator Jim Webb, in an interview with CNN on Monday after a visit to Myanmar, said he understood that Asean was working on the proposal to seek amnesty for Suu Kyi. Mr Webb had met with Myanmar's reclusive ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, during his trip.

Asean has faced frequent criticism for taking a soft line on its most troublesome member, but Mr Webb indicated the bloc could be about to toughen its stance. 'I am of the understanding that we are possibly going to see from Asean... a petition of some sort that would ask for amnesty for her as well, which would be a major step forward in resolving the situation,' he said.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi was found guilty last week of breaching the terms of her house arrest after an eccentric American man, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside villa in May and stayed there for two days.

Myanmar junta leader Than Shwe commuted her sentence to 18 months under house arrest, but this would still rule her out of elections due to be held next year.

International anger erupted at Myanmar after Tuesday's verdict, but Asean's reaction was typically muted, expressing only 'deep disappointment.' Mr Yettaw flew out of Myanmar on Sunday with Mr Webb, who secured the former military veteran's release from a sentence of seven years' hard labour.

Asean leaders will hold their next summit from October 23-25 in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin. As well as Myanmar, Asean also groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Read more!

Khmer Spell Checker for Firefox (Mekhala) is now available

Please click on the link below to get additional details from MitLeap website:
http://mitleap.com/profiles/blogs/khmer-spell-checker-for

Read more!

The Free Press Magazine Online Vol. 1, No. 9 now available

Click here to read The Free Press Magazine Online:
http://fpmonline.net

Read more!

Sen disregards covenant on rights

"One Web site, one group and a few others send out the message: "Cambodian younger generations are the hope, the catalyst and the agent of change for Cambodia."

Certainly, their time has come. My hat is off to them, I wish them success."

August 19, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

One can learn much from old sayings and words of the wise. An African saying goes, "One must talk little and listen much." The Turks say, "Those who know do not talk; those who talk do not know." The Swedes say, "Whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta implored, "There should be less talk. ... Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough."

Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Americans called "the best first lady" in United States history, is known for her work to improve the lot of the underprivileged. She said, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

In contemporary Cambodian politics, the small minds that delight in digging and throwing dirt at those they don't like are "willing executioners," tools of the ruling autocracy that needs them to overwhelm, distract and disrupt legitimate debate on issues of public and national interest. A boneless tongue that flaps, Cambodians say, turns a lone black crow into 10 ravaging crows.

Father Lawrence G. Lovasik, a missionary, wrote: "Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things," and that, "it is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one."

Lord Buddha teaches, "The evils of the tongue are lying, slander, abuse and idle talk."

Recently, a Khmer reader inquired about the meaning of the Khmer saying, "Somdei sar jiat," which, literally, means "words reveal one's race." The intent of the saying was to convey that words, spoken and written, reveal the kind of a person one is. One's value, worth, dignity -- or lack thereof -- are intertwined in his words.

American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Words are alive; cut them and they bleed."

Last April 24, The Cambodia Daily's front page article, "Mu Sochua To Sue Premier For Defamation," reported on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's nationally broadcast speech on April 4, in which he affirmed that he wouldn't help villagers who side with the opposition. He spoke to the audience about a Mu Sochua, woman "cheung klang," or "strong legs," a derogatory term, who in the 2008 election campaign "hugged" someone and then complained her blouse had been "unbuttoned" by force.

The Daily said that in June 2008, an army officer "twisted her arm, thus making her blouse buttons come undone," so Sochua filed an "assault complaint."

At an April 23 press conference, Sochua announced her lawsuit against Sen for defamation, seeking 500 riels, or 13 cents. On April 27, The Daily reported on its front page: "Prime Minister To Countersue Mu Sochua."

Thus began a Khmer political ramvong, a popular slow dance in which participants move around and around in a circle to the sound of drums.

"Executive control of the court is an established fact and it is known that the court lacks independence," lamented the Asian Human Rights Commission in a press release.

On June 10, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court dismissed Sochua's lawsuit, claiming no defamation had occurred, but processed Sen's countersuit against Sochua.

On June 15, Human Rights Watch called on Sen's regime to "cease its threats, harassment, and spurious legal action against opposition members of parliament and lawyers defending free expression." The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights-Cambodia declared, "the use or the threat of legal action ... is a serious threat to democratic development which may undermine the efforts of the past 16 years to rebuild a tolerant and pluralistic environment in Cambodia."

Those words didn't matter to Sen and his ruling party.

On Aug. 4, the Court ordered Sochua to pay 8.5 million riel ($2,500) in fines to the state, and 8 million riels ($2,000) in compensation to Sen, for defaming the premier.

A day later, Sen, who likes to use ceremonies as platforms and the media as tools, warned in a graduation ceremony speech in Phnom Penh that government critics should "be careful with the language of 'dictatorial regime.' Be careful, one day legal action will be used" ... and "when legal action is used, you guys would say freedom of expression is prohibited, but your expression is wrong."

Sen, recipient of a University of Hanoi honorary doctorate, no doubt meant every word he said. For the last few months, several criminal defamation and disinformation lawsuits have been filed against government critics -- politicians, journalists and a 22-year-old law student.

Sen, premier of a country that signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and incorporated it into Cambodian law, tramples that law, tells the world it doesn't understand free expression as he does and makes clear he doesn't care who thinks what. Unconditional Chinese aid and assistance to keep him and his autocratic regime afloat allows him to thumb his nose to the West, who lecture him to respect the international standards of good governance.

That seems to leave Cambodians on their own.

One Web site, one group and a few others send out the message: "Cambodian younger generations are the hope, the catalyst and the agent of change for Cambodia."

Certainly, their time has come. My hat is off to them, I wish them success.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Read more!