Dr. Lao Mong Hay

(Ed. note: To continue our discussion on the need for Asia’s own human rights instruments, we carry below the views of Dr. Lao Mong Hay, executive director of Khmer Institute of Democracy, which was presented at the international conference on the declaration of the ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS CHARTER in Kwangju, south Korea, on 14-17 May 1998.)

I would like to begin with Buddha as Buddhism has conditioned the life of many in Asian countries. Buddha was born to a royal family and was destined to rule his country. But he was more concerned about human beings and human values. He questioned the basis for and challenged the caste system of his country that divided people into different castes from birth. The system was wrong, and he advocated equality among human beings. By this very belief teaching and numerous others, especially the sanctity of life and of private property, Buddha laid down the fundamental rights of all human beings. That was a very long time ago, over 2,540 years.

Buddha was no Son of God but a human being and an Asian. He has followers, hundreds of millions of them, to say the least, around the world and in particular in Asia.

However, throughout history after Buddha his proclaimed followers have not put all his teachings into practice. There have been exploitation of men by men, enslavement of fellow human beings by the strong, repression of the powerless by the powerful, mass killings and mass confiscation in many places in Asia, in countries under the influence of Buddhism and in a country, my own, Cambodia, which had proclaimed Buddhism State religion.

Cambodia’s Experience

Cambodia was under French rule for 90 years. The French ruled Cambodia after they had rid themselves of royal despotism in 1789. In their revolution of that year the French emphatically proclaimed that ignorance, neglect, forgetfulness and contempt of human rights were the sole cause of public misery and depravity of government, and, in order to put an end to such misery and depravity, made a declaration of human rights and the rights of citizens. This declaration was repeated in subsequent French constitutions to the present day.

Cambodia learned from the French and recognised such rights in their first Constitution of 1947, about one and a half years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted.

The Cambodian ruling elite knew and understood many of the Buddhist teachings and human rights. However, they did not practice or respect them at all. In fact, they ignored and trampled underfoot those teachings and human rights in the second half of the 1970s and used force to mould new men out of Cambodians in their efforts to create heaven on earth. They murdered people in order to realise utopia. Over a million Cambodians died, and Cambodia was destroyed, physically and spiritually.

Just as the holocaust in World War II was recognised and led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris on 10 December 1948, the holocaust in Cambodia led to the inclusion of the human rights clauses in the agreements on the Comprehensive Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict signed in Paris on 23 October 1991. It was the first time clauses on specific measures to protect human rights in Cambodia and prevent any violations were included in an international agreement.

Of the 18 nations that were instrumental in the inclusion of the human rights clauses in those agreements, 13 were Asian nations. They were Brunei, Cambodia itself, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.

Under those clauses, Cambodia undertakes to protect human rights as enshrined in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights instruments. All those human rights are recognised and protected under its Constitution of 1993. Cambodia has now adhered to all major international human rights instruments:

1. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

2. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;

3. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;

4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

5. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial discrimination;

6. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women;

7. Convention on the Rights of the Child;

8. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others; and

9. Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

‘Is It Not Hypocrisy?’

I was involved in a varying degree in the peace process leading to the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991. I witnessed a dramatic positive change of attitude towards human rights. As head of the human rights unit of one Cambodian warring faction working in the biggest refugee camp along the Thai border in early 1988, I was strongly advised by a Thai human rights scholar not to use the phrase "human rights" on Thai soil as the authorities in charge were allergic to it. Use some other phrases such as "humanitarian law" to teach the Cambodian refugees, I was told. At a conference on Cambodia held in Australia in January 1989, after hard discussions, three Cambodian factions (the Communist State of Cambodia, the non-communist Khmer People National Liberation Front and the non-communist FUNCINPEC) agreed to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for Cambodia. Subsequently and prior to the Paris International Peace Conference in 1989, the Khmer Rouge joined in to support the inclusion of the human rights clauses in the draft of the peace agreements.

The Paris Peace Agreements not only bind Cambodians but also the other signatories who undertake to promote respect for human rights to prevent their violations. As a witness, I believed and continue to believe that those State signatories, the 12 other nations, implicitly have endorsed and recognised the international human rights instruments they have encouraged Cambodia to adhere to. How could one encourage others to sign such instruments and protect such human rights if one does not believe in such instruments and rights? Is it not hypocrisy itself?

Fortunately, some of those Asian countries have since endorsed human rights gradually. We need to encourage that positive development. However, we need to call on greater nations to set examples for lesser nations and call for the inclusion of adherence to international human rights instruments and respect for human rights among the qualifications for State membership of the U.N. Security Council.

As a Cambodian citizen, I have been disappointed at the lack of active concern on the part of Asian State signatories to the Paris Peace Agreements over the violations of human rights in the forms of extra-judicial killings in Cambodia before, during and after the July 1997 events that were characterised by the armed confrontation between two rival parties in the coalition government that led to the ousting of a democratically elected prime minister from office. Now, no single perpetrator of such crimes has been brought to justice. Those same Asian signatories have not pressed the Cambodian government to address this issue of impunity. Non-Asian signatories are more active over human rights issues in Cambodia.

Human Values, Asian Values

There are lessons to be learned from the recurrence of human rights violations in Cambodia and from the lack of active concern and action on the part of the State signatories to the Paris Peace Agreements to prevent such violations and to help address the issue of impunity and redress following such crimes:

1. The inability and/or unwillingness of the national authorities to enforce human rights, take effective measures and set up effective mechanisms for the enforcement of these rights;

2. The impossibility to rely on the concern and action of foreign countries whose interests are superior to those of the victims of human rights violations;

3. The need to create supra-national human rights enforcement institutions which can act to punish perpetrators and provide redress for victims upon complaints by these victims or by third parties, and which have authority to enforce their rulings.

All should join the call for the adoption of the Asian Human Rights Charter, the creation of an Asian Human Rights Commission and an Asian Human Rights Court.

We should call on greater nations to set examples for lesser nations and to take the lead in mobilising support for the Asian Human Rights Charter, an Asian Human Rights Commission and an Asian Human Rights Court.

We should only support States which have adhered to the international human rights instruments and which have good human rights records for their aspiration to be members of the U.N. Security Council and to lead international agencies.

Asian values are only respected when they are based on the discovery and teachings of human values of the most enlightened Asian man, Buddha; human values are the fundamental human rights themselves.