Failing over rights, failing ourselves
As they posed before the media cameras, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen were all smiles. According to their official statement, they were both looking for joint prosperity as the two countries aim to boost cooperation.
Gen Prayut arrived in the Cambodian capital yesterday for talks and for the third Cambodia-Thailand Joint Cabinet Retreat that he and Hun Sen co-chaired. The meeting agenda ranged from economic cooperation and migrant workers to security.
The timing of Gen Prayut’s visit was critical. Cambodia has been in the international spotlight for its clampdown on the free press, with the forced closure of The Cambodia Daily, one of the country’s most stridently independent newspapers that operated for more than 24 years, over a tax dispute that is believed to be politically motivated. There are growing concerns in Cambodia over the heavyhanded treatment by strongman Hun Sen of his critics. Three other news outlets — Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, and Voice of Democracy — were also casualties of the media clampdown; while Khem Sokha, a prominent opposition leader, was arrested on treason charges.
But Gen Prayut and Hun Sen didn’t allow such concerns to spoil their mood. After all, the two leaders are more than familiar with the “non-interference in other country’s internal affairs” principle member countries of Asean uphold so tightly.
Besides, with such a joint “prosperity” goal, there is no place for troublesome issues such as human rights and freedom of expression on the meeting agenda.
The closure of The Cambodia Daily sent shock waves to media outlets in other countries in the region, in particular Thailand and Myanmar, where journalists are more than familiar with such suppression.
Similar indifference could be seen at a meeting when Thai leaders met their Myanmar counterparts. On Aug 29, while the international community was concerned over human rights abuses in Rakhine state, the topic was a non-issue for Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwon and those attending the fifth Thai-Myanmar High-Level Committee meeting in Khon Kaen, Thailand.
The discussion about clashes between the Myanmar army and Rohingya Muslim insurgents was more about having faith in Myanmar to solve the conflict amid assurances there would be “no intervention in their domestic affairs”. Gen Prawit said Myanmar’s Supreme Commander Min Aung Hlaing asked for the Thai government’s cooperation to use the term “Bengalis” for Rohingya, a request Thailand was more than willing to comply with.
Myanmar’s stance on the use of the term Bengalis means Myanmar will not accept Rohingya as its citizens, and the conflict will not end anytime soon. But the Thai military regime doesn’t care.
Instead, Thai leaders seemed to focus more on the possibility of an influx of boat people, not the rising death toll and human rights violations that sent them fleeing on their boats in the first place. Since the clashes broke out in Rakhine on 25 Aug, more than 100 people have been killed, many of them children, and over 125,000 Rohingya forced to flee.
The indifference on the part of the Thai leaders over suppression of human rights is no surprise to me. In Thailand too, human rights violations, especially limitations on freedom of expression, are a big problem.
In many cases of arrests and legal threats against dissidents, academics and critics, more than three year after the 2014 coup, we are plagued by the excessive use of harsh laws such as those concerning sedition, computer crime and the ban on political gatherings, implemented by the regime, whose chairman is also the current prime minister of Thailand.
Myanmar and Cambodian leaders keep mum on such difficult issues, while in Thailand they indulge in a world of make believe, with the use of “feel-good” props, as villagers in Sa Kaeo’s Khok Sung district found out recently.
In what is designed as “shared prosperity” in government-to-government meetings, leaders have no interest in the shared problem of human rights violations, intensified by deep-rooted discrimination and the use of authoritarian power. Perhaps they know it’s not wise to criticise others, or they would risk being ridiculed. It would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
But the leaders should know that we cannot ignore such significant issues as human rights and freedom of expression if we want quality growth and genuine prosperity in the long run. We also need respect from the international community and to maintain our national dignity.