An Asian View of Human Rights

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/* Written  8:55 am  May  3, 1994 by sdenney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:bitl.seasia */
/* ---------- "An Asian View of Human Rights" ---------- */
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Since we have been informed that protesting caning and other human rights
abuses in Singapore is an imposition of Western values, I would like to
present an Asian's view on the subject of human rights and how it is
defined by regimes in Southeast Asia. This is an excerpt from a June 13,
l993 Radio France Internationa1 interview with Father Chan Tin, a
Vietnamese Catholic redemptorist priest. Father Tin was well known during
the Vietnam War for protesting political imprisonment in South Vietnam.
In more recent years he has been a critic of human rights abuses under
the present regime of Vietnam. He served three years of house arrest from
l990 to l993 for delivering three sermons on the need for national
repentance in Vietnam. The following excerpted interview occurred shortly
after his release:

QUESTION: I would like to ask you about this concept which is not only
the concept of the state of Vietnam, but also the concept of many
oriental states: Asian governments refuse to acknowledge the current
criteria for human rights. They are for the theory which says, in the
Asian view of the world, human rights are only the people's rights.

ANSWER: I saw that regimes in Southeast Asia, in the first place
Communist countries but also countries with military dictatorships, have
one point in common: they don't respect the human person. That is why
they put up the regime which suits them. They have built up regimes which
protect their interests. I have found it quite alarming, that in
Southeast Asia, not only the communist nations are in this category, but
others like Burma.. The rulers there only think about protecting the
interests of the governing class.. They consider the population as an
instrument which permits them to establish their power and enrich
themselves without any honesty or scruples. That is truly alarming.
        Recently, I followed the debates of the Bangkok Conference on
human rights. The participants agreed together to defend a concept which
does not respect human rights. They affirmed that human dignity varies
according to the country. It is not that way. I have said earlier, there
might be some differences, but fundamentally, it is the same everywhere.
It was that very reality that the participants at the Bangkok conference
had expressed when they signed the International Declaration of Human
Rights. They recognized it. But, generally, their current position is
motivated by their ambitions and personal passions. That is why they
desire to have the "regional human rights," human rights tailored to their
style. They carved out an ideology of human rights in which those rights
don't exist. The position maintained by the Far East countries looks like
the one currently in our country, in Vietnam: the human person is an