DAP expresses shock and dismay at the announcement by the Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Megat Junid Megat Ayub that the Cabinet had decided on the ban on the second Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor (APCET II) scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
I call on the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to reconsider and revoke the government ban on the APCET II in the interests of promoting an international civil society.
Even if the Malaysian government has decided not to support the objectives of the APCET II Conference to highlight the need for a peaceful resolution to the 21-year East Timor conflict, the government should not have banned the Conference. What the Malaysian government should have done is to allow the Conference to proceed, but publicly dissociating itself from it.
The promotion of a civil society, whether national or international, must mean room for dissent on a whole spectrum of issues, not only among members of a society but also between the government of the day and significant sections of the society, provided that these views are expressed in a peaceful and democratic manner.
Although the Malaysian Government regards East Timor as an Indonesian internal matter, the Malaysian Government must respect the views of those who disagree - just as Malaysia was right in insisting in the past that gross violations of human rights whether in apartheid South Africa, Israel-occupied Palestine or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, were not acceptable or could be dismissed as “internal domestic affairs” of another country!
By banning APCET II on Saturday, the Malaysian Government is not just merely taking a “hands off” policy on the East Timor question, but is supporting the Indonesian Government’s continued suppression of human rights in East Timor, including the detention of East Timor independence leader, Xanana Gusmao - a reverse form of “interfering in the internal affairs” of another country by supporting gross violations of human rights by the ruling regime.
The Malaysian Government may not agree with the award of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize to two Timorese, Roman Catholic bishop of East Timor, Carlos Belo and activist Jose Ramos-Horta, or support the several United Nations General Assembly resolutions on East Timor or had any sympathy for those who wish to seek justice and a negotiated settlement to uphold the right to self-determination of the Timorese after some 200,000 or a third of the Timorese population had died since 1975.
But these cannot be excuses or justifications for the Malaysian Government to ban meetings or conferences on East Timor unless we have no respect for a civil society, whether national or international.
(5/11/96)