ASEAN Peoples’ Forum calls for ‘people-centred’ justice ahead of ASEAN meeting

ASEAN’s largest civil society forum has released a collective statement highlighting regional priorities and overarching cross-cutting concerns regarding a call for a more people-centred approach to governance in a region plagued by authoritarian regimes and “elite governance.”

26 January 2015 | Written by Mizzima | Published in Regional

ASEAN’s largest civil society forum has released a collective statement highlighting regional priorities and overarching cross-cutting concerns regarding a call for a more people-centred approach to governance in a region plagued by authoritarian regimes and “elite governance.”

The statement by the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum 2015 was released on January 24 ahead of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting taking place on January 26 and 27 in Kuala Lumpur.

“We hope that through this statement, the voices of all people will be heard by ASEAN leaders. ASEAN policies must benefit its most marginalized communities, not work against them,” said Ms Wathshlah Naidu of Women’s Aid Organisation in Malaysia, who led the drafting process of the statement.

“ASEAN seeks to realize the ASEAN Economic Community by the end of this year. Our message has never been more urgent,” she added.

The statement entitled, “Reclaiming the ASEAN Community for the People,” highlights the need for focus on people’s issues over elite issues that includes the upholding of human rights, accountability, improved migrant workers’ rights, justice going hand-in-hand with development, and the need for peace, security and freedom for the region’s citizens.

“Our engagement with the ASEAN process is therefore anchored on a critique and rejection of deregulation, privatisation, government and corporate-led trade and investment policies that breed greater inequalities, accelerate marginalization and exploitation, and inhibit peace, democracy, development, and social progress in the region,” the group said in its statement.

The ASEAN People’s Forum holds an annual conference that attracts thousands of civil society members from across ASEAN. The 2014 meeting was held in Myanmar and this year the group will meet in Malaysia in April.

U Soe Min Than of the Singapore-based Think Centre said: “Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged to ‘make ASEAN as close as possible to the people.’ We’re hoping that ASEAN governments will meet us at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting to receive and discuss the statement.”

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak made this pledge during the handing over ceremony of the ASEAN Chairmanship from Myanmar to Malaysia in November last year.

Last modified on Monday, 26 January 2015 17:11

SOURCE www.mizzima.com