Your Excellencies, it’s our pleasure to meet and greet the leaders of our nations. Thank you for this opportunity to have this honest dialogue.
We just completed a successful ASEAN Peoples Forum 2015 in Kuala Lumpur with 1500 people in attendance from all ASEAN countries, as well as about 500 people in the 4 preparatory meetings prior, with the support of Financial Assistance , without conditions, from the Prime Minister of Malaysia and other donors. I thank you.
I am Jerald Joseph, the Chair of the ASEAN Peoples Forum 2015 and have been working together since September 2014 to prepare our selves for the Peoples Forum. We take our deliberations seriously and with integrity as civil society; and so too for this. We stand here having received the support of a larger ASEAN CSO community.
To that end we are pleased to announce that ONLY Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar interface representatives enjoy the full support of the Asean People Forum 2015 process, that have gone through a CSO national process. We thank these governments.
In the last 10 years since the 1st ACSC in Kuala Lumpur, the Interface has gone through some choppy roads and at many times been extremely disappointing by some governments. Its time the CSO interface has an institutional and a truly people centered framework. We are ready to work with you on getting this framework ready. The post 2015 vision must come up with a framework for engagement with Heads of States and Ministerial meetings, in order for us to continue engaging with ASEAN states, in a mutuality of respect from 2016 onwards.
We note the positive engagement that has emerged this time around when Foreign Ministers received our final statement submitted 2.5 months ahead and hope that Your Excellencies, would provide some concrete response to our statement at this Summit. Therefore this year at this interface, unlike previous ones, we have no new document to present but only reaffirm the Final Statement as sent earlier to all governments on Feb 17th.
We note the many challenges in Asean. We remain concerned that inequality continues to rise despite the promise of the ASEAN regional integration. We are worried with disappearances of human rights defenders without any information or accountability ; worried at the acceleration of death penalty executions; worried about the dangers of unmitigated free trade agreements; alarmed at the widespread corruption in the region in the face of escalating poverty, worried about the fragile peace processes that are on the verge of collapse; shocked at the growth of extremism in the name of religions that continue to be bred, observe the unabated exploitation of lands and waters for resources in the name of development; especially worried about the Rohingya stateless people in ASEAN region; anxious that a vibrant and truly democratic and multi party system is yet not in place in all nations; we remain shocked that police brutality and unprofessional conduct continues in the region; perplexed that till today there are still communities discriminated based on their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity; enquire on the lack of coherent commitment to climate change agenda; unhappy with the glorifying and strengthening of repressive colonial laws; growth of exploitation of migrant workers…Your Excellencies the list goes on and so does our concerns.
Don’t get us wrong please. We remain hopeful that this wonderful region can and must surely improve. We bring to your attention what we see, hear and feel on the ground with the only intention that the peoples deserve better to reclaim their dignity and human rights.
These concerns, though painful for all of us, must be told, in order to find faster resolutions. Don’t keep us out because we present a critical and honest evaluation. We are convinced that being open and transparent in our analysis and proposals, is the most constructive way forward. We believe that adversarial notions against CSOs must change in the post 2015 vision. We engage governments as our representatives to deliver on its duties and obligations of human rights as States.
We believe that your excellences share this same aspirations like us , as these have been inked in the ASEAN Charter since 2007. We too love our nations and its peoples.
For ASEAN to launch it community soon, we must truly believe that people are its core assets and anything to uphold their dignity and human rights is not a misplaced call, but a necessary ingredient for the growth of a people-centred community of people that ensures development and economic growth should not happen at the expense of the peoples.
Let us together work as partners for a truly People-Centred and People-Driven ASEAN.
I thank you and we look forward to this interactive time with Your Excellencies.
Jerald Joseph
CSO Representative of Malaysia and Chair of ACSC/APF 2015
Email : jjerald@pd.jaring.my
Mobile : +6012-2861715
Website : www.aseanpoeples.org