Editorials
Wednesday, July 30, 1997SECRETARY of State Madeleine Albright encountered unexpected criticism at the usually sedate annual meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Unfazed, she responded with her customary bluntness. The exchange with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur exposed raw edges in Western-Southeast Asian relations. But nothing would have been gained by trying to ignore the criticism, and to her credit Albright met it head on. Albright ably defended
policies at ASEANMahathir touched off the fireworks at the meetings when he said in an address to ASEAN that "rogue speculators" bent on ruining ASEAN's fast-track economies were driving down regional currencies. He later named American financier George Soros as the chief culprit. Then at a meeting with Albright Mahathir called for a review of the 1948 United Nations Human Rights Declaration, saying it needed to be updated.
Albright, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, sensed that Mahathir was not interested in updating but in watering down the document. She vowed that "the United States will be relentless in its opposition" to any dilution of the declaration.
Albright and her deputies rejected the charge that speculators were responsible for the weakening of regional currencies, starting in Thailand and spreading to neighboring countries. A State Department spokesman defended Soros and observed that currency problems are usually caused by the policies of the governments involved. Albright also strongly criticized the government of Burma, which has just been admitted to ASEAN over U.S. objections because of its repressive policies.
In all of these positions, the secretary of state was enunciating long-standing American views in support of human rights and free markets. Unfortunately some member nations of ASEAN are not as committed to these values, a fact that has usually been glossed over in previous meetings. Mahathir is notorious for anti-Western outbursts. His depiction of the human rights declaration as an attempt to foist Western values on Asians had to be rejected.
ASEAN is faced with the consequences of its blurring of the importance of human rights and democracy. It has brought condemnation from the West upon its collective head for admitting Burma and was forced to defer the admission of Cambodia because of the embarrassing coup that reversed the results of the 1993 U.N.-sponsored elections.
The Kuala Lumpur sessions reflected a growing sense of independence from Western influence in Asian capitals that must be reckoned with in the Clinton administration, which has not paid enough attention to developments in the region. But with U.S. policies challenged, it was important that they be ably defended, and Albright did.
POL Pot, Cambodia's contribution to the worst mass murderers in history, is still alive but not well. And he has been sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life by the Khmer Rouge, the Communist forces he led down the path of genocide. This much is clear from a remarkable film made by Nate Thayer, an American correspondent who was allowed into the Khmer Rouge's redoubt in northern Cambodia to witness Pol Pot's trial. Before the trial, Pol Pot, now 69, had not been seen by anyone from the outside world in 20 years. Pol Pot's trial
There is no indication that the Khmer Rouge are willing to turn Pol Pot over to national or international authorities for trial. Until they do, justice will be denied the millions of Cambodian victims of his crimes.
HAWAII'S school system has received strange praise by the American Federation of Teachers for having strong standards in the core subjects of English, mathematics, science and social studies. It is strange because Hawaii's students are not tested to determine whether they measure up to those standards. Until the schools are provided the resources to implement those standards through testing, they are meaningless. Education standards
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
