Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-11-Speech-4-136"
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"en.20020411.8.4-136"2
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"Mr President, Europe, too, alas, has a long history of the repression of ethnic minorities and peoples and of the expulsion and persecution of religions and faith communities, but our European Union sees itself as overcoming that and as a beacon for human rights. It is, then, of course, our task to ensure, as partners rather than as guardians, that universal human rights really are applied throughout the world. It is precisely because South-East Asia is an important and valued partner for us in economic and strategic terms that it is also our right and our duty to intervene in order that these universal principles be adhered to there.
What we are at present witnessing is a vicious circle. Ethnic minorities and the various peoples of the Vietnamese highlands are oppressed, with some of them fleeing to Cambodia and being accommodated in camps. For this we thank the Cambodians, who had great problems of their own with expellees and refugees, and who are poor and are in this instance practising solidarity – that too is a sight to behold. The Cambodians, though, of course send people, for all sorts of reasons, back to Vietnam, where they are again persecuted and oppressed, and there is another flow of refugees towards Cambodia. A vicious circle indeed.
If we want to break this vicious circle, which is imperilling the stability of the entire region, we must press, firstly, for Cambodia to continue to discharge its international obligations and perhaps do so even more than hitherto. Secondly, though, and this is of the essence, we must insist that Vietnam should at last treat its ethnic minorities and national communities with respect and protect them as it should, that it should not carry out settlement programmes to the detriment of the minorities, and that faith communities should receive proper protection. We stand up for the rights of all faith communities without discrimination, but, just as Muslims stand up for the rights of Muslims throughout the world – something for which I have a high regard – we should show an increasing commitment to the Christian minorities throughout the world, and it is not least because of them that we are under a great obligation."@en1
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