Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-16-Speech-3-124"
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"en.20000216.8.3-124"2
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"Mr President, this debate is mainly concerned with the preparations for the forthcoming annual UN Human Rights Convention and the Commission’s and Council’s efforts in this respect. I would first of all like to say that I am very pleased with the contributions made by Mr Patten and the Minister, and I welcome the fact that both China and Cuba are on the agenda.
Cuba is the last stronghold of dictatorship in South America and we must be mindful of this, with all due sympathy to Cuba. It is a dictatorship and hence not a democracy. I would, during my two minutes, like to draw attention to two countries which are close to my heart.
The first country is Indonesia. We are naturally delighted that Indonesia is under new rule and that Mr Wahid and Mrs Sukarnoputri are the new President and Vice-President. We are also pleased that the situation in Timor is slowly moving in the right direction. But I can report that in the Moluccas, an area just north of Timor, the violence is still not under control. This has claimed thousands of lives over the past two years. Tens of thousands of people are on the run. The situation is badly managed. I know that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, an important programme will be shown on Dutch television, in which an appeal will be made for observers. This is with the sole purpose of monitoring what exactly is going on, so that at least a record can be made, not least for the future, for human rights committees, of what has been happening. My urgent request, which has been echoed many times in resolutions, is the following: could you not confer so that observers can be sent to the Moluccas? Surely thousands of people killed, thousands wounded and tens of thousands on the run is enough.
My second country – I will be brief as Mr Patten knows this country very well – is Burma. Surely we cannot just keep silent about Burma. I have the feeling that that country is gradually being relegated to oblivion. For ten years now, the elected President of that country has been under house arrest. And for ten years now, its parliament has been out of action. Numerous MPs have been killed or have fled the country and only a few are left in Burma. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Thailand and India from Burma and yet it seems that that country is no longer given any attention. In my opinion, Burma should be put back on the agenda, too, certainly in the wake of Indonesia’s U-turn. Surely we cannot tolerate the fact that Mrs Aung San Sui Kyi feels completely left in the lurch, even by Europe. My request is, in fact, to put this country back on the top of the agenda."@en1
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