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Article: Asian Summit Snags on Human Rights; Activists Pull Out of Meeting After Ultimatum by Burma and Cambodia
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- March 1, 2009
- Author:
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A summit of Southeast Asian countries got off to a rocky start
Saturday when the leaders of Burma and Cambodia threatened to walk
out of a meeting on human rights if activists from their countries
were included. The activists reluctantly offered to withdraw, and
the meeting went ahead without them.
The annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
is the first since the organization formally signed a charter that,
among other things, mandates the establishment of an independent
human rights body as part of a program to make the organization
"more caring and sharing," in the words of Abhisit Vejjajiva,
Thailand's prime minister and the group's chairman.
"We need to make ASEAN ...