A timely reminder to govt on human rights

You rightly draw attention to the importance of review by the UN Human Rights Council, as guardian of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is a unique tool to allow government to see ourselves as others see us and avail of the cumulative experience of the council itself and of other countries. In July 2005, on the occasion of Thailand's first report to the council of that time, the government officials who participated behaved like a batting cricket team, defending all its actions and responding with half-truths and evasion, refusing to engage in open discussion. It would appear the ministries involved are again preparing a whitewash while the recommendations made on the former occasion are mostly ignored.

Rightly again, you draw attention to the inadequacies of another important support for human rights, the National Human Rights Commission, remarking that "somehow" it has failed expectations. Its recommendations in the past are disregarded. But worst of all, a second commission has been appointed in disregard of the Paris principles, which define such commissions. The number of commissioners has been reduced despite the fact that the former larger commission had too few members to handle all the business proposed to it.

Civil society has been denied representation, most commissioners lack human-rights credentials and experience. The commission has been relocated to an area difficult to access and is immersed in a complex of government offices, where its independent status is hardly prominent.

Human rights are not a certificate hanging on the wall of a government office. They are a philosophy and measure of moral sense that must inform all action.

You cannot put someone to death and claim that the offer of a choice of last meal, a sermon preached by a monk, the opportunity to hastily write a will and to make an unannounced phone call, take account of human rights. It is not possible to forcefully expel migrant people and claim that all the norms of human rights have been observed in the process.

The United Nations, its treaties and courts, its vote on a moratorium on the death penalty, such treaties as the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, are the measure of human rights, not the reports and warnings of any superpower, less still a hypothetical Asean programme "should the Asean countries … manage to ameliorate their human-rights records in years to come".

DANTHONG BREEN

BANGKOK

Hmong never asked to be involved in conflict

I hear and read today of many, many Hmong forcibly returned to Laos. With great sadness. I have loved Thailand, especially Isaan, since getting off a bus in Ban Phai, Khon Kaen in 1965. I lived and worked there for two years and have been married to a Thai born there for over four decades. We visit our large Thai family in Bangkok as often as we can. And always return to Ban Phai.

All around the far side of the Mekong 40 years ago, the wars and the killing raged. So close to Ban Phai, jets thundered from many huge Thai bases to bomb three nations. And stuck in the middle of all that hell were the peaceful Hmong, who just wanted to be left alone ... by everybody. My nation convinced many Laotians and Hmong to "help" fight our wars. And like the Vietnamese refugees before them, Thailand was asked to shelter them and could hardly refuse even at great cost. All the camps were only way stations ... never meant as permanent settlements. But how to resettle all of them?

Many Hmong are here in southern California, and I have taught their children in high-school classrooms. Like all young people, they will adapt and embrace their new culture and be just fine. It has been much harder on their parents. They struggle with everything from the weather to the food to the language to the city life.

For many, returning to Laos would be most welcome. But what do they ... or these new thousands carted back across the Mekong from Phetchabun ... return to? How will they be greeted ... and treated?

I sincerely hope the Thai and Lao governments achieve some kind and gentle solution to all the terrible scars and memories of war.

And I also hope the UN and my country do what we can to smooth the path of those people ... so much like the people of Isaan whom I love. We all escaped that hell across the Mekong.

TOM SLOSS

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA