by Sara Farr

There are no more human rights abuse in Asian than the rest of the world, and in overall general terms, the situation in Southeast Asia has “improved a lot,” and has become more generally democratic over the last 10 to 15 years, a British diplomat said.
Fraser Cameron, who has been a British diplomat for 15 years and is the director of the EU Russia Centre in Belgium, said yesterday in an interview with reporters that although there were a lot of cases of abuses of human rights, the number of cases in Asia is not greater than that of the rest of the world.
Cameron was in Macau for one day to lecture at the University of Macau on an Assessment of the EU Policy towards Asia, as part of the Jean Monnet seminars.
Naming countries such as North Korea, which “has a total of abuse of human rights” and Kashmir, Cameron said it was difficult to name just one country with the worse case of abuse of human rights.
In Afghanistan too, there are a lot of human rights abused for the European countries involved, Cameron said.
“In Southeast Asia, situation has improved a lot, and has become more generally democratic over the last 15 years,” Cameron said, adding that he thinks the EU “doesn't have a great deal of influence in issues and is a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).”
“Trying to promote the human rights agenda is a security agenda in itself for the EU.” And as such “I wouldn't say there's more [human rights abuse] in Asia than any other parts of the world,” he added.
To paint the picture, Cameron said that the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is “definitely an abuse of human rights.”
“Europeans are angered at the [United States'] behaviour plus the CIA rendition flights and the abuse at Abu Ghraib [prison in Iraq],” he said, adding that these are doing a “huge damage to America.”
“And because America is such an important ally to the European Union, this also has repercussions [for the EU].”
“How could you go into to many Middle East countries, and promote democracy and human rights when America is doing this,” Cameron said. 
“They made it impossible, frankly.”
However, there isn't much the European Union can do, apart from pressuring Guantanamo to close, but essentially it is a national security decision of the US.
“They have to find a way to deal with the prisoners there. If their home countries are not prepared to take them in, then where do they go? Do they still stay in America or do they go to other countries?,” Cameron said.
“I do think that America realises how damaging Guantanamo bay is to their image, and I'm sure they'd like to close it as quickly as possible,” he said, adding that “there are some real practical difficulties to put the people in there now.”

The Tibet issue
Even though some international country leaders, such as French president Nicolas Sarkozy, have said that if the Tibet issue continues, they will boycott the Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony, Cameron said there will be no such thing.
For Cameron, “there are certain international standards of behaviour that the international community is working towards,  and from a EU perspective there is no member state calling into question china's obscurantism over Tibet.”
And although for Cameron, the Tibet issue is not a question of interference, in today's interlinked world, “all problems are essentially global and countries have a right and duty to comment on them,” whether it is Tibet or elections in Zimbabwe.
The question for Cameron, however is whether the Chinese authorities are not making the issue worse by refusing to talk to the Dalai Lama, or “not making greater efforts to achieve genuine autonomy for Tibet.”
The issue is not one to bring many people to the streets in Europe, because the EU is just as concerned about Tibet as it is with other parts of the world like Burma or Myanmar, but not more.
“There's interest in it [the Tibet issue], mainly because of the link to the Olympics, but I wouldn't go and over-dramatise the importance of it,” Cameron said.
The initial international response to  Tibet was “very crude propaganda” and “almost counter productive,” according to Cameron.
However, China, which is the EU's biggest trade partner, will not let politics interfere with business, since the Chinese “need” the European “know-how” in a number of areas, as well as the European and US markets.
“So it's an area where all sides have mutual benefits,” Cameron said.
But in overall terms, Asians are often preached at by the EU and international communities, and instead of coming into a country with a social pragmatic point of view, these international communities make a “big fuss about a single issue or even individuals.”
“They're often quite good for headlines, but don't achieve very much,” Cameron added.
What these international communities should do is find neutral areas of common concern where both sides can work together in projects, Cameron said, giving examples on issues such as how to deal with corruption, how to improve the rule of law, the judicial system, police forces, and deal with corporate government and social responsibilities.
“It's not that the EU should not raise these kind of issues, I think there's every right to do so, but there's a perception that there are double standards that they [EU and international communities] don't take into account.”
Issues such as history and colonial legacy, are not taken into account in the development of Asian countries, and “they approach it as if there are only European values and standards, and nothing else to be taken into account.”
“I think it's one of a mental attitude that's the problem in terms of how Europeans approach most of Asia,” Cameron added.