Eloquent voice of human rights

From two of Asia's leading spokesmen for the status quo, we heard the same old arguments against political change. Lee Kuan Yew, who ruled Singapore with a firm grip for 30 years as prime minister and still sits in cabinet as Senior Minister, warned against the "wholesale onslaught of our way of doing things", including Singapore's "methods of dialogue and intercourse". Singapore laws limit political discussion.

Mr Lee said the island republic must avoid bringing about change that could make the system collapse.

He said the government would gradually ease limits on what was accepted politically in Singapore as society developed, a promise long made by his successor, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

In Kuala Lumpur, opening the 12th Commonwealth Law Conference, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad remarked that ideas about human rights were "getting more and more peculiar". He said the rights of a political dissident were thought by many people to outweigh the well-being of the rest of the population.

"Impoverishing millions of people, depriving them of medicine, even killing large numbers of them, directly or indirectly are not considered violations of human rights," he said.

"But arrest a political dissident and the whole world condemns the government for violations of human rights."

Malaysian opposition parties have denounced the recent arrests of members, under public assembly laws, for demonstrating against the government.

The necessity for governments to place community welfare above that of the individual, develop their nations' economies and guard against racial strife has long been used in Asia as justification for delaying the implementation of full democracy and for retaining draconian laws that allow arrest without trial.

These notions were firmly rejected by Wole Soyinka, one of Africa's leading writers and a Nobel laureate, who also spoke at the conference.

He said humanity was without any further excuses. The choice was between freedom and legality or power and tyranny.

Noting that certain prominent leaders had advanced the need for a middle-way approach to human rights, which took into account cultural differences and social diversity, he said there was a "great danger in advancing special feelings of cultural relativity".

"I do not find anything strange, alien or external about the providence of fundamental human rights," he said.

Mr Soyinka took issue with the argument that individual rights and freedoms must be abrogated to the imperatives of economic considerations.

He said a country grew only by the liberation of the productive potential of every citizen and this could not be achieved by restricting the processes of thought and communication and "the sense of security of the individual".

In 1967, during the Nigerian civil war, Mr Soyinka was accused of supporting Biafran separatists. He was arrested and sentenced to 27 months in solitary confinement.

He believes in the importance of building strong democratic structures, which are "there ready to challenge any abuse at the top and to control any potential excesses of the ruling power".