Asia’s Democracy and the Roles of the International Society for Its Improvement: Beyond Activism

Sanjeewa Liyanage¹

I am pleased to write this reflection on the occasion of the 41st Commemoration of the Gwangju Purising. When I first visited Gwangju in May 1996, I built a lasting bond with the city and its people. Since then, I visited Gwangju over a dozen time, often in the month of May to jin commemoration ceremonies of the Gwangju Uprising. s a result, I am connected to a group of remarkable individuals in Gwangju and South Korea. Some of them have become life-long friends and I have learned a lot from them. I saw a life long commitment to democracy in individuals in the country,. I also experienced what South Korea has done beyond activism to restore and strengthen its democracy and rule of law.

Democracy in Asia is still young, fragile, and unstable. Electing a government by the people does not necessarily mean that democracy is established in the country. What we see today is that governments are elected one after another but progress of achieving democracy is sluggish or often stagnant. When there are efforts to establish democracy, for example in Myanmar or Thailand, they seem to be short-lived. What can the civil society do? And what can the international community do to strengthen democracy in Asia?

The late Soh Eugene was one of the most articulate persons when it came to telling the story of the Gwangju Uprising to the world. He once said, the one thing Gwangju people achieved was to send the military out of politics and back to its barracks. Political analysts and academics have written much about rising militarism in Asia. At the time of writing this article, over 400 persons, including children and pregnant women, have been slaughtered on the streets of Myanmar by soldiers during a period of 7 weeks. In Sri Lanka, civilian duties have been handed over to military leaders. And in Thailand the military has played an active role to keep their control over and over. The question is why countries fail to achieve a steady progress in democracy? And what is the role of the civil society and the international community to restore democracy in Asia?

First, democracy should not be discussed in a vacuum. When we discuss democracy, we should always include democratic institutions. During my last 30+ years of involvement in the fields of human rights, rule of law and criminal justice, I have often seen civil society’s (individuals and organizations) activism focusing on human rights violations and finding remedies. In fact, the story of Gwangju is closely linked to that—Gwangju citizens fought for years to restore the honor of persons who had sacrificed themselves during and in the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising. However, after May 1980, and also after the event of June 1987, there was also a parallel effort to restore not just democracy but to rebuild democratic institutions in South Korea. Through institutional building, there was an effort to move from the rule by law used by the military or authoritarian regimes to establish the rule of law and to strengthen democratic and rule of law institutions. There was an effort to right the wrongs—change bad habits practiced by rule of law institutions and to create accountability and transparency. In short, there was an effort for a system change.

To restore democracy there needs to be a system change within democratic institutions, especially in the rule of law and justice institutions, starting from the police to courts. This may sound like a legalistic approach to discuss democracy. But, if there is no credible and independent rule of law or justice institutions, it is very hard or even impossible to make progress in democracy. The rule of law and democracy are intrinsically linked. Reforming rule of law and democratic institutions is not easy—it takes time and persistent efforts.

When it comes to human rights protection in Asia, where do most violations occur? I would say they occur in the police station and in detention centers and prisons. There are laws in almost every Asian country to protect rights of individuals within its boundaries. But rights violations continue to happen. Institutions, especially due process rights protection institutions are unprofessional, corrupt, violent and often under the influence of politicians and those who are legally and illegally powerful. As human rights organizations and activists, most of us monitor these violations, report them, voice out outrage and anger through press statements and protests. Most of these violations are highlighted and discussed for hours in small and big human rights conferences that often cost a lot of money. Academics make analysis, organizations make statements, books are published, and activists are honored with awards. But human rights violations continue to happen and human rights situations continue to worsen.

Victims of violations in many countries are never provided with complete remedies. When I say remedies, it is not just bringing perpetrators of violations to justice but also finding out the truth. Truth seeking needs persistence and commitment. Lee Jay Eui, who authored Gwangju Diary (Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age) has dedicated his life for truth seeking—he is still painstakingly collecting information and evidence about the Gwangju Uprising, 41 years after the Uprising. His objective is to seek the full truth. It is not just through justice you achieve reconciliation but also with knowing the full truth. Shelton Handuwela, a father of a high school student in Sri Lanka who was abducted and disappeared involuntarily around 1990, visited Gwangju in 2005 to join the May 18 commemoration. A number of police and military personnel were sent to jail for kidnapping his son and over 40 other school children from one classroom. It was the first case in Sri Lanka that convicted state officials for committing enforced disappearances. While the international community commended that the perpetrators be sent to prison, this father told me, (in fact right after commemoration events at the May 18 Cemetery) “Sending those police officers to jail is not sufficient. What I really want is to know the truth—What happened to my son? Where was he killed? Where are his remains? Until I know all that, there is no justice and reconciliation.” Just this year a series of interviews of family members of the disappeared was conducted and shared through social media by a well-known social commentator. These family members who have been seeking truth for over 30 years had one clear message—even though they may never be able to know the truth of what happened to the disappeared, they continue to advocate for change: not just change of laws but institutional changes that would never allow such disappearances to happen in Sri Lanka again.

Now let me return to the question: What can civil society do? And what can the international community do to strengthen democracy in Asia? Here is what I think: we need to redefine activism and go beyond activism as understood in the traditional sense. We need to go beyond criticizing and protesting. We need to engage the broader community to strengthen democratic and rule of law institutions. We need to invest in institutional building, sometimes with drastic reforms to get rid of decades-old corrupt, unprofessional and violent practices. Therefore, I would urge the international community to invest in professionalization and capacity building of due process and justice institutions. Civil society organizations need to prioritize institutional building. For that, we need to seek broader support from like-minded professionals in the concerned country and from outside. We need to learn from best practices within Asia and beyond. We need to create action plans with clear timelines to reform institutions. We need to set targets to achieve progress. We need resources, especially monitory resources to be allocated for an institutional reform and rebuilding and strengthening. The international community needs to invest in institutional building in Asian countries—development aids need to include democratic and rule of law institutional reforms and re-building.

As civil society members, we need to include reforming and strengthening of democratic institutions in our agenda. We cannot simply leave it to politicians to deal with it. If we do that, it will never make progress. We need to go beyond activism circles and involve various current and retired professionals and civil servants into the process. We need to create forums to bridge polarized groups and have them agree on one important goal--the need to work together to strengthen democratic and the rule of law institutions. We need to build a joint vision for transparent, professional and just democratic and rule of law institutions and have concrete action plans, with timelines to achieve that vision. We need to involve all political parties to own that vision, so that regime change will not affect that long term goal. Democratic and rule of law institutional reforms, including allocating sufficient budgets for such reforms, should be in the policies of all political parties. We as the civil society need to engage with politicians, first to remind them constantly, and second to have them commit to a common agenda to reform and strengthen the rule of law and democratic institutions.

I cannot say that any one country in Asia has perfect democratic institutions. Although torture was used on students and political activists in 1980s and 1990s in Korea, subsequently that practice was outlawed by legislation. But the practice or use of torture or coercive methods by the police has continued in normal criminal cases in South Korea. For example, the case highlighted in the movie New Trial (재심), where a young suspect was tortured to confess to a crime he did not commit, did not happen in isolation. South Korean lawyer, Park Joon-young, who is the hero in this movie told me that there are over dozen cases where there have been wrongful convictions in South Korea. He has worked with perseverance and with much personal sacrifice to overturn some. He is still fighting to overturn other cases and seeking justice for the victims of those wrongful convictions. Through his work he is sending a strong message: there are systematic problems with the rule of institutions in South Korea. And system change needs a persistent approach and concerted approach by many. I know politically motivated prosecutions can still happen in South Korea as some of my dear friends have been victims of such cases in recent years. This means, institutional reforms can take decades. The message we have here is to keep those reforms in a progressive way. Reforms do not happen automatically—we need to exert pressure on the state to keep at those reforms and we, as the civil society, also need to be engaged in those processes.

When I started this article with the title Beyond Activism, I did not intend to view activism itself negatively. What I wanted to tell is that discussions within the civil society and protest actions by the civil society alone is not sufficient. We need a kind of paradigm shift in the approach to strengthen democracy—to strengthen democratic institutions, including the rule of law and justice institutions. We cannot just say that it is the responsibility of the government to do so. If we have that mindset, then real system changes would not happen. It is more important to prevent violations from happening than acting after they happened. Democratic and rule of law institutional or system change can only allow such prevention.