human rights at bandung burke

"The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom": Human Rights at theBandung Conference

Burke, Roland.

Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 28, Number 4, November 2006, pp.947-965 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/hrq.2006.0041

For additional information about this article

Access Provided by CNRS BiblioSHS at 12/15/12 2:25PM GMT

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hrq/summary/v028/28.4burke.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hrq/summary/v028/28.4burke.html

HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY

Human Rights Quarterly 28 (2006) 947–965 © 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

“The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom”: Human Rights at the Bandung Conference

Roland Burke*

ABSTRACT

This article explores the place of human rights at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, a meeting that founded the Third World as a po-litical entity. Contrary to most existing accounts of the conference, which emphasize the anti-colonialism and latent anti-Westernism of the partici-pants, it will argue that there was a significant positive engagement with human rights by a range of newly decolonized states. When recognition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was challenged by Communist China, that document found enthusiastic champions at the conference, in-cluding Charles Malik, one of the major figures involved in its creation.

At Bandung something unexpected happened. The voices of freedom spoke clearly and decisively.

Carlos Pena Romulo, Philippine delegate, 1956.1

* Roland Burke is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Mel-bourne. His thesis examines the impact of decolonization on the international human rights project between 1950 and 1979. His work is based on original research from the Personal Papers of Charles Malik, as well as other documentary sources from foreign service archives in Australia, the United States, and United Kingdom.

The author would like to thank Dr. Robert Horvath, University of Melbourne, and Pro-fessor Richard A. Wilson, Director of the Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut, for their comments on earlier versions of this article. He is also grateful to Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law School, Dr. Habib C. Malik, Professor Susan Waltz, University of Michigan, Associate Professor Antonia Finnane, University of Melbourne, and Dr. Chris-topher Waters, Deakin University, for their assistance and encouragement in this research.

1. Carlos P. romulo, The meaning of Bandung 54 (1956). For commentary on this source and its problems, see George McT. Kahin, The Meaning of Bandung, 312 annals am. aCad. Pol. & soC. sCi. 141, 142 (1957)(book review). Romulo reflects further on Bandung in Carlos P. romulo, forTy years: a Third World soldier aT The un 137–46 (1986).

Vol. 28948 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY

I. INTRoDUCTIoN

In this article the author examines the place of human rights at the founding moment of the Third World as a political entity at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. Contrary to much of the current scholar-ship, which either denigrates or ignores this aspect of the conference, the author argues that there was a clear commitment to human rights among the delegates at Bandung. The conference did not mark the genesis of Third World hostility to human rights. Instead, it was an expression of the considerable sympathy the African and Asian states had for human rights in the early post-colonial period.

The Bandung Conference was one of the most significant events in the emergence of an independent Third World. For the first time, the free states of Asia and Africa assembled to discuss common problems and attempted to formulate a united approach to international relations. It was a milestone in the decolonization process that reshaped both Asia and Africa, a pro-cess that would ultimately produce an almost unprecedented revolution in international relations. Leopold Senghor, former Prime Minister of Senegal, extolled the conference as the most historic event in the past five centuries. “Since the age of the Renaissance,” Senghor wrote, “no event has ever been of such historic significance.”2

Bandung collected most of the leading anti-colonial politicians of the era, men who became iconic figures in many countries across Asia and Africa. Traditional accounts have emphasized the contributions made by these anti-colonial voices, who were indisputably some of the most influential in the conference proceedings. Zhou Enlai, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Ahmed Sukarno are all accorded prominent places in the pantheon of Third World heroes that gathered at Bandung to denounce colonialism and foster Afro-Asian solidarity.

As the foundational moment of the Third World, Bandung was almost immediately accorded special significance among Afro-Asian leaders from across the ideological spectrum. Neutralists, like Nehru, Nasser, and Sukarno, were enthusiastic about the emergence of a new, non-aligned bloc, and mythologized the conference as the birthplace of Afro-Asian non-alignment. Zhou Enlai saw it as an opportunity to win allies in Asia and Africa, and exploited the legacy of Bandung when courting newly independent states in his 1963 African tour. Those states allied to the West left the conference declaring it a triumph for freedom and democracy in the Third World.

2. Extract from Les nationalismes d’outre-mer et l’avenir des peuples de couleur, Ency-clopédie française, pt. II, Section C, Chapter 11, 1959 reprinted in PhiliPPe Braillard & mohammad-reza djalili, The Third World and inTernaTional relaTions 57 (1986).

2006 Human Rights at the Bandung Conference 949

The legacy of the conference was encapsulated in the phrase “the Spirit of Bandung,” an idea that dominated the political rhetoric of a generation of Third World leaders. When Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, he did so in the name of Bandung. Less dramatically, Nehru cited Bandung and its principles with metronomic regularity in almost every foreign policy pronouncement he made until the end of the decade. Even today, politicians across Africa and Asia invoke the myth of Bandung. It has become central to the very idea of the Third World.

II. BANDUNG AND HUMAN RIGHTS: CURRENT SCHoLARSHIp

In Bandung historiography, few studies devote much attention to those aspects of the conference outside the categories of colonialism, the politics of Afro-Asian solidarity, and the evolution of non-aligned movement.3 The question of human rights, which constituted one of the seven main articles of the conference Final Communiqué, has been virtually absent from schol-arship on Bandung.

Specialized historical studies of the human rights movement also tend to ignore the Bandung Conference. Mary Ann Glendon, one of the few scholars to discuss human rights at Bandung, argued that the conference’s significance lay predominantly in its latent anti-Western dimension.4 Ac-cording to Glendon, the conference “signaled trouble ahead” for universal human rights.5 The solidarity at Bandung was arrived at “through shared resentment of the dominance of a few rich and powerful countries.”6 This anti-Western “mood” at Bandung soon translated into “characterizations of the [Universal] Declaration as an instrument of neocolonialism and in attacks on its universality in the name of cultural integrity, self-determina-tion of peoples, or national sovereignty.”7 For Glendon, Bandung began the

3. Two accounts of the history of Afro-Asian unity that offer detailed examination of Bandung and its legacy have been produced, see g.h. jansen, afro-asia and non-alignmenT (1966); david KimChe, The afro-asian movemenT: ideology and foreign PoliCy of The Third World (1973). The only detailed documentary study of Bandung to date is george mCTurnan Kahin, The asian-afriCan ConferenCe: Bandung, indonesia, aPril 1955 (1956).

4. Paul Gordon Lauren, another specialist historian on the development of international human rights, is one of the few scholars to devote significant positive attention to Bandung. In his two texts, Lauren provides a brief discussion of the place of human rights at the conference and its implications, see Paul gordon lauren, The evoluTion of inTernaTional human righTs: visions seen 241 (2nd ed. 2003) and, to a lesser extent, Paul gordon lauren, PoWer and PrejudiCe: The PoliTiCs and diPlomaCy of raCial disCriminaTion 223–29 (2d ed. 1996).

5. mary ann glendon, a World made neW : eleanor roosevelT and The universal deClaraTion of human righTs 215 (2001).

6. Id. at 223. 7. Id. at 224.


steady decline in respect for the human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and “[b]efore long, a potent mixture of resentment and political expediency would fuel a Third World critique of the whole Declaration as ‘Western.’”8 In this assessment, Bandung was the point of origin for some of the most potent critiques of the human rights concept, albeit only in embryonic form.9

That Glendon has taken this position on Bandung is somewhat surprising. In her outstanding history of the making of the UDHR, she made a compel-ling case for the intimate involvement of Third World voices in the founding years of the human rights program at the UN. Two of the figures celebrated in that work, Charles Malik and Carlos Romulo, also played an important role at Bandung, an avenue of research Glendon does not explore.

This paper challenges the negative presumptions about the conference and its relationship to human rights. Contrary to Glendon’s assertion, I argue that there was a serious positive engagement with human rights questions among the Afro-Asian states assembled in Bandung. In my discussion, I demonstrate four main points. First, human rights formed an integral part of the political vocabulary at Bandung, and were one of the foremost topics of debate. Second, there was a significant level of continuity between human rights debates at Bandung and the debates over the UDHR at the UN. Third, the question of colonialism, the defining issue of the conference, was in many respects a question about human rights. Finally, the two major challenges to human rights in non-Western states, authoritarian developmentalism and cultural relativism, were not yet apparent at Bandung in any meaningful sense. Rather than inaugurating the age of radical Third Worldist hostility towards rights, the conference came at a point when many Afro-Asian states were some of the most outspoken advocates of universal human rights, even if their domestic practices often fell short of their international rhetoric.

III. HUMAN RIGHTS: BANDUNG’S FoRGoTTEN DEBATE

Even before the Conference began, human rights were highlighted as a central issue for discussion. The appeal came from an Egyptian senator, Mahmoud Aboul Fath. During the early 1950s, Fath had been one of Nasser’s

8. Id. at 216. Glendon’s analysis of the fate of the human rights program is essentially correct, but in locating the beginning of these trends at Bandung, she perhaps under-estimates the level of support human rights attracted at the conference.

9. Glendon’s pessimism is not altogether unwarranted. Charles Malik’s private appraisal of the conference is generally quite negative, and he repeatedly laments the incipient anti-democratic tendency that seems to be developing across the decolonized world. Nevertheless, this concern seems much more focused on potential problems emerging in the next decade, rather than a critique of the human rights attitudes at Bandung itself.


close allies, serving as a propagandist and speech-writer for the new leader. His newspaper, Al-Misri, was a key organ for disseminating the nationalist rhetoric of the new Republican government. Although, as the authoritarian tendencies of the regime became increasingly apparent, Fath became a vo-cal critic of Nasser and his emerging dictatorship. Al-Misri was promptly suppressed, and Fath fled into exile.10

In his letter to the Bandung delegates, Fath exhorted the conference not to ignore human rights in the clamor to condemn colonialism:

How can you ask colonialist and imperialist countries to put an end to the ruth-less methods they employ in Africa and Asia, to restore freedoms and human rights to peoples under their influence when some of you treat their [your] own peoples in a worse way? Such a call will sound weak and lack some sincerity unless your courage will know no bounds or limits when conditions in countries represented in your own congress are concerned. . . . The violation of human rights is certainly bad and intolerable when committed by imperialists against peoples on whom they force their authority but it is also worse and more ob-noxious [when] committed by a few nationals against their own people.11

The extent to which the conference truly lived up to Fath’s ambitious standard is open to debate. There were undoubtedly severe human rights problems in all the countries represented at Bandung. However, this depressing reality co-existed with a genuine enthusiasm for the idea of human rights, which many of the new nationalist leaders were committed to, even if the practices of most were not yet consistent with the rhetoric.

Interest in human rights was a distinctive feature of the intensely opti-mistic atmosphere that characterized much of the immediate post-colonial moment. Human rights were among the most popular issues in speeches to the conference, with only the related but more immediate preoccupations of racism and colonialism featuring more prominently. Of the twenty-five nations who gave addresses in the opening session on 18–19 April, no less than eleven invoked human rights.12 Those speeches came from a remark-ably diverse collection of states, and encompassed the full range of political systems in attendance. The speakers ranged from His Royal Highness, Foreign Minister Sardar Mohammed Naim of Afghanistan, an absolute monarchy, to Prime Minister Zhou Enlai of Communist China, and included such ideo-

10. For a précis of Fath’s experiences with Nasser, see Patrick Seale, L’Affaire Nasser, 39 inT’l aff. 124, 124–25 (1963).

11. Mahmoud Aboul Fath, Letter to Bandung Delegates (13 Apr. 1955). (The Personal Papers of Charles Malik, Box 130, Folder 7, Manuscript Reading Room, Library of Congress, Wash. D.C.)

12. Some delegations chose to distribute their opening addresses as printed texts in lieu of a speech to permit more time for the substantive program.


logically disparate states as Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, South Vietnam, and Yemen.13

During the closing session, human rights were again a prominent feature, and four delegations nominated its recognition as one of the achievements of the conference. Afghan delegate Naim praised the conference for proving “that all of us, from different parts of Asia and Africa, have felt and acted as one, for the achievement of our common desire . . . [the] protection of human rights.”14 Nasser of Egypt endorsed it as “a tremendous success,” not least because of the “deep concern and full support which all the Asiatic and African countries have shown with regard to questions of human rights.”15 His sentiments were echoed by Prime Minister Mohammed Ali, head of the Pakistani delegation, who extolled human rights as one of the core beliefs that defined the Asian-African attitude toward world affairs, and pronounced that among other things, “the peoples of Asia and Africa . . . stand for the fundamental principles of Human Rights and Self-determination.”16

The universal character of human rights received strong affirmation at the Afro-Asian meeting. Support for universality was apparent early on, with several speakers invoking both the UDHR and the Draft Covenant on Human Rights in the opening session.17 Prince Wan of Thailand even offered a brief philosophical digression on the common nature of rights, and asserted that “Buddhism, Islam and Christianity all teach the same lesson—the dignity and worth of man, faith in fundamental human rights, and respect for fundamental freedom for all without distinction as to creed, colour or race.”18

The enthusiasm many Third World delegates had for human rights was demonstrated in the most emphatic fashion at the first opportunity for proper political discussion. Twelve hours were spent debating human rights during the first meeting of the closed sessions of the Political Committee on Wednesday, 20 April. In two sessions, both held in the Dwi-Warne Building, the Heads of Delegations engaged in a long discussion on the inclusion of human rights, one that started at 9:00 a.m. and concluded, with a compromise, at 10:00 p.m.19 This represented almost a quarter of

13. fuad hassan, ColleCTed doCumenTs from The asian-afriCan ConferenCe: aPril 18–24, 1955 (1983). All opening and closing addresses verified by cross-reference to original confer-ence record asian-afriCan ConferenCe, Bandung, indonesia, 18Th– 24Th aPril 1955: sPeeChes and Communiqués, (jaKarTa, minisTry of informaTion, rePuBliC of indonesia, may 1955). Contem-porary photo. reprint, copy supplied by Merle C. Ricklefs, University of Melbourne.

14. Closing Address of Afghanistan, supra note 13, at 149. 15. Closing Address of Egypt, supra note 13, at 154. 16. Closing Address of Pakistan, supra note 13, at 173. 17. See hassan, opening speeches from Egypt, Iran, and Japan, supra note 13, at 50, 59,

67. 18. Opening Address of Thailand, supra note 13, at 109. 19. Drawn from Press Release, Conference Secretariat, see asian-afriCan ConferenCe: sPeeChes

and Communiqués, supra note 13.


the time allocated for the serious work of the conference. Over the course of Wednesday’s deliberations, the commitment to human rights among the delegates would become increasingly evident.

Early in the first session of the Political Committee, Malik put a proposal forward for the conference to recognize the UDHR. This initiative won back-ing from Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, and South Vietnam. It was opposed by China, India, Indonesia, and North Vietnam.20 Most vocal and stubborn of those opposed to the acceptance of the UDHR was Communist China. While all agreed in principle that the conference should endorse human rights in some form, the specifics of this question were bitterly contested, with Zhou reluctant to offer any affirmation of the UDHR, as he had not been represented in its drafting.

In many ways, this debate on the UDHR at Bandung was an extension of the debates that occurred at the UN in the late 1940s. Although the UDHR was successfully passed on 10 December 1948, its status as the definitive human rights instrument was not yet assured. Only fifty-eight states were members of the UN at the time of that vote.21 Over a third of the states represented at Bandung were not involved in the adoption of the UDHR, as they were yet to be admitted to the organization, and in many cases, were still to win their independence.22 With every new state that appeared, there was the need to explain the UDHR and persuade them of its virtue.23 As the Chinese objections demonstrated, the Universal Declaration was not self-evidently universal for those who had not participated in its creation. The battles of 1948 had to be re-fought, at least on some level, with every new state that entered the organization. Part of this process of persuasion was played out at Bandung, where Malik and Romulo, the same figures that had championed the Declaration in the UN, led the push for human rights. According to Malik, Bandung operated as “a small United Nations, a United Nations in miniature . . . meeting together and deliberating in mat-ters and by ways that were almost identical with the methods and ways of the United Nations.”24

20. jansen, supra note 3, at 198. 21. Chronology of UN membership, available at http://www.un.org/Overview/growth.

htm. 22. Communist China, Indonesia, Ghana, Cambodia, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Sri Lanka,

and Sudan. 23. A copy of the UDHR is among the extensive handwritten notes, minutes and appointment

cards copy in Malik’s Bandung Conference folder. It seems reasonable to speculate that it was used to explain the content of the UDHR to those unfamiliar with it, though no direct evidence exists in the papers to prove this. See The Personal Papers of Charles Malik, Box 130, Folder 4, supra note 11.

24. Charles Malik, American Broadcast Corporation (ABC) Sunday Radio Program Transcript: Guest of Honour Charles Malik (5 May 1955). (Australian National Archives (NAA), A1838/278. 3002/1 Pr 5 at 2.)


At this “United Nations in miniature,” Malik in particular defended the UDHR and had to convince the other representatives to endorse the set of human rights articulated, rather than re-opening the entire question and working out their own catalogue of freedoms, which was raised as a potential alternative early in Wednesday’s meeting.25 Acting as the chief advocate for the UDHR, Malik explained what the document entailed to those unfamiliar with it:

The problem of Human Rights was raised and we spent practically the whole of Wednesday talking about whether the conference should affirm or endorse the Declaration of Human Rights and I had to defend that point of view; and I was asked again and again by members of the conference to tell them about the Declaration, having had something to do with it myself—which I did.26

In the era of rapid decolonization, the successful passage of UDHR in 1948 meant little unless it was supplemented by this kind of advocacy. Malik, who was so central to the politics of the UDHR’s adoption by the UN Third Committee, played a vital role in the politics of the UDHR at Bandung.

The presence of two communist states, China and North Vietnam, also ensured that the battle between those who gave priority to civil and politi-cal rights, and those who favored economic and social rights, was again rehearsed, this time among the delegates of the decolonized states. Accord-ing to Malik’s account of the debate, the question of economic and social rights was a main point of contention between the communists and many of the other representatives:

[O]ne of the basic issues on which we were sharply divided . . . was the ques-tion of Human Rights. What are the ultimate fundamental Human Rights? For the Communists these rights are for the most part the social and economic rights; but for some of the rest of us the ultimate human rights that should now be guaranteed by the world and by the diverse nations are the personal, legal, political rights to freedom—to freedom of thought, to freedom of expression, and certainly of free elections. So on this issue too, of the concept of human rights, we were sharply divided.27

During the drafting of the UDHR at the UN, the issue of economic and social rights had been the source of some controversy between the communist

25. Roderick W. Parkes, Communiqué: Some Impressions of the Bandung Conference, Jakarta: British Foreign Office (28 Apr. 1955). (British Public Records Office, FO371/116983, 40, 1071/242/55, D2231/319, at 2.); Djalal Abdoh, Communiqué: The Bandung Confer-ence. An Appreciation, Tehran: British Foreign Office (3 May 1955). (FO 371/116984, 1071/55/55, D2231/336, at 1.)

26. Charles Malik, Talk Given by Dr. Charles Malik at Luncheon, Canberra: Department of External Affairs Australia (28 Apr. 1955). (File No. 156/3/3, A1838/278, 3002/1 Pr 5 at 2.)

27. Malik, supra note 24.


bloc and the Western powers, though it was probably the influence of the Latin American states that did the most to ensure the recognition of these rights.28 The finished text included a significant number of economic and social provisions, but incorporated them into an interdependent whole which, at least according to the intentions of its authors, could not be fragmented or divided. Given the severe underdevelopment that plagued almost all of the countries at Bandung, the apparent failure of the communist states to put an emphasis on economic and social rights is significant, and a testament to the balance and appeal of the formulation put forward in the UDHR.

However, the chief source of division in the debate was not found primarily in the content of the UDHR, but in Zhou’s opposition to it as a text produced by a body at which his country was not represented. In his discussion of the human rights debate, Romulo reported the nature of Zhou’s objection to the UDHR:

Chou En-Lai [Zhou Enlai] had originally signified objection to any conference statement predicated on a United Nations precept, principle, or position, declar-ing that “since the People’s Republic of China was not a member of the United Nations, and therefore had no opportunity to participate in the formulation of such United Nations statement or policies,” his country “could not be expected to attach its name to any conference statement tied to the United Nations.”29

Malik’s perception was similar, and he understood the Chinese obstruc-tionism as an attempt to “use every action to impress upon us the fact that they were not present in the United Nations, that therefore they could not be responsible for the decisions of the United Nations.”30 Accounts from foreign observers at the conference also describe the Chinese protest as essentially generic; it was directed not so much at the UDHR, but more at drawing attention to their exclusion from the UN. Although Glendon nominated Zhou’s opposition as being of special significance, its importance should not be overstated. As unofficial Australian observer Keith Shann remarked, “it may be assumed that wherever reference to the United Nations occurs these difficulties were also present.”31

28. See johannes morsinK, The universal deClaraTion of human righTs: origins, drafTing and inTenT (1999); Mary Ann Glendon, The Forgotten Crucible: The Latin American Influence on the Universal Human Rights Idea, 16 harv. hum. rTs. j. 27, 27–40 (2003). The divi-sion over economic and social rights can be overstated—clearly many Western states did have considerable sympathy for the concept, and the conflict on this question was relatively modest during the drafting of the UDHR.

29. romulo, supra note 1, at 14. 30. Malik, supra note 26. 31. Keith C.O. Shann, Report on Asian-African Conference— Bandung, Canberra: Depart-

ment of External Affairs, United Nations Branch, Australia (11 May 1955); (NAA A4311/1, Item 94/28, at 5.)


The question was resolved through the formation of a sub-committee, which ultimately saw Zhou retreat and recognize the UDHR, although the language was moderated to an extent.

In the smaller committee, the Chinese were scared of the text and we gave [them] three hours to read it. Mr. Chou En-lai [Zhou Enlai] read it. I had said it took us three years to work it out. He said you cannot expect me to digest it in three hours. Finally—again—compromise has happened in all these gatherings. We said “Take note of.”32

Carlos Romulo attributed the Chinese concession to the “strong, spontane-ous support in the conference” for the document and its principles.33 Far from a compromise solution, Romulo understood the Final Communiqué as a document that “fully supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”34 Djalal Abdoh, acting head of the Iranian delegation, thought the agreed resolution “a very simple one expressing the Conference’s support of the United Nations Declaration of Fundamental Human Rights.”35 By the accounts of these figures at least, there was a solid, positive engagement with the UDHR at the Bandung Conference, with the majority of the nations present willing to insist on its inclusion in the Final Communiqué, despite objections from the most powerful nation in attendance.

Analysis of the consensus human rights paragraph reveals a modest but significant success for the proponents of human rights. Opening with a superfluous statement of support for the UN Charter, the Communique text concludes with a clear acknowledgment of the UDHR as a universal standard:

The Asian-African Conference declared its full support of the fundamental prin-ciples of Human Rights as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations and took note of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.36

Although considerably weaker than the unequivocal affirmation sought by Malik, the final clause reproduces one of the most important phrases from the UDHR.37 This inclusion strengthens the overall text substantially, edging it toward the positive endorsement that the Chinese delegation had rejected. “We managed at the end to add the phrase which was very satisfactory,”

32. Malik, supra note 26. 33. romulo, supra note 1, at 14. 34. Id. 35. Abdoh, supra note 25, at 1. 36. Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference 24 Apr. 1955, supra note 3, at

80. 37. See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 10 Dec. 1948, G.A. Res. 217A

(III), U.N. GAOR, 3d Sess. (Resolutions, pt. 1), at 71, U.N. Doc. A/810 (1948), reprinted in 43 am. j. inT’l l. 127 (Supp. 1949).


noted Malik, who hoped that “the Chinese knew what they were doing when they accepted it.”38

Zhou’s refusal to agree to a phrase indicating full support reflected his recognition of the Universal Declaration as an important and potentially threatening document. According to Malik, the Chinese considered the human rights question a serious one, and their lack of familiarity with the Declaration made them cautious about offering a full affirmation of a docu-ment they themselves acknowledged as highly significant: “[H]ere we had an important text—which was illustrated in their announcements—that they could not possibly fairly be expected to endorse it and the utmost they could say was that ‘we took note of it’.”39

Recognition of the UDHR in the conference’s Final Communiqué was an important victory for the proponents of human rights. Despite the com-promise language that was agreed upon, the fact that Zhou was forced to withdraw from his original position testifies to the strength of support for human rights among the smaller states. One of his major objectives at the conference was to win support from the newly decolonized states. Recog-nizing the attachment the delegates from these states had to human rights, he made a hasty, tactical retreat. Had the dominant sentiment at Bandung been one of hostility toward human rights, then Zhou, an astute diplomat, would have faced few difficulties in excising the reference to the UDHR. Indeed, as his was not the only country absent from the drafting procedure, such an issue could have been exploited to the advantage of the commu-nist state, and portrayed as a motif for the wider exclusion of Asian and African peoples from the machinery of international relations. His retreat indicated that there was, quite simply, no advantage to be won by opposing human rights at Bandung. That he later nominated his maneuvering on the UDHR as a mistake, and even apologized for his initial stance, reinforces this point.40

IV. DEFINING FREEDoM: CoLoNIALISM, CoMMUNISM, AND INDIGENoUS DESpoTISM

Human rights also constituted a major dimension in what was perhaps the most spectacular debate of the conference: the debate on colonialism.

38. Malik, supra note 26. 39. Id. 40. Record of interview between Charles Malik of Lebanon and Mr. Chou En-Lai, Prime

Minister of the People’s Republic of China, (25 Apr. 1955). (Copy of transcript of inter-view between Chou En-Lai and Charles Malik, 6:30–8:30pm, Monday, 25 Apr. 1955, Bandung, Indonesia. Transcript is a carbon copy of that presented to John Forster Dulles, 5 May 1955, sent to Chou En-Lai, 6 May 1955, transmitted through Swedish Ambas-sador. Personal Papers of Charles Malik, Manuscript Reading Room, supra note 11.)


Questions about the nature of freedom, and the relationship between na-tional self-determination and individual liberty, emerged from the compet-ing definitions of colonialism. Such issues were the subject of considerable controversy from the first day of the conference on 18 April, with tensions escalating dramatically during the afternoon of 21 April, when Sri Lankan Prime Minister John Kotelawala assailed the double-standard on the colonial-ism of the Soviet Union.41 Irritated by what he perceived as excessive focus on Western imperialism, Kotelawala urged the conference to condemn Soviet colonialism as well, provoking a wide-ranging and bitter debate.42

While primarily concerned with foreign domination, the colonialism dispute raised arguments with important consequences for human rights and democracy. By articulating what constituted colonialism, those at Bandung were forced to examine the political and social systems they sought for themselves. They were made to question what precisely was at stake in the campaign against colonialism.

Nehru, eager to see the conference conclude successfully, was quick to recognize the powerful implications of this approach to colonialism. In his response to Kotelawala on the morning of 22 April, he urged the delegates to limit their formulation of colonialism to traditional situations, as a broader conception would necessarily entail very awkward questions.

If we look at this question in its entirety . . . and if we examine the state of freedom, the state of individual or national freedom, the state of democratic liberty or democracy itself in the countries represented here, well, I feel many of us are lacking, terribly lacking. . . . If we sit down and discuss these matters in all integrity in its entirety then we shall have to go very far and discuss how far countries represented here fulfil that noble standard which we laid down yesterday in the human rights or even the ordinary tenets of democracy and freedom.43

Defining colonialism was a perilous task. Malik encapsulated the key point of contention raised by the colonial-

ism debate. Speaking shortly after the conference to Australian diplomats, he argued that the most significant division at Bandung was over the nature of freedom itself:

[T]here was no question on which points of view were more sharply and more poignantly divided than on this problem of freedom. Because to the Commu-nists, in the present context of this Conference [liberation] meant the liberation

41. See john KoTelaWala, an asian Prime minisTer’s sTory 186–87 (1956). 42. Id.; jansen, supra note 3, at 202–07, 214–15; Kahin, supra note 3, at 18–21, 30–31;

KimChe, supra note 3, at 68–70. 43. Jawaharlal Nehru, Problems of Dependent Peoples, address to the closed session of

the Political Committee, 22 Apr. 1955 (File SI/162/9/64-MEA) in 29 neW delhi, seleCTed WorKs of jaWaharlal nehru 103 (2d ser. 1984).


of the various nations and peoples of Asia and Africa from foreign Western rule. But to some of us—while this certainly belongs to the notion of freedom, freedom was much larger and much deeper than mere liberation from foreign rule. To us freedom meant freedom of mind, freedom of thought, freedom of press, freedom to criticise, to judge for yourself—freedom, in short, to be the full human being.44

Even before Kotelawala’s dramatic speech, which would precipitate the most acrimonious phase of the debate over communist colonialism, Carlos Romulo had invited the participants to ponder the relationship be-tween freedom, individual rights, and anti-colonialism. For Romulo, the chief issue was individual freedom, and colonialism was an evil because it always curtailed the rights of those living under it. But there were systems, like communism, that were still more repressive than colonialism. As Ro-mulo pointed out, freedom of speech under the US colonial regime in the Philippines, or under the British in India, was, for example, far superior to that which existed in communist countries. Eradicating colonialism was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for freedom.

National self-determination and individual human rights were the two goals Romulo fought for his entire life, and he was uniquely placed among the delegates as one of the foremost champions of both causes at the in-ternational level. At the San Francisco Conference, he successfully agitated for the inclusion of provisions for colonial self-determination in the UN Charter, against the wishes of many of the established European powers.45 In the field of human rights, he was one of the few Third World voices in the drafting of the UDHR.

With this impeccable anti-colonial and human rights credentials, Romulo spoke with authority when he addressed the relationship between freedom and independence. He warned of the dangers of national independence, which could degenerate into “an instrument for a new and different kind of subjection.”46 Freedom was not won merely by casting-off of alien rule. Anti-colonialism should not seek the transposition of an indigenous ruling elite for a foreign one, but a complete democratic reformation of the repres-sive colonial state:

[I]s political freedom achieved when the national banner rises over the seat of government, the foreign ruler goes, and the power passes into the hands of our own leaders? Is the struggle for national independence the struggle to substitute a local oligarchy for the foreign oligarchy? Or is it just the beginning of the conquest of real freedom by the people of the land? Is there political freedom where only one political party may rule? Is there political freedom where dissent

44. Malik, supra note 24. 45. romulo, supra note 1, at 33–45. 46. See romulo, supra note 1, at 66.


from the policy of the government means imprisonment or worse? It strikes me that autocratic rule, control of the press, and the police state are exactly the worst features of some colonialist systems against which we have fought all our lives and against which so many of us are still fighting. Is this really the model of the freedom we seek? Or is it the free interplay of contending parties, the open competition of ideas and political views in the market place, the freedom of a man to speak up as he chooses, be he right or wrong?47

He acknowledged that there were “many possible answers to these questions,” but argued that the best answer, and the one selected by the Philippines, was a pluralistic, democratic state.48 Philippine independence was a means for ensuring the rights of all citizens, not an end of itself, argued Romulo, and he pledged to construct “a society in which the freedom of our Republic will truly become the freedom of every one of its citizens.”49

The controversy over Soviet imperialism raised other more general cri-tiques over the nature of the communist authoritarian development model, a model that would be embraced by many Third World regimes in the 1960s and 1970s. For countries that were extremely poor, the question of whether to pursue economic development at the expense of human rights had obvious and immediate relevance. At Bandung, however, the tenden-cies of the 1960s and 1970s were not yet discernible. The only champions of an authoritarian development model were the two communist states, China and North Vietnam, and even they made no mention of it in their respective addresses.

This silence on the part of the communists did not prevent Romulo from launching a powerful critique of the authoritarian strategy of moderniza-tion, which brought development at the expense of personal liberty. His criticisms were not, however, simply a manifestation of anti-communism. Romulo had previously castigated the Philippine colonial administration of General Wood for denying the people’s freedom through the justification of superior material well-being. “Better a dinner of herbs in freedom, than caviar under a crown,” Romulo argued.50

For the states at Bandung, the example offered by the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent China, presented itself as a potential solution to the pressing imperative of industrialization. Romulo addressed the communist program of economic modernization, which promised to bring the mate-rial improvements so desperately sought by the countries emerging from colonialism by instituting a one-party police state:

47. Id. at 67. 48. Id. 49. Id. at 68. 50. Carlos P. romulo, i WalKed WiTh heroes 164 (1961).


[Communism claims to achieve] total change through total power, through avowed dictatorship and the forcible manipulation of men and means to achieve certain ends, the rigid control of all thought and expression, the ruthless sup-pression of all opposition, the pervasive control of human life in all spheres by a single, tightly run, self-selected organization of elite individuals.51

Communist justifications, much like the colonial ones that came before, could not justify the ground truth of this system, and that all the “elaborate series of phrases and rationalization” produced for such dictatorships would be unable to hide the “realities” of authoritarian rule.52

He dismissed the “trade-off” between individual freedom and economic progress as an uncertain and greatly disproportionate exchange. A new excuse for dictatorship had not the object of the independence struggle:

Does the road to greater freedom really lie through an indefinite period of less freedom? Is it for this that we have in this generation raised our heads and taken up the struggle against foreign tyrannies? Has all the sacrifice, struggle, and devotion, all been, then, for the purpose of replacing foreign tyranny by domestic tyranny? Do we fight to regain our manhood from Western colonial rulers only to surrender it to rulers among ourselves who seize the power to keep us enslaved? Is it true, can it be true, in this vastly developed 20th century, that national progress must be paid for with the individual well-being and freedom of millions of people? Can we really believe that this price will, in some dim and undefined future time, be redeemed by the well-being and freedom of the yet unborn? . . . This road is open before many of us. The gateway to it is strewn with sweet-smelling garlands of phrases and promises and high sentiment. But once you march through it, the gate clangs behind you. The policeman becomes master and your duty thereafter is forever to say aye.53

According to Romulo, the peoples of the colonial Africa and Asia, who had struggled for so long against foreign authoritarianism, had not succeeded only to re-impose upon themselves another dictatorial regime, whatever its philosophical justification.

V. CoNCLUSIoNS

Bandung came at a moment when African and Asian countries were among the strongest supporters of the international human rights project. At the United Nations, the 1950s marked a highpoint in Third World enthusiasm for human rights. Commenting on the 1955 session of the Human Rights Commission, John Humphrey, the first director of the UN Human Rights

51. romulo, supra note 1, at 75. 52. Id. 53. Id. at 75–76.


division and one of the principal architects of the UDHR, would remark “[t]he delegations with the strongest positive convictions were now without any doubt those which represented the Third World.”54

Far from being opposed to the rights discourse as a neo-colonial impo-sition, the sort of nationalism embraced by many African and Asian inde-pendence leaders had important affinities with human rights. In nationalist manifestos of the period, such as the 1955 ANC Freedom Charter, human rights occupied a central place.55 Part of colonial struggle for freedom was a campaign for the extension of the individual rights that were considered the preserve of Europeans. Jordanian Foreign Minister Sayyed Wahid Salah lamented the “monopoly” the established powers had on human rights, while they were denied to the small states of the world.56 Other delegates, like Yemeni Prime Minister Emir Seif El Islam Al Hassan, expressed disap-pointment that colonialism continued despite the adoption of human rights standards by the UN.57 While self-determination was the primary object of the anti-colonial campaign, respect for individual rights, which had been so trampled by colonial administrations, served as an important justification and motivation for Afro-Asian nationalism.

The cultural relativist challenge to human rights first emerged not from the Third World states, but from the established Western democracies. In the debates on the human rights covenants in the early 1950s, delegates from Britain, France, and Belgium argued for a special clause exempting colonial territories from their application.58 They justified this clause by a feigned reverence for cultural difference. Rene Cassin, one of the most influential figures in the drafting of the UDHR, was a prominent exponent of the case for a level of relativism in applying human rights in the Third World.59 He asserted that human rights might “endanger public order” among backward colonial populations, and “subject different peoples to uniform obligations.”60 The Belgian representative phrased a similar set of arguments in much more offensive terms. Human rights were for advanced, civilized people, not those in African and Asian colonies.61 Such arguments would not have seemed out of place at a summit of African or Asian leaders in the early 1990s.

54. john P. humPhrey, human righTs & The uniTed naTions : a greaT advenTure 203 (1984). 55. ANC Freedom Charter June 26 1955, available at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/his-

tory/charter.html. 56. See hassan, supra note 13, at 70. 57. Id. at 132. 58. These debates occurred in the UN Third Committee in October and November 1950.

Consult the summary records for further detail. 59. For Cassin’s role in the drafting of the UDHR, see morsinK, supra note 28; glendon,

supra note 5. 60. U.N. GAOR Third Committee, 5th sess. ¶ 38, U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.294 (1950). 61. U.N. GAOR Third Committee, ¶ 5, U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.292 (1950).


Yet in the 1950s, Third World diplomats at the UN were among the strongest defenders of universality. Nationalist China’s representative, Peng-Chun Chang, who along with Cassin had been deeply involved in the drafting of the Universal Declaration, passionately denounced the cultural relativist justifications of the colonial powers at the UN.62 Bedia Afnan of Iraq, “wondered how the degree of evolution of a people could prevent it from enjoying the rights which [Cassin] himself had admitted to be inherent in human nature.”63 In a passionate critique of cultural relativism, Afnan argued further that “differences of culture and tradition were no obstacle whatever to the universal application of the provisions of the covenant” and that “nowadays it could no longer be claimed that some civilizations were essentially different from others.”64 Mr. Azmi Bey, the UN delegate from Egypt, charged that cultural relativism “was only too reminiscent of the Hitlerian concept which divided mankind into groups of varying worth.”65 The force of these statements suggest we must be very cautious in locating even a nascent challenge to human rights at Bandung. Any such challenge would certainly have been inconsistent with the dominant viewpoint of the Afro-Asian states as they expressed it at the UN, even if their domestic records often fell short of this international rhetoric.

There was also a reflexive personal interest in human rights from the first wave of Afro-Asian leaders, who had themselves suffered punishment at the hands of repressive colonial systems. Nehru, who was imprisoned seven times by the British, had been an early proponent of human rights, endorsing H.G. Wells’ Sankey Declaration of Rights in 1940. South African nationalists Moses Kotane and Joseph Cachalia were at Bandung, though only after being pursued by secret police from Pretoria.66 Kotane, one of the first to be banned under the notorious Suppression of Communism Act, used the language of rights to condemn apartheid in a statement issued at the conference.67 He was no stranger to human rights, being involved in both the African Bill of Rights submission to the Atlantic Charter and the drafting of the Freedom Charter.68 Kenyan nationalist Joseph Murumbi, who would

62. U.N. GAOR Third Committee, ¶ 25, U.N. Doc A/C.3/SR.295 (1950). 63. U.N. GAOR Third Committee, ¶ 6, U.N. Doc. A/C.3/SR.296 (1950). 64. Id. ¶ 81; see also Susan Waltz, Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim

States, 26 hum. rTs. q. 799 (2004), for more detail on the work of Afnan and Azmi Bey in the drafting of the covenants.

65. U.N. GAOR Third Committee, supra note 63, ¶ 169. 66. Brian BunTing, moses KoTane: souTh afriCan revoluTionary 206–13 (1975). 67. Press Statement by Representatives of the African National Congress and the South

African Indian Congress, 16 Apr. 1955, in The asian-afriCan ConferenCe: vieWs and neWs 35–36 (C.1985).

68. See BunTing, supra note 66, at 117; Moses Kotane, Isithwalandiwe Rests in Peace, 12 seChaBa 51, 56 (1978); 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Charter, available at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/specialprojects/june26/graphics/Freedom%20Charter-reduced.pdf.


return from Bandung to condemn colonialism on the basis of its violations of the UDHR, was on the run from the British colonial police state.69

The enthusiasm for human rights among many early Third World leaders was exemplified by the figures of Romulo and Malik. These two men were the most influential contributors to the human rights debates at Bandung, and indeed were some of the most activist in the human rights program. Coming from countries aligned with the Western powers, there is a tempta-tion to dismiss their advocacy of human rights as a symptom of the Cold War, a cynical political weapon to wield against communist and non-aligned opponents. In modern scholarship, commentators often explain away Third World supporters of human rights as Westernized exceptions, hopelessly disconnected from their indigenous culture, captivated by an imperialist ideology.70 These assertions understate the support for human rights evident among many colonial leaders in the early phase of independence. In some respects, they are reminiscent of the sort of patronizing mindset that char-acterized the worst features of imperialism, a mindset that failed to properly consider the possibility of agency on the part of colonial peoples.

Romulo was fiercely anti-colonial, with an impeccable record of Philip-pine nationalism. He had suffered racial discrimination at the hands of the Americans, and had bitter experience of American occupation early in his life. Yet he was also an enthusiastic participant in the drafting of the UDHR, and a committed advocate of human rights.71 His example illustrates the compatibility of anti-colonial nationalism and human rights in the immedi-ate post-independence period.

Similarly, Malik was dedicated to a strong, independent Lebanon, later serving as foreign minister. During his public life, he sought to maintain traditional culture while introducing political pluralism. Human rights were much more than a political weapon for Malik. He too had witnessed their violation firsthand, during a brief and traumatic period studying philosophy under Heidegger in Nazi Germany.72 Even the most cursory reading of the preamble of the Universal Declaration, which he co-drafted, demonstrates the eloquence with which he articulated the human rights concept. Those who point to Malik’s “aligned” status would do well to remember his op-position to the creation of Israel, and his position as head spokesperson for the Arab League.

69. Bethwell A. Ogot, Mau Mau and Nationhood: The Untold Story, in mau mau and na-Tionhood: arms, auThoriTy & narraTion 8, 23–24 (E.S. Atieno Odhiambo & John Lonsdale eds. 2003).

70. For an example of this strategy, see maKau muTua, human righTs: a PoliTiCal and CulTural CriTique 19 (2002).

71. Though Romulo’s support for human rights faded dramatically in later decades, a decline epitomized by his defense of the Marcos regime.

72. glendon, supra note 5.


It is profoundly inconsistent to accept the supposed authenticity of the imported discourses of Marxism and nationalism without question, while simultaneously repudiating the legitimacy of human rights. If the assumption that an ideology’s provenance determines its legitimacy is accepted, then the application of the ideas of Fichte, Marx, and Lenin outside their native regions must also be questioned. Romulo himself was deeply contemptuous of such reasoning, and attacked those, both colonial and communist alike, who claimed that Asian and African people could only speak of freedom as “tape recordings from Washington or London.”73 Freedom and democ-racy were not limited by geography, and were much more than an empty expression of Cold War politics:

Democracy had its day in court at Bandung and emerged with flying colors. It was upheld by most of the delegates, because the peoples they represented had cast their lot with freedom. They did not take that position because they were pro-American or pro-West. In fact, they are placed on the defensive in their respective countries when they are referred to by the American press as pro-American or pro-West. That the position of these delegates happens to be that of the United States or of most of the Western countries is only because the ideals of freedom as enshrined in the Magna Charta of England, the Declaration of the Rights of Man by France, the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are universal.74

It is insulting to approach the place of human rights in the era of decoloni-zation simply in terms of “Westernization” and “alignment.”

The durability of the human rights concept in the Third World should not be solely attributed to the work of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. It was apparent at the foundational conference of the Third World, and in many of the anti-colonial movements that established the independent states of Africa and Asia. Just as it does in the great French and American Declarations, human rights also finds an important place in the foremost political charter of the early Third World, the Bandung Final Communiqué.

73. romulo, supra note 1, at 54. 74. romulo, supra note 1, at 36; see also romulo, supra note 1, at 68–69.

human rights at bandung burke

Documents