Human rights has been in the constitution since independence, official says

HUMAN rights should not be seen as a new thing in Papua New Guinea as it has been in the constitution since independence, says Transparency International PNG director Richard Kassman.
He said during the 8th Papua New Guinea Human Rights Film Festival that the vision of Transparency International was a country where people lived in a constitution of democracy and where government, politics and businesses operated free from cruelty and subject to human rights obligations.
“I want to make reference to the constitution about the goals and guiding principles of our constitution because when the authors of our constitution put that together before 1975 and the legislative council accepted that during independence, they directed that future governments be fully aware of the goals and the guiding principles,” Kassman said.
He said the guiding principles straight after the national goals talked of rights and obligations of our nation.
“So when we talk about human rights, this is not something that should be imposed on us by the United Nation which we are a proud member of. It is also enshrined in our constitution.”
Kassman said it was good that Transparency International continued to remind the leaders and political leaders about the democracy in order for them to be guided in developing plans to build the nation.  “In order to build our nation, we need to refer back to the guiding principles that are enshrined in our constitution that are quite consistent, as well as the national development goals and sustainable goals too.”
Kassman said the country had subscribed to the convention of human rights and brought freely an independent nation that had the responsibility and obligations of human rights to fulfil according to the constitution.
Kassman, who is also the director, corporate affairs, for Total Exploration and Production, said the biggest problem in the country was the lack of courage and conviction.
“Until Papua New Guineans change that and become courageous, we are not going to progress,” he said. The company participated in the human rights assessment project.
He said currently a team of human rights officials from the UN were doing an impact assessment on Total in the Papua LNG Project.