Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik Minorities and Human Rights Problematics* -Saneh Chamarik National Human Rights Commission, Thailand As non-expert on minorities, let me just take an overview by way of making observations and raising some basic issues that may be of relevance to our discussion here. As a concerned citizen deeply affected by everyday infringements on human life and dignity, both within and around one’s own homeland, my focus would be oriented somewhat towards what has been going on in mainland Southeast Asia as part and parcel of the world’s tropical resource-based regions. Hopefully this very aspect of geo-political reality would be somehow taken into account in any meaningful dialogues and public policy consideration on the rights of minorities. It significantly adds a new dimension to the problems at hand. Not only that we would be better informed, but also of even more importance it should help throw more light on our common task of searching for objective and creative solution. The term “homeland” is deliberately emphasized here just to remind ourselves of one most legitimate human need, both real and imagined, that underlie the minorities’ hard and never-ending struggles around the world. What needs first to be realized is the fact that the current problems of minorities started out along with the modern nation building in the * Discussion paper on Minorities and National Human Rights Institutions, parallel meeting, Sixty-first session of the Annual Meeting of the International Coordination Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Geneva, 12 April 2005. OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND 43