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ASEAN can act on Rohingya
The noninterference principle does not mean that any country can do to its own population anything it wants, including attacking civilians.
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In crisis: Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine state wait for aid at Kutupalong refugee camp in the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on Sept.5. Nearly 125,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since a fresh upsurge of violence in Myanmar on Aug. 25, the United Nations said September 5, as fears grow of a humanitarian crisis in the overstretched camps. The UN said 123,600 had crossed the border in the past 11 days from Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine state.
(AFP/K M Asad)
T
he recent violence in Myanmar bears all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. Myanmar’s security forces are engaged in a vicious and disproportionate campaign, burning down whole villages and firing at random at Rohingya as they are trying to flee.
But beyond the immediate humanitarian emergency, the situation can also teach us a meaningful lesson about noninterference and human rights.
The principle of “noninterference in internal affairs,” which features prominently in speeches by ASEAN leaders, is long established in international law. But the view that it is an absolute principle that trumps all others was abandoned by the international community many decades ago, once the scope and scale of the mass atrocities of World War II became known.
In 1970, the United Nations secretary-general at the time said that “obligations under the [UN] Charter must include any humanitarian action that he can take to save the lives of large numbers of human beings.” The name of that secretary-general was U Thant from Burma, now known as Myanmar.
So, noninterference does not mean that any country can do to its own population anything it wants, including attacking civilians. Countries with any self-respect cannot simply watch as the state next door commits unlawful acts amounting to crimes against humanity and be silent in the name of noninterference.
Massive human rights violations and crimes against humanity are never a domestic affair. The right to life and liberty, freedom from discrimination and other key human rights must be defended by all countries around the world.
We are seeing a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding on both sides of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border; every effort must be taken to keep it from worsening.
