TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
ASEAN failing Myanmar as ‘ultimate test’
Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, has said he plans to implement the ASEAN plan when “stability returns”, or in other words: Thank you for the meeting, now leave us alone.
Change Size
Protesters hold up posters in support of Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) during a demonstration against the military coup on Global Myanmar Spring Revolution Day in Taunggyi, Shan state, Myanmar, on May 2. (AFP/Stringer)
I
t was just a few weeks ago on April 24 that Southeast Asian leaders emerged from a special summit on Myanmar hailing a “breakthrough”. The military junta had signed up for a “consensus” plan, vowing to end violence against protesters and allowing ASEAN to facilitate dialogue.
Cautious hopes were raised for an end to the crisis triggered by the coup the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) launched on Feb. 1.
Since then, Myanmar’s security forces have instead continued to wantonly kill people, arrested hundreds and launched scores of airstrikes against civilians in the borderlands. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, has said he plans to implement the ASEAN plan when “stability returns”, or in other words: Thank you for the meeting, now leave us alone.
A mooted ASEAN special envoy is nowhere to be seen, nor is the purported dialogue involving the opposition. If Myanmar is the ultimate test for ASEAN’s ability to solve crises, it is one the grouping is currently failing.
There is still time to do something, however. The regional bloc can prevent more bloodshed in Myanmar and bring an end to the crisis, but it must act decisively and urgently.
There is no question that the Tatmadaw is a monstrosity that must be stopped at all costs. Since seizing power in February, security forces have killed close to 800 people as well as driven the country to the brink of economic collapse and a humanitarian disaster. But military abuses stretch back decades. I was myself recently part of the United Nations fact-finding mission that documented its atrocities against Rohingya and other ethnic minorities.
As brutal as the military is, this is not a crisis that has happened in isolation. Respect for human rights norms have been eroding in Southeast Asia for decades.
