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ass protests in Jakarta, Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur, held in solidarity with the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, have clamored for attention to be paid to the recent crackdown in the state of Rakhine. Myanmar’s leaders say the military is targeting suspected terrorists while activists claim horrific crimes such as the rape of women and girls and burning of homes have been committed — while independent verification of the claims has not been possible.

Given her perceived silence over the plight of the Rohingya, who continue to flee across land and sea borders to neighboring Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, protesters have called for the revoking of the Nobel peace prize for Myanmar’s leading figure Aung San Suu Kyi.

Indonesians would have liked to question the widely admired leader directly on her stance during her first state visit here, scheduled for early December — but it has been delayed indefinitely as a result of the crisis in Rakhine, reports claim. Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s foreign minister and state counselor, has said reports of violence against innocent civilians are being investigated and that settling such internal conflicts are a gradual process.

Indeed, Myanmar is holding a national conference with almost all its minorities, many of which have long waged armed insurgencies against the government. An international Advisory Commission on Rakhine State under former UN secretary general Kofi Annan has traveled to areas of the state. Annan urged “inclusive dialogue” through “mutual respect […] and by providing local communities with opportunities to live their lives in dignity”.

But Indonesians’ experience show how “gradual” such processes can be when many of a country’s elite and its people do not care about minorities. Soeharto’s New Order benefitted from the silence of ASEAN, which upholds the principle of non-interference — thus allowing decades of impunity for harsh crackdowns affecting civilians, justified as operations against either terrorists or separatists.

Such suffering of civilians will likely continue despite ASEAN’s “caring community” — but it should not. ASEAN now has its own human rights charter and its human rights commission strives to work around the limits of non-interference and refusal to embarrass leaders.

Observers call ASEAN “spineless” as its leaders and diplomats seek “personal approaches” to gently nudge Myanmar’s leaders into caring about their people.

Meanwhile persecuted minorities such as the Rohingya will continue to flee and become refugees in neighboring ASEAN nations; thus as ASEAN parliamentarians recently reminded us, the issue is far from an “internal affair”.

ASEAN’s quiet diplomacy was once credited for regional stability. Today such silence is increasingly dangerous — continued suppression against a minority pushes them into the embrace of violent extremists. The recent violence in Rakhine, according to Indonesian Ambassador to Myanmar Ito Sumardi, who recently visited the area with Myanmar military officers and others, is blamed on the involvement of “terrorists”.

By standing by, ASEAN is unwittingly creating a major vacuum into which even more violent extremists and also the military operators of Myanmar’s regime, which are safely hidden by our “non-interference”, will be sucked.