T

his week’s ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Chiang Mai, Thailand offers the top diplomats of our region an opportunity to discuss and strategize together about our joint progress toward realizing and strengthening the ASEAN Community.

In line with ASEAN tradition, Thailand, as this year’s ASEAN chair, is to outline at the retreat its priorities and vision for the year ahead.

The theme chosen by Thailand, “Advancing partnerships for sustainability”, is a timely and critical one and one that provides opportunities for ASEAN to demonstrate its leadership on both global and regional challenges, including climate change and forced displacement.

Indeed, sustainability is an issue that our region must address comprehensively, through all the pillars of ASEAN — political-security, economic and social-cultural.

Among the most serious issues that continue to pose challenges to the sustainability of ASEAN’s regional stability and collective human security is the unresolved issue of the crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the massive displacement and denial of the basic rights of the Rohingya minority. This has now been recognized by ASEAN as a regional issue that requires regional cooperation.

At the 33rd ASEAN Summit in Singapore last November, ASEAN member states for the first time included in the chairman’s statement a dedicated paragraph articulating their collective concern over the protracted humanitarian crisis in Rakhine, as well as the resulting displacement crisis in Rakhine and the region.

This crisis is, indeed, a matter of continued urgency toward which ASEAN cannot afford to be complacent. It is a test case for ASEAN.

The world’s largest refugee camp now sits on the doorstep of ASEAN, in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, which hosts close to 1 million Rohingya refugees, including more than 700,000 who arrived within the past two years.

Myanmar’s invitation to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center) to conduct a needs assessment to identify possible areas of cooperation in Rakhine to facilitate the repatriation of Rohingya refugees is a positive step demonstrating Myanmar’s willingness to engage ASEAN.

However, it does not guarantee safe, dignified and voluntary return and must not be used as a means of expediting returns by any means, especially when the conditions that perpetuated the statelessness, discrimination and denial of basic human rights that forced the Rohingya to flee in the first place have not been addressed.

ASEAN member states must work together constructively to ensure that the assessment is conducted with the utmost objectivity and credibility and in line with internationally recognized principles to which ASEAN is also bound.

For this to happen, a first step would be to grant unhindered access to the ASEAN Emergency Response Assessment Team (ERAT) to ensure that it can work in a manner that would uphold international humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.

ASEAN has also expressed support for Myanmar’s efforts to bring peace, stability and rule of law to Rakhine and to promote reconciliation among the diverse communities of the state, as well as to foster sustainable and equitable development for all the people of Rakhine and, indeed, of Myanmar.

Building peace requires a long-term commitment to repair the trust that has been broken and to provide access to services and legal rights, including citizenship.

These issues cannot be resolved overnight and, therefore, ASEAN member states should not rush repatriation prematurely and must recognize that the Rohingya would continue to seek refuge in neighboring countries for a long time to come.

In this regard, in the interest of sustained regional human security and greater inclusivity, ASEAN member states should commence discussions on the formulation of a regional refugee protection framework, one that upholds the rights of refugees, provides guidelines to host countries and helps to foster multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Such a framework would be in line with the new Global Compact on Refugees, which has been endorsed by 181 member states at the United Nations General Assembly last December, including by all the member states of ASEAN.

The Rakhine crisis and large-scale displacement of Rohingya refugees across the region must be addressed with seriousness, not as a corridor discussion but as an integral part of ASEAN’s agenda on sustainable development. It is part of our obligation as members of the global community to ensure human security and inclusive development for all the peoples of our region. This, indeed, is ASEAN’s vision of a people-centered ASEAN Community.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reminded us: “Sustainable development also depends on upholding human rights and ensuring peace and security.

“Sustainable development is an end in itself, but it is also the best way to prevent crisis and build a safer world.”
______________________