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ASEAN community can no longer tolerate Myanmar junta
The recent executions are a full-blown rebuff of the five-point consensus, indicating that the ASEAN consensus has neither a normative nor a deterrent effect on the junta.
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Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn (left) speaks alongside Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (center) and Brunei Second Minister of Foreign Affairs Erywan Yusof (right) at a meeting with representatives of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) during the 55th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh on Aug. 2. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
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uspending Myanmar’s ASEAN membership, as suggested by Kornelius Purba in his article in The Jakarta Post on July 29, should be an option that is taken seriously. Myanmar’s domestic situation has deteriorated further with the junta’s execution of former legislator Phyo Zeyar Thaw, activist Kyaw Min Yu and two protesters Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw.
The executions show that the junta is trying to act as an official symbol of a Myanmar state, but it certainly has no authority over the Myanmar people as a whole.
Effective authority lies in an equilibrium between coercive measures and persuasion. When the balance skews too far to the coercive side, we can no longer say that authority is effectively present. The Myanmar military over the past decades has always had a tendency to resort to violence to exert control over the multiethnic people of the country, including in the alleged genocide against the Muslim Rohingya in 2017. This most recent case cannot be tolerated by the ASEAN community.
The executions took place despite the ASEAN five-point consensus, which calls for an immediate cessation of violence and constructive dialogue. Instead of following the consensus, the junta chose to perform the first execution since 1989. With the excuse that the executions are “lawful” and reflecting “justice for the people”, capital punishment may now be extended to more than 70 people on death row for their opposition to the Feb. 1, 2021, coup.
This punitive tendency reflects the logic behind the current military regime. Protests against the coup have seen significant violence as demonstrators have teamed up with more established ethnic armed groups, and the resistance has caused significant losses for the military. The military has already lost hundreds of soldiers who are either absent or have joined the resistance. The junta’s ability to recruit new soldiers is more constrained as well as it is losing control over some territory in Myanmar, including most of the Rakhine, Chin, Kachin and Shan states. In other areas, the military may find it even harder to recruit people to work for its government.
The executions, including when and how they were performed, do not only mark a new escalation against anti-coup aspirations in Myanmar but also show that the “administrative” element of the State Administrative Council is an oxymoron given the extent of coercion and violence used to repress anti-coup voices.
Punitive action may have been chosen to sow fear of arbitrary death, which may be the military’s last resort to exert control as it loses ground in Myanmar.
