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ASEAN foreign ministers’ emergency meeting is disappointing
As soon as he begins his term as ASEAN chair on Jan. 1, 2023, Jokowi should directly talk to other leaders and secure their support for much tougher actions against the Myanmar junta.
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Let’s talk: Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn (third left) chairs the ASEAN Special Ministerial Meeting focusing on the Myanmar issue at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on Thursday. Also in attendance was Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi (right). (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
T
he ASEAN foreign ministers have wasted their time and the budget of the ASEAN Secretariat on a useless meeting at the ASEAN Secretariat on Thursday. What was the point of them coming to Jakarta to hold a special meeting when the result of their one-day conference was just to repeat the same demand for Myanmar’s military junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to comply with the five-point consensus he signed in Jakarta last year?
At the same place in April 2021, Hlaing agreed to end violence in the country immediately, hold a dialogue with all parties, appoint a special envoy, accept humanitarian assistance by ASEAN and allow the ASEAN chair’s special envoy to visit to Myanmar to meet with all parties. However soon after he landed home, he dumped his promises.
My suggestion for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is not to take the foreign ministers’ recommendations for granted when he takes over the ASEAN chairmanship from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen next month. As soon as he begins his term as ASEAN chair on Jan. 1, 2023, Jokowi should directly talk to the other leaders and secure their support for much tougher action against the Myanmar junta.
I can’t imagine Brunei Sultan Hasanal Bolkiah or Prime Minister Hun Sen would veto Jokowi’s plan, given that the two leaders were internationally embarrassed by the junta in their capacity as the ASEAN chair. Objection to the bold actions against the Myanmar junta might come from Laos, Vietnam and to a certain extent Thailand.
President Jokowi initiated the ASEAN emergency summit in Jakarta last year and invited Hlaing who had toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi two months before. Jokowi needs to demonstrate more hands-on leadership in ASEAN in the coming year.
What happened in Jakarta on Thursday was the anticlimax of what ASEAN foreign ministers had pursued after their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the United States last month. There they said they vowed to get tougher with Myanmar’s military junta.
Hopes were rife prior to the meeting on Thursday that the ministers would recommend their leaders a dramatic change of measures against the junta during their summit in Phnom Penh next month. The summit will be followed by a meeting with leaders of ASEAN dialogue partners the United States, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and India.
