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Just expel the Myanmar’s junta from ASEAN
President Jokowi, who chairs ASEAN this year, has said ASEAN should not be “taken hostage” by the Myanmar military junta.
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Protesters hold up a banner featuring an image of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 15, 2021 during a demonstration against the military coup in front of the Yangon offices of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). (AFP/-)
P
resident Joko "Jokowi" Widodo will host the ASEAN summit on May 9-11 in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara. The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Myanmar will yet again test the credibility of the regional bloc.
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing will be barred from attending the summit, as ASEAN has yet to lift the punitive measure imposed on the Myanmar military junta for its disrespect for the five-point consensus (5PC). Still, despite the isolation, the junta is unlikely to relent or offer a compromise because it knows ASEAN wants it to relinquish the power it robbed from the Myanmar people on Feb. 1, 2021.
With all respect to the intensive diplomatic efforts by the Indonesian-led ASEAN efforts to find meaningful solutions to the Myanmar crisis, or at least to reduce the rampant violence and human rights abuses committed by the junta, Min Aung Hlaing has made it very clear he will turn a deaf ear to ASEAN’s condemnations of his genocidal acts.
So why should Indonesia continue expecting the general to finally become part of the solution?
It is equally impossible to pin hopes solely on the National Unity Government (NUG), the representative government of Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi in exile. The NUG recently asked ASEAN to refrain from dealing with the junta, which is too much. Who do they think they are that they dare to dictate the regional grouping?
On April 17, the Diplomat quoted Aung Myo Min, the NUG's human rights minister, as saying that ASEAN "could face legal ramifications given war crimes are under investigation by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court".
"ASEAN cannot work with them; they do not have to work with them. They have been warned that those terrorists will go before the international courts," he said, referring to the military junta.
