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ASEAN pressured to abandon noninterference in Myanmar

Leading politicians condemn bloc's failure to intervene

Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, March 19, 2021

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ASEAN pressured to abandon noninterference in Myanmar

P

rominent Southeast Asian politicians are urging their governments to cast aside ASEAN’s non-interference principle and consider suspending Myanmar’s membership in the bloc as frustration grows over the limited options for regional responses to the country’s violent political crisis.

Figures from six ASEAN member states said in a joint statement on Wednesday that ASEAN governments had failed to address the crisis that had been unfolding in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 military coup, which had led to over 200 deaths and the arbitrary arrests of more than 2,000 people.

The politicians, who included exiled Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, former Thai foreign minister Kasit Piromya, Indonesian lawmaker Fadli Zon and Malaysian political heavyweight Anwar Ibrahim, said ASEAN governments were being held back by their self-imposed doctrine of non-interference.

They said the principle, which prevents members from interfering in others' internal affairs, had become a major hindrance to the development of participatory democracies and the protection of the basic rights of the peoples of ASEAN.

“All those responsible for the killing of innocent people must [...] be prosecuted and brought to justice,” proclaimed the signatories, who also included Philippine senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilingan and retired Singaporean politician Charles Chong.

Read also: Myanmar: Rethinking ASEAN noninterference

“Failing which, all other ASEAN governments must unite and suspend Myanmar’s membership in ASEAN and thereafter impose targeted trade and economic sanctions against the military junta and their associates,” they said.

Coming from very diverse political systems, the 10 members of ASEAN have offered a spectrum of responses to the political turmoil in Myanmar, with more authoritarian nations keeping mum or citing non-interference and others, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, more outspokenly calling for an end to the military’s use of excessive force and its detention of political prisoners.

Myanmar’s coup leaders have responded with assurance that they will maintain their grip on power, despite international condemnation and a resilient civil disobedience movement denouncing the coup and clamoring for the return of democracy.

ASEAN member states agreed on March 2 to have an informal meeting with a representative of the junta, but the bloc stopped short of offering new solutions and only signaled its willingness to assist.

The countermovement in Myanmar is led by a group of ousted lawmakers in hiding. They are forming a provisional government this month in defiance of the junta and have called on ASEAN to make clear which side it is on and to act.

Read also: Indonesia pressures Myanmar junta to respect popular will, open dialogue

The signatory Fadli of the Gerindra Party said the decades-old ASEAN tradition of non-interference and its consensus-based approach had been exploited for years as an excuse for inaction in regional crises.

“The world should see no more killings, and the Myanmar crisis could be a blessing in disguise for ASEAN to reflect on reform and downsize if necessary,” said the legislator.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi continued coordinating with regional counterparts this week, including with ASEAN chair Brunei’s top diplomat, Erywan Yusof, and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, to discuss possible responses to the Myanmar situation.

Thailand’s Kasit, a former diplomat who currently serves as a member of the Thai parliament representing the opposition Democrat Party, warned that ASEAN could easily lose its respectability in the international community.

The bloc also risked losing cooperative initiatives with its partners, he said, if it was unable to solve the Myanmar crisis.

“Many of the European or ‘Western’ companies, including [from] Japan, South Korea, etc., will be quite reluctant to do more business with ASEAN as a whole and Myanmar in particular,” he said in a webinar on Wednesday.

Read also: Myanmar’s ousted lawmakers tell ASEAN to pick a side

“We are talking about the common ASEAN market, about connectivity, about the internal flow of capital goods and personnel and so on. All of these would be affected because of the coup d’etat in Myanmar.”

In 2006, Myanmar was forced to give up its rotating chairmanship of the bloc after Western nations threatened to boycott the ASEAN Regional Forum, one of the region’s landmark conferences.

At the time, Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was under house arrest and thousands of political prisoners were in jail. Various sanctions from the United States and the European Union were firmly in place.

Kasit said the non-interference principle had never been implemented as rigidly as it was now, noting that the nine other members of the bloc had been actively involved in helping Myanmar implement its seven-point “road map to democracy” in the early 2010s.

He said the foreign ministers of the nine countries had worked together “behind the scenes over a series of cups of coffee and even glasses of wine” with then-foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin, who is now the junta-appointed representative for foreign affairs.

“That's one way we did it. We interfered, and then we were successful in the realization, eventually, of the return of democracy, elections, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and so on,” Kasit said.

“Now it has been taken back. […] We have the right to push back the military junta to restore democracy. It's our right to interfere because we were part and parcel of the realization of democracy in Myanmar 10 years ago.”

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