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View all search resultsASEAN Summit without Myanmar's SAC
Six months have passed since the ASEAN Leaders Meeting and we have continued to witness the escalation of violence with no sign it will end any time soon.
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T
he 38th and 39th ASEAN Summits are just about two weeks away from now. According to the ASEAN Charter, the summit is the supreme policy-making body and mechanism to address emergency situations affecting ASEAN.
Among other issues concerning the strengthening of the ASEAN community and centrality, the member states will also discuss the political crisis in Myanmar and the progress in the implementation of the five-point consensus agreed upon by ASEAN leaders and the Myanmar junta leader.
In the ASEAN Community Council (ACC) meeting on Oct. 4, the foreign ministers hinted at the possibility of excluding Myanmar in the next summit.
They expressed their disappointment with the lack of cooperation on the part of Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) and its slow progress in implementing the five-point consensus. The matter will be further consulted with the nine ASEAN leaders in the next summit to guide how to move forward with the SAC.
Suspending the right of a member state to participate in the ASEAN summit has not been a practice in ASEAN. However, in 2006, the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) - senior dignitaries who gave recommendations on the drafting of the ASEAN Charter – had suggested that ASEAN consider provisions to redress a member’s noncompliance to the objectives, principles and commitments under the Charter and ASEAN agreements.
Such measures include temporary suspension of rights and privileges of membership, like withholding the right to participate in ASEAN activities, and from chairing ASEAN bodies and their meetings.
Myanmar was once prevented from chairing ASEAN in 2006 due to the possibility of Western countries boycotting the ASEAN meetings in a show of protest against human rights violations in Myanmar.
