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Devil’s in the details: ASEAN struggles to form meaningful Myanmar response
ASEAN's inertia in responding to the Myanmar coup points to a question that some ASEAN member states are reluctant to answer: Do I consent to a similar intervention to my country's affairs in the future?
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Myanmar armed forces chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing (right) meets with Brunei's Second Minister of Foreign Affairs Erywan Yusof (left) in Naypyidaw, Myanmar on June 4. (AFP/Myanmar News Agency/-)
F
ive months since Myanmar’s military seized power from a democratically elected civilian government, ASEAN is still struggling with decision-making paralysis over the most pressing political crisis in Southeast Asia, experts say.
The bloc’s chairman was quick to issue a statement at the outset of the coup on Feb. 1, followed by an online meeting of the region’s foreign ministers in March and an in-person ASEAN leader’s meeting on April 24 that included Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader himself.
The nine ASEAN leaders agreed to adopt a Five-Point Consensus to resolve the political and humanitarian crisis that was unfurling in Myanmar, demanding that the military junta stop all violence and deescalate tensions. They also tasked ASEAN chair Brunei and the association’s head to appoint someone to mediate talks between the regime and prodemocracy groups.
More than two months after the meeting, Brunei has yet to announce the appointment of a special envoy.
Read also: Indonesia reiterates call to appoint ASEAN envoy to Myanmar
Randy Nandyatama, a senior fellow at Gadjah Mada University's ASEAN Studies Center, said the group’s struggle to solve the Myanmar problem was just another example of ASEAN’s institutional inertia.
“It is a common characteristic that ASEAN institutions find it easier to reach general and abstract agreements than to ensure their implementation,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
