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Jokowi ‘disappointed’ by Myanmar military executions
The President openly voiced his dismay as Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said Indonesia was among the first to call for a strong response to the Myanmar junta's executions.
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo (second left) and Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi (right) walk to the ASEAN leaders' summit at the bloc's secretariat building in Jakarta on April 24, 2021. (Handout/Muchlis Jr/Indonesian Presidential Palace via REUTERS)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expressed his “disappointment” at the recent executions of four pro-democracy activists in Myanmar, calling it a sign of “a lack of significant progress in the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus”, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said in a briefing in Japan on Wednesday.
On Monday, the Myanmar military junta’s decision to execute four pro-democracy political prisoners despite appeals and warnings from several international actors sparked widespread condemnation from around the globe.
The military rulers defended its actions on Tuesday as “justice for the people”, brushing off a deluge of condemnation including from its closest neighbors. Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said the men had been given due process and insisted those executed were not democracy activists, but killers deserving of their punishment.
“This was justice for the people. These criminals were given the chance to defend themselves,” he told a regular televised news briefing, as quoted by Reuters. “I knew it would raise criticism but it was done for justice. It was not personal.”
The executions are a direct violation of the Five-Point Consensus, a 2021 ASEAN peace initiative agreed to by nine of the region’s leaders as well as Myanmar’s military chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
The five points call for an immediate cessation of violence; dialogue among all parties; the appointment of a special envoy; engagement with the envoy; and regional humanitarian assistance. But one and a half years after the agreement, the junta has not ceased committing violence and has frequently refused to partake in multiparty dialogue.
The executions come barely a month after ASEAN’s special envoy for Myanmar, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, returned from a visit to the country in efforts to fulfill the mandates of the Five-Point Consensus.
