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ASEAN upholds ‘noninterference’ as it brings human rights body into Myanmar debate
ASEAN has involved its human rights body in efforts to ensure Myanmar complies with a regional consensus to end its ongoing political crisis, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said ahead of crunch talks on Wednesday.
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Protesters perform the three-finger salute during a demonstration against the Myanmar junta's execution of four political prisoners, outside the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok on July 26. (AFP/Manan Vatsyayana)
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SEAN will continue encouraging the Myanmar junta to abide by a regional consensus to end the country’s political crisis but will do so without “interference in domestic affairs”, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said on Tuesday, after announcing that the bloc’s rights body would be involved in monitoring compliance.
Retno made the comments after the region’s top diplomats met with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
Retno said that going forward, the AICHR would be involved in dealing with more regional human rights issues, after previously being omitted from the drafting of ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus on the Myanmar issue. The consensus calls for an immediate cessation of violence, dialogue among all parties, the dispatch of a special envoy and the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
However, she also noted that meetings on human rights were meant to increase cooperation among ASEAN countries.
“They are not finger-pointing exercises to address domestic problems but efforts to solidify two pillars [of the consensus...], which are the promotion of human rights and the increased protection of rights,” she told reporters at the venue in Phnom Penh.
“It should not be misinterpreted as interference in domestic affairs.”
ASEAN decision-making works by consensus and abides by a “non-interference principle”, which has been criticized for holding back progress on human rights.
