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View all search resultsASEAN’s Myanmar ‘recalibration’ draws backlash from regional advocacy group
Questions have begun to mount over a shift in ASEAN’s approach toward closer engagement with Myanmar’s military government nearly five years after the coup, with critics expressing concern that the bloc risks emboldening the junta despite its repeated failure to comply with the group’s peace roadmap.
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Thailand's Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and Myanmar's Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe attend an informal meeting on July 12 with ASEAN Foreign Ministers in Bangkok. (Reuters/Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Q
uestions have begun to mount over a shift in ASEAN’s approach toward closer engagement with Myanmar’s military government over five years after the coup, with critics expressing concern that the bloc risks emboldening the junta despite its repeated failure to comply with the group’s peace roadmap.
The concerns came following two back-to-back regional meetings held in Thailand over the past week to discuss ASEAN’s way forward with Naypyidaw, during which the bloc’s members met with various Myanmar representatives while increasingly signaling an openness to normalize ties with its military government.
“ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights warns that ASEAN’s shift toward ‘calibrated engagement’ with Myanmar’s military-appointed risks normalizing a dictatorship without securing any tangible results for the Myanmar people,” said APHR, a regional advocacy group whose members are sitting and former legislators, in a statement on Wednesday.
“APHR urges ASEAN to ensure its diplomatic recalibration does not come at the cost of the accountability and justice Myanmar’s people have been demanding since the coup,” it said.
On Sunday, the bloc’s foreign ministers met with their Myanmar counterpart U Tin Maung Swe in Bangkok, marking the first time that Myanmar’s political representatives had attended a full-house ASEAN meeting since its exclusion from the bloc’s high-level gathering following the 2021 military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government. In the meeting, the Myanmar minister outlined Naypyidaw’s efforts to implement the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), including a 100-day peace plan and measures to address transnational crimes.
Signed by all ASEAN members and Myanmar’s junta in 2021, the 5PC calls for cessation of violence in Myanmar, constructive dialogue among all parties, appointment of a special envoy as well as humanitarian assistance. But progress has been scant as the Myanmar military remained defiant.
Read also: ASEAN ministers push stalled peace plan in Myanmar talks
