ASEAN Summit: Exclude Myanmar?

Military-ruled Myanmar is to be excluded from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit scheduled for October 26-28. In August, the 10-member Southeast Asian bloc selected Brunei’s Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as its special envoy to Myanmar, to help solve the political crisis that has followed the military’s seizure of power in February. But the junta’s marked lack of cooperation with the envoy has prompted Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah to propose that it be excluded from the summit. 

The junta’s refusal to grant the envoy access to “all parties” was unsurprising, given the junta’s lack of cooperation with the implementation of the Five-Points Consensus agreed by ASEAN at its special summit in Jakarta in April. This included the appointment of a special envoy, included calls for inclusive dialogue and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

 “... The junta has played ASEAN for a fool, using it to try and gain legitimacy, while at the same time increasing its brutal reprisals against the people,” said Charles Santiago of the advocacy group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights.

ASEAN leaders have recognized the threat that the Myanmar crisis poses to the bloc’s legitimacy. In March, Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in a statement that failing to take meaningful action in the case of Myanmar “would starkly underscore our lack of unity, and undermine our credibility and relevance as an organization.”

But the bloc’s accommodating approach – one that basically took the junta at its word – has underscored international perceptions of ASEAN as a forum of complicity and inaction.

While ASEAN’s Charter does not contain an explicit power to expel or suspend a nation’s membership, Aaron Connelly of Singapore’s International Institute for Strategic Studies noted that Article 20 of the Charter does contain a broadly worded provision stating that “in a case of a serious breach of the Charter or non-compliance, the matter shall be referred to the ASEAN Summit for decision.”

This would seem to grant the other nine members of ASEAN the scope, to craft new terms of reference for the bloc’s engagement with Myanmar.

The problem with military juntas, dictatorship and the like is not just Myanmar but Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam. If one makes a case for intervention in exceptional circumstances, then ASEAN’s non-intervention policy in domestic issues is jettisoned. It is time ASEAN to set  criteria for intervention in exceptional cases and follow the framework assiduously. That will set the tone that “club” rules include no wife abuse and the like. Good luck!

 

Source: https://www.theedgemarkets.com

Source: https://www.theedgemarkets.com

Reference:

Myanmar Junta could be excluded from ASEAN summit: Malaysia, Min Aung Hliang, October   5, 2021 (https://thediplomat.com)