A Myanmar junta representative attends the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting in Vientiane, Lao PDR, in June (ASEAN)

Despite the Myanmar junta’s ongoing military attacks and other grave human rights violations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) looks set to include regime officials in human rights meetings to be held during a major gathering of the bloc’s members and partners in Vientiane this week.

The website of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) states that it has “overall responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN.”

Its meetings involve government-appointed representatives on human rights from each ASEAN member state.

According to reports in junta-controlled media sources, regime officials have represented Myanmar at these meetings since 2022 and in related ASEAN meetings on human rights since 2021.

No representatives of Myanmar’s publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG) were invited to the meeting.

“It is inappropriate for ASEAN to permit a junta representative to participate in these AICHR meetings,” Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s minister for human rights, said.

“[The] NUG has not been invited to these meetings because ASEAN has not officially recognised or engaged with us. This is despite occasional interactions with some of the bloc’s member countries that hold the ASEAN chairmanship, which, however, does not represent ASEAN as a whole,” he added.

Myanmar Now requested an explanation from ASEAN’s secretariat and AICHR, but no response was received.

Since October 2021, ASEAN has excluded the military junta leadership from high-level meetings. This position was adopted in response to the junta’s failure to implement ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, which called for a cessation of violence and dialogue towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Meanwhile, ASEAN has instead accepted the junta’s senior bureaucrats as representatives to its many meetings.

This has led to criticism of ASEAN appearing to be supporting the military junta by engaging with them instead of with members of the publicly mandated government, which calls into question ASEAN’s credibility to be any sort of mediator in the situation at all.

Myanmar civil society organisations (CSOs) believe that ASEAN is failing Myanmar people.

Defend Myanmar Democracy, a CSO dedicated to defending Myanmar people’s right to democratic representation in all international forums, has been monitoring ASEAN’s engagement with the military junta.

“During the past three and a half years, we have recorded more than 600 cases where ASEAN has invited junta bureaucrats, not the [NUG] government, to represent Myanmar in its meetings,” explained spokesperson Naw Aung.

“Each case is concerning because it helps the military junta in its efforts to appear as a government, and ultimately helps to legitimise them as such,” he added.

“The AICHR has been silent in the face of the junta’s attacks on the Myanmar people. This organisation is not only doing nothing to help Myanmar people, but also actively working against them by inviting the military junta to its top meetings on human rights.

“That is really the height of hypocrisy, and it sends a message to Myanmar people that ASEAN doesn’t care about your suffering or your human rights,” he said.

Progressive Voice, a rights-based advocacy organisation that amplifies the voices of Myanmar civil society to the international community, describes the AICHR’s inclusion of the military junta in its meetings as “disgraceful to the people of Myanmar and beyond.”

A spokesperson from the organisation recalls that “the AICHR has been neglecting grave human rights violations and atrocity crimes against people by the Myanmar military for decades. Thus, its latest decision to invite junta representatives to its Special Meeting is par for the course of its persistent approach in regard to Myanmar.”

Together with other CSOs, Progressive Voice is advocating to suspend or expel the junta-controlled Myanmar National Human Rights Commission from other regional and international forums for national human rights institutions.

So far, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) has responded by adapting its rules for accreditation.

The rule changes require national human rights institutions that do not fully comply with international standards (known as the “Paris principles,” set by the United Nations Human Rights Commission) to undergo a review and/or to have their accreditation status removed.

In October 2023, GANHRI removed the junta-controlled Myanmar National Human Rights Commission’s accreditation status while allowing one year “to provide the evidence necessary to establish its partial compliance with the Paris Principles.”

A final decision is expected from GANHRI in October this year.

Meanwhile, the military junta has increased its attacks against the people of Myanmar five-fold over the past six months.

The military junta’s grave human rights abuses are extensive and widespread. Since February 2021, the military has killed over 5,400 people and more than 20,700 are currently detained.

Its attacks on civilians amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including indiscriminate airstrikes, artillery shelling, massacres, mass torture and arson, not to mention its many horrific acts of sexual and gender-based violence.

The junta is led by generals who are under investigation for their previous crimes against the Rohingya by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. They are also accused of genocide and crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction in Argentina.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has repeatedly condemned the military junta’s coup attempt and ongoing violence.

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