ASEAN’s Harmful Five-Point Obsession
If ASEAN truly aims to achieve a long-term sustainable solution for Myanmar, the only way forward is to heed the Myanmar people’s calls.
During the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits, ASEAN once again proved its incapacity to address Myanmar’s crisis and its ongoing lack of support for the people of Myanmar—who are making immense efforts to build a peaceful and stable Myanmar amid the military junta’s extreme violence. As the Myanmar military junta continued its terror campaign against civilians, ASEAN welcomed a senior junta representative to its Summits, doubled down on inaction, and affirmed the harmful Five-Point Consensus (5PC). Not only is this negligence, but it is also an insult to Myanmar’s peoples. ASEAN must move beyond the dead-on-arrival 5PC and align its actions with the people’s efforts and sacrifices.
Last week, ASEAN welcomed the junta-controlled permanent secretary of foreign affairs to its Summits held in Vientiane, Laos—shaking hands with the criminal junta’s representative. Meanwhile, on 9 October, the illegal junta hosted the 18th ASEAN Navy Chiefs’ Meeting in Naypyidaw. Senior military officers from all but one of ASEAN’s member states attended. This is despite 237 civil society organizations having called on ASEAN to exclude the junta from the Summits and other ASEAN meetings, and invite legitimate representatives of the Myanmar people instead.
By rubbing elbows with the criminal junta, ASEAN leaders clearly showed their apathy towards the Myanmar people’s suffering from the junta’s ongoing terror campaign. During the Summits, in Rakhine State alone, the junta killed at least 23 civilians. On 7 October, the junta dropped six bombs on Rakhine’s Tan Hlwe Ywar Ma Town, Taungup Township, killing 17 people. That same day, the junta bombed a school in Kha Yay Myaing Village, Maungdaw Township, killing two teenage boys. On 10 October, the junta bombed Kyauktaw Town, Kyauktaw Township, killing four civilians and injuring at least 16. ASEAN’s blatant ignorance of the junta’s atrocities once again paraded its lack of genuine political will and “commitment to…finding a peaceful and durable solution to the ongoing crisis.”
Worse is that despite the murderous junta’s total disregard of the 5PC, on 9 October, ASEAN leaders announced their decision to “[m]aintain the 5PC as the main reference to address the political crisis in Myanmar” while expressing concern about the 5PC’s “substantially inadequate progress,” putting ASEAN’s blinkered vision on full display. The question remains: Why—after three and a half years of the junta’s escalating violence—is ASEAN so obsessed with the 5PC when the Myanmar people have repeatedly denounced it and the junta is actively undermining it?
On 7 October, 240 Myanmar civil society organizations including Progressive Voice sent an open letter to ASEAN leaders, calling out ASEAN’s lethal silence and urging ASEAN to change course immediately. The organizations called on ASEAN to take six key actions to genuinely support the protection of the lives and rights of Myanmar’s peoples and join them in their efforts to build an inclusive federal democracy. Among these actions, the organizations urged ASEAN to end all engagement with the military junta and exclude all junta representatives from all ASEAN platforms. These recommendations were set forth during this year’s ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum (ACSC/APF) by the Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF.
Nevertheless, following the Summits, plans for “inclusive dialogue” have emerged, almost certainly to include the military junta—the same old framework as previous doomed-to-fail attempts. If ASEAN truly wants to achieve “an inclusive and durable peaceful resolution that is Myanmar-owned and -led” as it claims, then ASEAN must ensure that the junta is not involved in any capacity and must not pressure the people’s democratic resistance movement. Any attempts at dialogue involving the junta will certainly fail because they blatantly contravene the democratic aspirations and will of the Myanmar people.
ASEAN’s current approach is not only problematic; it is actively harming the people of Myanmar, fueling the junta’s violence with false legitimacy and severely impeding the people’s efforts to achieve federal democracy. If ASEAN truly aims to achieve a long-term sustainable solution for Myanmar, the only way forward is to heed the Myanmar people’s calls.
ASEAN must immediately end all activities lending legitimacy to the illegal junta and exclude all members and representatives of the junta from its platforms going forward. Otherwise, it will only embolden the junta, and prolong and exacerbate its extreme violence against the people. To achieve “peace, security and stability in the region,” the bloc and its member states must comply with their international obligations and act to protect the people of Myanmar and stop the junta from further destabilizing the region. By failing to do so, ASEAN will only deepen its complicity in the junta’s atrocity crimes.
The Myanmar people will not accept any solution imposed on them against their will. ASEAN and the wider international community must open their eyes to the reality of what’s happening in Myanmar, urgently move beyond the harmful 5PC, and align with the will of the people. Going forward, they must support the people’s revolution, and recognize and engage officially and robustly with the people’s legitimate representatives and governance bodies, including the National Unity Government, the National Unity Consultative Council, ethnic resistance organizations, and newly established ethnic councils.
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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.
Resources from the past week
Statements and Press Releases
By 240 Myanmar Civil Society Organizations
Myanmar: Two activists at grave risk of torture after arrests
By Amnesty International
People-Led Karenni Governance Structure Pioneers Federal Nation-State Building for Myanmar
By Progressive Voice, Karenni National Women’s Organization, Karenni Civil Society Network and Union of Karenni State Youth
By Progressive Voice, Karenni National Women’s Organization, Karenni Civil Society Network and Union of Karenni State Youth
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
By UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar
Reports
Aerial Attacks Carried out by the military council (5)
By Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica
စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လေကြောင်းအသုံးပြုတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများ လေ့လာမှုအစီရင်ခံစာ (၅)
By Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica
Federalism from the Ground Up: The Karenni Model of Nation-State Building
By Progressive Voice, Karenni National Women’s Organization, Karenni Civil Society Network and Union of Karenni State Youth
By Shan Human Rights Foundation
By Shan Human Rights Foundation
Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”
