Prime Minister Anwar must Champion a new ASEAN Process on Myanmar

We welcome Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s meeting with National Unity Government (NUG) Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Thann on 18 April 2025. The ASEAN Chair’s engagement with Myanmar’s legitimate political leadership has opened channels for the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance following the devastating Sagaing earthquakes of 28 March 2025. Further meetings between the ASEAN Chair and the NUG must take place in the lead up to the ASEAN Summit later this month.

Prime Minister Anwar also met with junta leader and alleged war criminal Min Aung Hlaing, in part to secure an extension of the junta’s non-existent ceasefire. Prime Minister Anwar reported that he was given an assurance that the “ceasefire”, which took effect on 2 April, would hold. But Min Aung Hlaing’s lie was exposed before the meeting even ended. As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has confirmed, the junta’s “unremitting violence inflicted on civilians” has continued unabated.

According to the NUG, junta airstrikes conducted since the earthquakes through to 9 May killed at least 334 civilians including 32 children, and wounded at least 408 civilians including 53 children. In a horrific emblematic attack on 12 May, the junta bombed a school in O Htein Twin village of Depayin Township in Sagaing region. Twenty-two children – some aged as young as seven – and two teachers were killed, while as many as 105 other civilians were wounded.

The junta’s tactics and behaviour will not change. Since its failed power grab in 2021, it has also forcibly displaced more than 3.5 million people, plunged tens of millions more into poverty and repeatedly exploited natural disasters for military advantage by weaponizing aid and manipulating and obstructing humanitarian access. Furthermore, it has subjected ASEAN to four years of humiliation by denying and blocking the Five Point Consensus (5PC) at every turn.

By meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, Prime Minister Anwar has forced an ASEAN reset on Myanmar. The redundant 5PC should be regarded as dead. Prime Minister Anwar must now champion a new ASEAN process on Myanmar, to be adopted at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur. It could take the form of a New 5PC based on the following priorities and principles:

1. ASEAN will convene inclusive talks between the NUG, Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs) and other armed groups including the junta to secure an immediate end to all attacks, particularly airstrikes, and a total countrywide ceasefire supported and enforced by ASEAN and the UN Security Council and monitored by international observers.

2. ASEAN will coordinate with key stakeholders including the NUG, EROs, minority representatives, civil society and the junta, as well as with neighbouring countries and UN agencies, to support the urgent, impartial and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian and material assistance by all available means to all communities in need in Myanmar, to ensure aid is not weaponised, and to secure scaled-up financial support to bolster recovery and reconstruction efforts and to address the broader humanitarian crisis. Full and unimpeded access must be granted to humanitarian agencies and actors.

3. ASEAN will support all stakeholders to develop procedures for genuine and credible nationwide elections with independent international monitors, to take place once a legitimate and inclusive peace agreement has been secured and all fighting has stopped – the only conditions in which a free and fair election is possible.

4. ASEAN will support all stakeholders in their negotiation of a new federal democratic constitution for Myanmar in accordance with the will and interests of the people and inclusive of all communities including minorities. As a core condition, the Myanmar military must be made permanently subordinate to a democratically elected civilian government and parliament.

5. ASEAN will support accountability for international crimes committed in Myanmar by all parties to the conflict and will cooperate with international and national courts and tribunals and accountability mechanisms to secure justice, including courts exercising universal jurisdiction. There can be no amnesties for international crimes and grave violations and abuses.

Prime Minister Anwar has the opportunity to secure Malaysia’s success as ASEAN Chair and to salvage ASEAN’s credibility after years of failure on Myanmar. He has bet his reputation on it. The people of Myanmar have much more at stake.

Dato’ Sri Saifuddin Abdullah

Marzuki Darusman

Yanghee Lee

Chris Sidoti

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