ASEAN’s Credibility Crisis

On 12 May 2025, the junta once again bombed a school—this time in O Htein Twin Village, Depayin Township, Sagaing Region, killing 22 children and two teachers and injuring more than 40 people. Over four years, none of the efforts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have stopped a single junta airstrike targeting civilians, highlighting the failure of its approach. Instead, ASEAN’s repeated engagements have only emboldened the junta, ultimately harming the people of Myanmar rather than easing their suffering and addressing the crisis. As ASEAN remains apathetic by allowing the junta to continue committing crimes and buy time to whitewash its atrocity crimes, it allows such brutality to persist unchecked, further deepening its complicity in the junta’s crimes. 

According to the Ministry of Human Rights of the National Unity Government, the junta used cluster munitions in the Depayin school bombing, confirmed by witness accounts and bomb fragments found at the scene. Since 2021, the junta has attacked at least 333 schools. On top of that, since the devastating Sagaing earthquake of 28 March 2025, the junta has carried out 744 airstrikes and artillery attacks as of 22 May, killing at least 506 people. The military—with its long history of widespread and systematic campaigns of violence, particularly against ethnic minority nationalities in many past decades—is systematically carrying out airstrikes using a fleet of over 200 aircraft bought from China, Russia, and India deployed across the country. Meanwhile, the junta’s Defense Services Industries (Ka Pa Sa) is ramping up munitions production, according to the Myanmar Defense and Security Institute.

“How many more of our children must die before the international community speaks out and offers help? Are you all deaf? Save our children! You always talk about human rights, yet our children are being killed and schools destroyed. Isn’t this a blatant violation of human rights? We won’t just cry—we will resist,” stated a Civil Disobedience Movement teacher at the scene of the school bombing in Sagaing Region. Such pleas remain unanswered and unaddressed by ASEAN and the international community. 

The credibility, efficacy, and relevance of ASEAN as a regional bloc are declining due to its repeated failures in addressing the root cause of intensifying multifaceted crisis in Myanmar. The upcoming ASEAN Summit, to be hosted by Malaysia, presents a unique opportunity for ASEAN and its members to effectively address the Myanmar crisis. Malaysia, in particular, must lead the bloc to seek redemption by taking a more principled and decisive stance coupled with taking concrete actions as urged by 285 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations.

ASEAN’s abysmal track record in addressing Myanmar’s intensifying crisis since the junta’s illegal coup attempt has shown contempt for the Myanmar people’s will to end the junta’s violence and build sustainable peace. ASEAN leaders are complicit in the junta’s atrocities by delaying action and protecting the criminal junta—the root cause of Myanmar’s polycrisis—all while it rapidly loses more territorial and administrative control to the democratic resistance.  

At the height of ASEAN’s hypocrisy, the aftermath of the Sagaing earthquake was used as an opportunity to normalize relations with the junta, lend it false legitimacy, and push for so-called “inclusive dialogue” and an empty ceasefire pledge. “I thank Gen Min Aung Hlaing for responding positively to our call…. During my meeting with him, I will push for the ceasefire to be extended,” said ASEAN Chair and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, before meeting with the junta chief in April. Yet after the junta violated its so-called ceasefire and intensified airstrikes against civilians, mainly targeting schools, Malaysia and other ASEAN members have remained in total silence—failing to condemn the breach or demand accountability. This marks yet another glaring symptom of ASEAN’s failure, enabling the junta to carry on with impunity and its blatant disregard of the obsolete Five-Point Consensus and ASEAN as a whole.

Under the junta’s daily cruelty, the people of Myanmar are enduring intensifying violence—left unprotected by the world, with their suffering too often neglected. Expressions of concern and sympathy that surface only in moments of tragedy, without meaningful action, are nothing but empty gestures that do not end the junta’s terror. If ASEAN truly wants to implement effective humanitarian action and save the lives of Myanmar people, it must take decisive steps, first and foremost, to stop the junta’s violence—particularly its airstrikes.

At the upcoming ASEAN Summit, leaders must heed the voices of the Myanmar people and support a Myanmar people-owned and -led solution that backs the people’s revolution. Before more lives are lost, ASEAN must shed its hypocrisy and complicity, demonstrate responsible leadership and accountability, uphold humanity, and protect the human rights and dignity of the Myanmar people. Otherwise, as Justice For Myanmar stated, “In Myanmar, ASEAN now stands for complicity in…Atrocities…Sanctions evasion…Economic crimes…Arming war criminals…[and] Negotiating with terrorists.”  

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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.

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.”