THERE is a video uploaded in the official Youtube channel of Indonesian President of a sunset cruise for Asean leaders, one of the highlights at the recent 42nd Asean Summit in Labuan Bajo.
Hosted by President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo, the leaders were clearly enjoying the evening with their spouses. For a couple of hours, they took a break from serious discussions on economic recovery, climate change, food security and other issues facing the region.
Two leaders were missing. Thailand, which was holding its elections, and Myanmar, which was not invited following the military junta’s human rights violations and their failure to adhere to Asean’s plan to tackle the crisis.
Still, invited or not, Myanmar and its crisis never fail to steal the limelight at these summits.
Just before the summit in Indonesia, reports came in that Myanmar’s military had intensified attacks and airstrikes on resistance forces and ethnic minority rebels. Then there was the attack on a convoy of the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management and the Asean Monitoring Team in Myanmar.
Asean leaders issued a statement at the summit expressing their concern on the violence and condemned the attack. But that was it, another statement to address the problem and to support Indonesia as Asean chair to continue with its quiet diplomacy.
The grouping is still banking on its Five-Point Consensus (5PC) which calls for:
– the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar and all parties to exercise utmost restraint;
– constructive dialogue among all parties concerned to commence to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people;
– a special envoy of the Asean Chair to facilitate mediation of the dialogue process, with the assistance of the secretary-general of Asean;
– Asean to provide humanitarian assistance through the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance; and
– the special envoy and delegation to visit Myanmar to meet with all parties concerned.
Asean is still struggling for the military junta to come on board and adhere to the 5PC drawn up by the regional grouping after a coup threw out the democratically-elected government in February 2021, triggering violence that killed thousands and displaced more than a million people.
The reality is that sooner or later, Asean leaders will need to address the question what if Myanmar does not fulfill its end of the bargain.
The onus is on the Asean chairmanship, which is rotated annually among the 10 members in alphabetical order.
After Indonesia, which took over from Cambodia, it will be Laos and then Malaysia in 2025. According to the rotation, Myanmar will take over the chair in 2026. The handover ceremony normally takes place at the end of the second summit (Asean chair hosts two summits within the same year) where the present chair symbolically passes the baton to the next chair.
Skipping chairmanship is not something new. Myanmar gave up its 2006 chairmanship after Asean’s dialogue partners, the United States and European Union, demanded that the junta then move towards democracy and release Aung San Suu Kyi or forfeit the chairmanship.
Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, who was Foreign Minister back then, confirmed there were informal discussions among Asean members and some of the dialogue partners on how Myanmar could take the chair when its turn came.
“There were a lot of discussions with the dialogue partners and Myanmar was generally not accepted by them. It was better for Myanmar to withdraw. They agreed to skip rather than be voted out.
“So that was the best way out,” he added.
The current military junta has promised to hold elections next year, but that remains to be seen.
“It is difficult to speculate. The junta plans to hold the general election next year. Not sure how this will turn out and it depends on the scenario then. In any case, Asean works by consensus,” said one senior official.
Syed Hamid said the situation in Myanmar is worse today than before and it didn’t help that there is disagreement among Asean members themselves on the Myanmar crisis.
“Myanmar promised to hold elections but is that good enough? Myanmar reverted back from democracy transition to military. There was a coup and human rights violations.
“To avoid the embarrassment, Myanmar can just say they want to concentrate on their democracy path and say they will not be able to host,” he added.
An Asean diplomat said perhaps the suggestion of carving out Myanmar is not a bad proposal after all.
“It is not totally bad because there are Asean dialogue partners having difficulties in engaging with Asean with Myanmar still inside. Yes, we talk about Asean centrality but to what extend when this idea of Asean centrality with Myanmar on the outskirt causing difficulties to other members,” he said.
During a visit to Bangkok in February Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim raised the question of “carving Myanmar out for now”, asking Asean for a strong consensus in giving a strong message to the Myanmar junta.
At the summit in Labuan Bajo, Anwar reiterated his concern over Myanmar and Asean’s non-interference principle.
“He was trying to tell us this principle, if it doesn’t affect us it is okay. But when it involves hundred thousands of refugees and becomes a regional issue, we can’t just say it is non-interference,” said a diplomat.
Asean will need to deal with these questions very seriously. When will Asean deal with Myanmar’s chairmanship? Or will it be too late and become more or less fait accompli?
So who will Malaysia handover the chair to in 2025?
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