14th Asean Summit: A reality check

by Mungpi

Monday, 02 March 2009 20:07

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ on Sunday concluded its 14th summit leaving the United Nations to handle a political crisis of a member state – Burma. The 10-nation bloc, in its chairman’s statement on Sunday urged military-ruled Burma to implement inclusive national reconciliation and release political prisoners but at the same time agreed that the UN should continue its facilitation. “We underscored the necessity for and welcomed Myanmar [Burmese] Government’s willingness to engage in active cooperation actively with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in order to address the international community’s concern about the situation in Myanmar [Burma],” the statement of the bloc said. But Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi during a separate press conference said in reply to a reporter’s question that Burma has indicated its willingness to directly interact with the UN process rather than with ASEAN on the country’s democratization. Campaigners said Asean by leaving Burma’s political crisis to the UN to solve is, washing its hands off and shrugging responsibility. Debbie Stothard, coordinator of Alternative Asean Network on Burma, a campaign group, said Asean is contradicting itself by refusing to take the responsibility to intervene in Burma’s political crisis. “This shows that Asean does not want to take responsibility. If so, they should not protect the junta too,” she said. Stothard said, the Asean, in any case should be responsible for its member state’s affairs, but if it chooses not to take responsibility, then it should be totally “Hands Off” and should not block or protect the Burmese military junta from any form of pressure. New name for Rohingya The three-day Asean summit on conclusion gave a new name to Rohingya boat people, who in recent months have been a hotly debated issue among the regional countries after several hundreds of them, were rescued from the sea. The Chairman’s statement said Asean leaders had a productive discussion on “illegal migrants in the Indian Ocean”, apparently referring to the Rohingya boat people, and the issue would be taken up at the ‘Bali Process’. “We had a productive discussion on the issue of illegal migrants in the Indian Ocean.  To address this issue, cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination is of great importance,” the chairman’s statement said. It added that the issue would be addressed in a larger context, such as the contact group of affected countries and the Bali Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crimes. “We also tasked the ASEAN Secretary-General to coordinate with the Myanmar Government to obtain relevant statistics related to these illegal migrants in the Indian Ocean,” the statement said. Asean’s statement on illegal migrants in the Indian Ocean came up following the Burmese Prime Minister Lt-Gen Thein Sein’s acknowledgement of the Rohingya as a Bengali minority group. Thein Sein reportedly said Burma is willing to take back the Rohingya boatpeople if it can be verified that they are Bengali minority born in Burma. But Amnesty International’s Burma researcher Benjamin Zawacki said, it is disappointing that the Rohingya issue was not formally discussed at the Summit and the response of the Burmese Prime Minister does not solve the problem. “It doesn’t solve the problem in anyway, but it only postpones the problem,” Zawacki said. He said referring the Rohingya issue to the Bali Process, while it is necessary, as some of the Rohingya might have been trafficked, does not solve the root cause, which is persecution of the Rohingya in Burma. Amnesty International on Wednesday issued a statement calling on the Asean leaders to include the Rohingya issue in the formal agenda of the summit. However, leaders from Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam decided to hold the issue to be taken up at the Bali Ministerial conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crimes. Zawacki said, it is “Simple not accurate” to term all the Rohingya boatpeople as migrants or trafficked people. There needs to be proper determination of the root cause that led them to flee their country. “The problem needs to be dealt at the beginning, which is in Myanmar [Burma],” he added. Reality Check Asean, with a tradition of adhering to non-interference into the affairs of member-states, has made it clear that Burma’s problems are internal and the group would not interfere. But the region continues to be affected with issues such as the Rohingya boatpeople, and the flow of migrants and refugees, among others. Zawacki said, Asean’s non-interference policy is not solving the problem but is making the problem worse. It should take a more pro-active role in solving human rights problems in the region. “It is truly in Asean’s self-interest to scrap its non-interference policy and to ensure that it is able to deal with Human Rights problems in individual member states including Myanmar [Burma],” he added. Similarly, Stothard said Asean should not rely on the United Nations to solve the problem of its member state, Burma, but it should rather pressure the military junta to respect the rights of the Burmese people. Stothard said the 14th Asean Summit is a strong reality check for the group because no amount of charters, resolutions or declaration without action would solve the problems in Burma. “It’s a strong reality check… the Asean leaders should know now that if they are not willing to do what is needed and take action, they are prolonging the problem not only for the Burmese people but even for the people of Asean,” Stothard said. She added pressures do have impacts on Burma’s military government, officially known as State Peace and Development Council, and they are playing every way to avoid it. “Honestly, the SPDC wants to let us think that they don’t care for pressures, but the reality is that they do, and that’s why they are lobbying so hard to get away from Asean pressures,” she added. < Prev   Next >