Is Asean playing the fiddle while Myanmar is burning? It sure appears so. Feb 1, 2021 is so long ago, especially when torture and torment are being tallied.
Another February has come and gone six months ago, yet the Tatmadaw, as the military is known in Myanmar, is still at the helm of the state, not in the barracks. What's worse, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who some in the 10-member bloc are fond of, hasn't stopped killing his people.
According to an AFP report yesterday, 2,100 have been killed in the junta's brutal crackdown on dissent.
At least 44 were children. And all Asean could do was chide the junta. Like the United Nations, Asean has become a mere talking shop.
Here is why it is all bark and no bite. First, the regional bloc is in love with decisions by consensus, even though Article 20 of its charter permits it to override this 'constraint'. This is why Asean, wanting a horse, has to make do with an ass most times. Call it the curse of consensus. Second, Asean is not a bloc of united nations. The treatment of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has brought this into sharp relief, though Myanmar had already torn the bloc asunder earlier during the Rohingya crisis.
Asean seems to have 10 different ways of dealing with the genocidal general. Well, almost 10 different ways. A few are happy to play the fiddle Nero-like while a few want to douse the fire. And the rest are stuck in between.
Ideology? More like idiocy.
Malaysia, one of the few members who are hurrying to douse the fire, quite rightly took exception to the Jan 7 visit of Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, the current chairman of Asean, to Myanmar. To Kuala Lumpur, it was like Asean recognising the coup. Malaysia had a point, but Cambodia refused to see it and went ahead with the visit. Hun Sen chided Malaysia. Or more accurately, Malaysia's foreign minister, who voiced the exception.
Hun Sen was quoted by Reuters, a news agency, as telling the state media that he was going to Naypyidaw "to plant trees, not to cut down trees." He might have, but Min Aung Hlaing is cutting them down. Even those planted by Hun Sen. Last month, the junta executed four activists, including lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu, after a kangaroo court trial. Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines, too, appear to want a firmer line on Min Aung Hlaing.
Late last year, Brunei barred the junta from Asean meetings when Myanmar showed no interest in implementing the bloc's five-point consensus on ending the conflict. If the five bloc members stick together in seeing a strong stand being taken against Min Aung Hlaing, then we may hear of a surprise move soon: the suspension of Myanmar from Asean.
Malaysia hinted at such a move as recently as last week.
If the statement of Asean foreign ministers issued on Friday is anything to go by, the Southeast Asian bloc appears to be keen on suspending Myanmar if there is no progress on the crisis resolution plan. But argumentative Asean is bound to quarrel about what is and is not "progress". As an old English saying goes, there's many a slip between the cup and the lip.
