Inverting ASEAN’s diplomatic inertia on Myanmar

After three years of non-performance, Asian regional diplomacy to address Myanmar’s crisis is morbidly moribund. The Five Point Consensus (5PC) adopted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on April 24, 2021 to deal with the aftermath of the coup—supposedly with the agreement of Myanmar dictator Min Aung Hlaing—is long since past any chance of revival. One credible position could be that the 5PC is no longer fit for purpose in mid-2024. Myanmar is a dramatically altered country. Another perspective is that ASEAN, the United Nations, the West, and pretty much everyone else in the international community has made it clear the 5PC is the only diplomatic recourse. And so the revolutionary forces of Myanmar are stuck with an approach that hasn’t worked from inception, but that is still all that’s on the table. It’s worthwhile to remind readers exactly what the 5PC contains, as the list now seems to invite more instinctual scorn than actual understanding. The points are: “First, there shall be immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar and all parties shall exercise utmost restraint. Second, constructive dialogue among all parties concerned shall commence to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people. Third, a special envoy of the ASEAN Chair shall facilitate mediation of the dialogue process, with the assistance of the Secretary General of ASEAN. Fourth, ASEAN shall provide humanitarian assistance through the [ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, or AHA Centre]. Fifth, the special envoy and delegation shall visit Myanmar to meet with all parties concerned.” Can the 5PC be reformed, or reimagined? The entire premise of the 5PC must go through a reconceptualization. It needs a fundamental update and re-emphasis to provide an inert regional grouping and its multiple dialogue partners with new ways of interpreting the most salient points that have a chance of even limited progress. Not even the most pessimistic commentator could have predicted the downward spiral Myanmar would be in three years after these points were released. Remember, they were designed to pull the country back from a plunge into anarchy. In 2021, ASEAN leaders thought they could reason with Myanmar’s Sit-Tat, or military, leaders. That is no longer feasible, if it ever was at the time. The anarchy arrived, and then spread. And that is the paradoxical argument for why the 5PC may be more serviceable this year than the previous three: the military regime has inflicted so much damage on the country, and increasingly to the region, that it compels ASEAN member states to adapt the interpretation of the points. It was a diplomatic assumption that the coup could not be reversed, and the regime had to be negotiated with. But seven months after the launch of Operation 1027, and definitely with the alarm over fighting around the key border town of Myawaddy in mid-April, ASEAN’s collective complacency that the regime would prevail has been irreversibly shaken. The group’s statement on March 18 was, by the low standards of ASEAN, strident. “We…are deeply concerned over the recent escalation of conflicts [in Karen and Rakhine states]. … [W]e urge all parties for an immediate cessation of violence and to exercise utmost restraint, to uphold international humanitarian law, and to take all the necessary measures to defuse tensions and to ensure the protection and safety of all civilians, including foreign nationals and citizens of ASEAN Member States.” However, as in all its statements, it included calls for a “full and swift implementation of the Five-Point Consensus in its entirety.” Take a very basic assessment of the five points. The first is unlikely to work anytime soon. Almost all sides to the conflict have prioritised a military solution for the foreseeable future, and the Sit-Tat will continue to escalate fighting as its territory and forces contract. “Constructive dialogue” is unlikely between the regime and key revolutionary forces, whether they are in Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), the National Unity Government (NUG), or any other group opposed to its rule. But ASEAN has taken steps to convene meetings with many of these actors, and should be encouraged to pursue more. This would assist the regional grouping and various diplomats with understanding the ground situation with higher degree of accuracy, and ideally foster multiple dialogues on seeking practical solutions. Of all of the points, this is the one that requires more artful interpretation and holds potential for some semblance of dialogue—again, with an extremely low expectations threshold. Point three, on visits by the ASEAN special envoy, hasn’t produced any meaningful results, regardless of where the envoy has been from—Cambodia, Brunei, Jakarta, or Laos. Point five is pretty much the same, and is thus superfluous. Perhaps the first step of reworking the 5PC is to transform it into the 3PC, a more manageable number that could more adequately focus efforts, assuming there is even a modicum of political will to edit the approach. Humanitarian assistance is claimed to be the only calculable success story of the five points, but even that is an exaggeration. The little progress that the thoroughly mismatched AHA Centre made—a small-scale rice delivery in southern Shan State in May 2023 that one party to the conflict fired on—probably generated more effort than impact. A similar exercise, a simple aid-dump on the Thailand-Myanmar border in March, also drew international attention without delivering much actual substance. Such initiatives are best understand as symbolic trust-building exercises, or intra-ASEAN posturing, which are generally harmless as long as they don’t hamper far more large-scale, discreet and effective cross-border assistance, or what academic Anne Décobert calls “solidarity-based humanitarianism.” A much bigger concern than the AHA Centre’s fumbling is the possibility of the expensive blunderbuss of the United Nations trying to elbow into cross-border assistance, which would almost certainly disrupt existing approaches. In some sense, ASEAN’s symbolic, and thus harmless, acts shield more important activities. But this underscores a vitally important point to not mix humanitarian assistance with dialogue beyond the necessity of current aid coordination. There are foreign mediation entrepreneurs who believe that humanitarian action could be leveraged to open up dialogue between various parties. This is folly, and could endanger both aid workers and people who need vitally important aid supplies to keep arriving. In September 2023, ASEAN conducted a review of the 5PC. The review stated that “we were gravely concerned by the lack of substantial progress on the implementation by the Authority in Myanmar, despite their commitment to the 5PC in April 2021.” This was a welcome and noteworthy reflection. However, the report then recommended staying the course: “Maintain the 5PC as the main reference to address the political crisis in Myanmar which should be implemented in its entirety.” A note of chagrin and frustration was discernable in the next recommendation, when special mention was made to urge “the Myanmar Armed Forces in particular, and all related parties concerned in Myanmar to de-escalate violence and stop targeted attacks on civilians, houses and public facilities, such as schools, hospitals, markets, churches and monasteries.” The only substantial development from the September summit was to form an ASEAN “Troika” model, with envoys from Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia. But from a relatively innovative idea, little action has actually been achieved. To their credit, prominent intellectuals Andrew Ong, Min Zin, and Lina Alexander outlined a series of steps ASEAN could take for a longer-term view published in the Jakarta Post in April, including the creation of an office on Myanmar affairs. This could potentially provide forums for regular discussions with multiple stakeholders and ideally serve to educate ASEAN members on the realities of how Myanmar is changing. Likewise, an approach of educating ASEAN on Myanmar revolutionary trends was aptly articulated by Dr. Tun Aung Shwe, the NUG’s representative in Australia, in another recent piece. This illustrates the need to generate more public think pieces on how AEAN could update its approach. ASEAN can’t amend its approach, even with expectations at low volume, if it doesn’t have sensible ideas placed before them. A recent commentary suggesting that Cambodian dictator Hun Sen could play a positive role in engaging the junta is an example of a nonsensical idea. Failing to fill the public debate with credible policy thought cedes ground to such poor thinking. In neglect, opportunity? The 5PC review suggests a growing level of frustration at the lack of progress and the junta’s scorn directed at Indonesia as chair and ASEAN as a whole, but also an overwhelming sense that military-ruled Myanmar is not a high priority for the region. The inescapable fact is that it’s not. Peruse every ASEAN summit statement and Myanmar is invariably at the end, with little of the language changed since April 2021. The section on the 5PC in the September 2023 statement claims the grouping was “gravely concerned” by the lack of progress—in paragraph 161 of 164. Scores of regional initiatives on socio-economic efforts, connectivity, maritime trade, and health and tourism take priority. In the latest “State of Southeast Asia” report by the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, regional concern over the crisis in Myanmar was low. In Malaysia, which takes over the ASEAN chair in 2025, concern for the “Myanmar crisis” was rated 24%. In contrast, concern over the Israel-Hamas conflict was cited by 83.1% of Malaysian respondents. Yet ASEAN itself is not a popular institution amongst the regional public. The rport found that 77% of respondents thought ASEAN was “slow and ineffective” and 76.4% think it is “becoming an arena of major power competition.” Who should be consulted in any potential rethink? It should ideally be key Myanmar stakeholders who are actually representative of important constituents, including armed groups and strike committees, and not just the NUG and the National Unity Consultative Council. There are some sharp elbows from exiled organisations whose activities may generate more suspicion and resentment than negotiating prowess, and represent pre-coup modalities as opposed to revolutionary thinking. Crucial in framing regional diplomacy is the transmission of key realities that Myanmar is not “returning” to a pre-2021 stability, but a future of a disassembled state and societies free of the military. This needs people from Sagaing Region and Karenni and Rakhine states in briefings to explain the shaping of this future. These efforts need to boost inclusion and dynamism. Apart from the NUG’s Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung, there are few women at senior levels of regional diplomatic visits. The EAOs especially have to boost gender balancing and need younger and more dynamic leaders. The lacklustre performances of these groups are exacerbated by a relative lack of policy innovation, suggesting that their expensive foreign advisors are having little impact. Western peace entrepreneurs and for-profit behind the scenes mediation outfits have achieved nothing since the coup. Western aid donors should consider reining in their competing networks of “breakthrough” workshops and secret meetings, whether they’re in Jakarta, Helsinki, Oslo, or Microsoft Teams. By now, they are all collectively ineffectual, and possibly stymieing efforts for more constructive Southeast Asian Track 1.5 initiatives that are attuned to regional realities and sensitivities. This should include academics and think-tankers, but they shouldn’t drown out actual Myanmar voices. There has been a significant sea-change in international opinion shaping over the last year, from resignation at Myanmar’s long-term decline and endless war to a more upbeat narrative of a new Myanmar emerging, with residual optimism from Operation 1027 and governance development in Karenni and other places. This should be a core debate for 5PC reform, that the future of the military in Myanmar is no longer assured. It is also important to remind ASEAN during any serious rethink that the failure of the 5PC is completely due to the junta’s intransigence. When the incoming ASEAN Special Envoy Alounkeo Kittikhoun from Laos visited with Min Aung Hlaing in January, he was informed that “Myanmar implements (5PC) adjusted with the roadmap” of the ruling council: a nonsensical list of objectives rewritten in early 2023 that includes plans for national elections. The junta has alternated between condemnation of perceived diplomatic pressure and unconvincing platitudes of cooperation to stonewall ASEAN. One of the regime’s chief propagandists, Aye Chan, writing as “U AC,” published his standard vitriol in March, in a column called “Finally, ASEAN Sees the Light,” first condemning ASEAN as a “Western lap dog” that “wanted to impose their 4/5 points (sic) of nonsense on the Myanmar people,” then praising the grouping’s foreign ministers meeting communique from late-January that said in part, “to help the people of Myanmar find a Myanmar-owned and led solution towards a peaceful, stable and unified Myanmar contributing to peace and prosperity of the region.” In other words, the one constant may well be the erratic nature of the regime that will almost certainly refuse to cooperate in any meaningful way. Weeks later, Min Aung Hlaing claimed in a call with Hun Sen that Myanmar “reaffirmed commitment” to the “Five-Point Roadmap” of the regime, not the 5PC. Any reimagining of the 5PC comes at a time when many of ASEAN’s dialogue partners are slowly re-engaging the military council at a diplomatic level, inviting officials to working-level events. In early May, Thet Win, the regime’s chargé d’affaires ad interim in Washington, D.C., attended an ASEAN Committee in Washington (ACW) meeting, hosted by the Malaysian embassy, with American defence department officials. A Myanmar delegation was also apparently present at the December opening of the US-ASEAN Center, an initiative announced by Vice President Kamala Harris after the 2023 US-ASEAN Summit, along with State Department officials and members of congress. The EU has also been inviting Brussels-based military council officials to multilateral meetings. The message behind this tentative “normalising” is that ASEAN is too important as a trade bloc for the West to sacrifice simply for Myanmar. There is some urgency to generating ideas for credible low-expectation regional diplomacy, as the Laotian chair rapidly comes to an end and Malaysia takes over in 2025, a year in which the regime might well conduct its sham election. Learning the lessons of what worked (and didn’t) for Indonesia, and what unique perspectives Kuala Lumpur can bring to bear next year is necessary. If there is to be any genuine diplomatic progress, it will require more sophisticated ideas, rooted in the real world, that replace the preponderance of bad ideas. These must be generated by a new generation of Myanmar thinkers and revolutionaries. David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian, and human rights issues in Myanmar

Inverting ASEAN’s diplomatic inertia on Myanmar

New and better ideas are needed to get the regional grouping to amend its failed approach to the country’s ongoing crisis

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