The association of nations of Southeast Asia, whose leaders met in Phnom Penh, from November 10 to 13, fails to find a consensus to open discussions with the various parties present in Burma.
by Brice Pedroletti (Bali (Indonesia), Special Envoy)
A year after having excluded the head of the Burmese junta from their annual summit, the leaders of the Association of Nations of Southeast Asia (ASEAN) acted in Phnom Penh, Friday, November 11, the Impasse of negotiations with generals who seized power in Naycyidaw during the 2021 coup.
If the situation in Burma, which slips more every day towards civil war, should be widely overshadowed by the Russian-Ukrainian file at the G20 summit, which opens Tuesday, November 15 in Bali, Indonesia, it n ‘nonetheless remains a first -rate concern in the region. For the second consecutive year, the self -proclaimed Prime Minister of the Burmese regime, General Min Aung Hlaing, was not invited to the regional organization of the organization, which ended on Sunday, November 13.
Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, host of the ASEAN summit – his country assured the rotating presidency in 2022 – went to the Burmese capital in January to meet the general whores, breaking the front fragile of a regional ostracism against the junta. But he had not obtained anything in return.
If, in Phnom Penh, the countries of the Asean have agreed to “explore other approaches for the implementation of the consensus in five points” – on which they had agreed during A summit in Djakarta, in April 2021 and which concerns in particular the possibility of meetings with the government parallel of the resistance and the ethnic guerrillas -, no more advanced ban of the Burmese regime has been announced.
“There are three winners at this summit, estimates a European diplomat in Southeast Asia. Cambodia, which maintained the varnish of an Asean unit, Indonesia, which takes the presidency of ASEAN next year and has obtained a framework to act more if it wishes, and the Burmese junta, which is doing well because it was not demoted in the meetings. The question is this That Indonesia will make this open setting. “Indonesian president Joko Widodo told the press on Friday his” deep disappointment “that” the situation in Myanmar aggravates “. “We must not allow the situation [in Burma] to take ASEAN hostage,” he added.
urgent issues
Behind the scenes, Westerners encourage ASEAN to acquire a permanent emissary on Burma and not attached to the country which has the presidency – which is not yet the case. The stakes are pressing: the junta plans to organize elections in August 2023. Westerners believe that the exercise should not be endorsed, insofar as it excludes the main political force of the country, the National League for Democracy ( Lnd) of the former imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Many ASEAN countries could however be much less attentive to the upcoming electoral process.
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