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ASEAN should speed up diplomatic efforts on Myanmar, top U.S. and Indonesian diplomats said Wednesday amid indications that some officials from the Southeast Asian bloc may travel to the strife-torn country this week.
Wendy Sherman, America’s second-highest ranking diplomat, said action by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was urgently needed to deal with the crisis in Myanmar, where the military has unleashed violence on pro-democracy protesters after it toppled an elected government four months ago.
“We know that ASEAN is consulting with all in the region as wanting to be successful in the narrative and engagement. They should be in contact with the military leaders in Burma as well as all democratic parties in Burma. We hope that happens as soon as possible,” Sherman, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, told reporters in Bangkok.
“There is no time to waste, as we all see the humanitarian crisis for the people in Burma,” she said at the end of a tour of three Southeast Asian countries – Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand.
During Sherman’s meetings in Bangkok on Wednesday, the issue of Myanmar came up during her meetings with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha and Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai that touched on a range of bilateral topics, according to the U.S. embassy and Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While in Bangkok, Sherman also met with representatives of international and non-governmental organizations to discuss humanitarian assistance for people displaced by the post-coup violence in Myanmar, the embassy said in a statement.
“As she did in meetings with the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, the Deputy Secretary affirmed the United States’ call for an end to violence and an immediate return to democracy for the people of Burma at each of her meetings in Bangkok,” according to the embassy.
In Jakarta on Wednesday, the top diplomat of ASEAN founding member-state Indonesia said the bloc needed to appoint an envoy to Myanmar quickly to begin implementing a five-point consensus, which leaders of the 10-nation association had reached at a special summit in late April.
“The appointment of a special envoy must be immediately made and communication among all parties must start,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters after she met with European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell in Jakarta.
In April, ASEAN leaders agreed to this consensus on Myanmar that, among other things, called for an envoy of the bloc to be sent to the troubled country. But more than a month later, ASEAN has made no visible progress in naming an envoy.
Myanmar’s military government also has ignored the consensus that it was a party to when Naypyidaw’s junta chief attended the summit in Jakarta.
The April 24 meeting did not include representatives from the parallel civilian government in Myanmar or any lawmakers from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, an omission that human rights slammed.
It is essential that ASEAN representatives meet with civil-society leaders in Myanmar, if a delegation from the bloc visits that country this week, as some news reports indicated, a group of Southeast Asian MPs said.
“If ASEAN only meets with the military it risks, once again, playing into the junta’s public relations exercise and granting them legitimacy, when all they deserve is admonition,” Charles Santiago, a Malaysian lawmaker and chair of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday.
More than 800 civilians have been killed by military and police in Myanmar during the near-daily anti-junta protests since the Feb. 1 coup, according to rights groups.
Earlier this week, Sherman held talks with Retno and ASEAN officials in Jakarta and supported ASEAN’s five-point consensus. The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Borrell, also told Indonesia on Wednesday that the European bloc backed ASEAN’s efforts.
“I am very sorry that the situation there is not resolved, but if someone can help it is ASEAN, and within ASEAN there is Indonesia,” Borrell said.
Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
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