{"id":198419,"date":"2021-11-01T12:01:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T12:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=198419"},"modified":"2021-10-31T05:37:10","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T05:37:10","slug":"after-afghanistan-time-to-review-and-reset-asean-international-policies-towards-myanmar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/11\/after-afghanistan-time-to-review-and-reset-asean-international-policies-towards-myanmar\/","title":{"rendered":"After Afghanistan, Time to Review and Reset ASEAN & International Policies towards Myanmar"},"content":{"rendered":"

27 Oct 2021 – The vicious dialectic of \u201cfailed international policies AND failed Myanmar state\u201d, will need to be placed at the right, left and centre of the new international policy debates on Myanmar. Repeating the same strategy of dangling the sweet discourse of mediation before the intransigent mass-murderous generals of Myanmar without the serious stick of international accountability will simply not do.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

FORSEA<\/p><\/div>\n

International Impunity and Policy Failures lead to Myanmar as a Failed State<\/h3>\n

Since the universally opposed February coup that toppled the re-elected populist government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and subsequent violent implosion of Myanmar\u2019s civilian bureaucracy and the multi-ethnic and multi-class society at large, one typically hears of UN, media and INGO discourses about Myanmar as a \u201cfailed\u201d or \u201cfailing state<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Crucially, for policy makers globally, this spectacular failure of Myanmar as a political state of UN and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) \u2013 however one defines it \u2013 must be seen accurately for what it is: the mirror reflection of the categorical failures of the international policies, including \u201cpeace building\u201d, towards the fundamentally military-controlled unitary state and the multi-ethnic society, or ethnic nations.<\/p>\n

Myanmar: Not a \u201cFailed State\u201d Overnight<\/h3>\n

The established pattern of international impunity \u2013 which Myanmar\u2019s criminal military regime has taken for granted \u2013 has resulted in this sordid affair in Myanmar, with continuing spill-over diplomatic, demographic and destabilizing impact on other neighbouring UN member states such as Thailand, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.<\/p>\n

From the Security Council and ASEAN, the European Union, to the powerful external actors such as China and USA, the international community have failed to hold to account Myanmar as a UN member state, a business partner and a strategic ally, breaking multiple inter-state treaties including the Genocide Convention and committing crimes against humanity when citizen-journalists livestreamed the crimes being perpetrated against protesters, as well as children, women, innocent bystanders in broad day light.<\/p>\n

2-Minute Speech dedicated to Rohingya victims of Myanmar\u2019s Genocide<\/strong><\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GRMrgOrpEKw<\/p>\n

To its credit, and regardless of its motives, the regional bloc of ASEAN has in effect acknowledged that the business-as-usual approach to Myanmar affairs is not working even in pursuit of its own group mission and the interests of individual members with varying degrees of military, strategic and commercial ties with Myanmar and its most powerful domestic actor \u2013 the military regime. The unprecedented exclusion of the coup junta head, Min Aung Hlaing, from this week\u2019s ASEAN Summit of heads of states, is a radical break from the grouping\u2019s founding principle of \u2018Non-Interference\u2019 adopted in 1967.<\/p>\n

The Malaysian Foreign Minister has reportedly urged fellow ASEAN ministers to do some \u201csoul-searching<\/a>\u201d, when he \u201cstated the fact that we cannot use the principle of non-interference as a shield to avoid issues being addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the business-as-usual approach towards Myanmar is no longer serving even the business interests of external actors. ASEAN members including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia have substantial business ties with Myanmar, with Singapore leading the pact with its $24 billion trade and investment portfolio, in addition to serving as Myanmar military\u2019s primary money-launderer.<\/p>\n

In his official address to the ASEAN Summit today even Cambodia\u2019s autocratic leader Hun Sen felt compelled to say that the coup regime\u2019s \u201clack of cooperation\u201d with the group will \u201cregrettably\u201d make \u201cASEAN-Minus One (that is, without Myanmar)\u201d in the coming Asia-Europe Meeting.<\/p>\n

TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original – forsea.co<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Dr Maung Zarni is a scholar, educator and human rights activist with 30-years of involvement in Burmese political affairs, Zarni has been denounced as an \u201cenemy of the State\u201d for his opposition to the Myanmar genocide. He is the co-author (with Natalie Brinham) of the pioneering study,<\/em> “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar\u2019s Rohingyas” (<\/em>Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014) and<\/em> “Reworking the Colonial-Era Indian Peril: Myanmar\u2019s State-Directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims” (The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Fall\/Winter 2017\/18).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Oct 2021 – The vicious dialectic of \u201cfailed international policies AND failed Myanmar state\u201d, will need to be placed at the right, left and centre of the new international policy debates on Myanmar. Repeating the same strategy of dangling the sweet discourse of mediation before the intransigent mass-murderous generals of Myanmar without the serious stick of international accountability will simply not do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":198421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[240,1692,1924,2410,244,393,276,558,100,487,651,780,2411,171,527,985,2437,99,124],"class_list":["post-198419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-asia","tag-aung-san-suu-kyi","tag-authoritarianism","tag-burma","tag-china","tag-coup","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-direct-violence","tag-human-rights","tag-justice","tag-military-intervention","tag-myanmar","tag-revolution","tag-rohingya","tag-social-justice","tag-southeast-asia","tag-structural-violence","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}