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Myanmar military chief to be excluded from ASEAN summit
Foreign ministers see 'insufficient progress' in Naypyidaw, bloc's chair says


The commander-in-chief of Myanmar's armed forces, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, a conference on international security in Moscow in June. © Reuters
KENTARO IWAMOTO, Nikkei staff writerOctober 16, 2021 02:21 JSTUpdated on October 16, 2021 17:16 JST

SINGAPORE -- Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Friday agreed to not invite Myanmar's military chief to a leaders summit this month because of slow progress on restoring peace in the country, according to multiple diplomatic sources.

"Min Aung Hlaing will not be invited to ASEAN," said a Yangon-based ASEAN diplomat.

ASEAN chair Brunei on Saturday confirmed the decision, saying, "There was no consensus reached for a political representative from Myanmar to attend [the ASEAN Summits and Related Summits] in October 2021."

Instead, the foreign ministers' meeting accepted the decision to invite "a nonpolitical representative" from Myanmar to the upcoming summits, the statement says.

Gen. Min Aung Hlaing's exclusion from the region's highest-level meeting highlights the growing pressure on the Myanmar military government, which has been reluctant to cooperate with the international community to settle unrest in the country since it took power on Feb. 1.

According to the sources, foreign ministers from the 10-member bloc discussed the issue in a virtual meeting, in which Myanmar's military-appointed Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin also participated.

"The participation of Myanmar at the summits should not be represented at the political level until Myanmar restores its democracy through an inclusive process," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi tweeted after the meeting.

ASEAN will hold the summit and related meetings from Oct. 26 to Oct. 28, which also involves the annual East Asia Summit, a regional meeting with the bloc's partners including the U.S. and China. The meetings are slated to discuss issues including security, trade and recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Friday's decision comes amid a lack of progress in the "five-point consensus" road map for a peaceful resolution to the Myanmar crisis, which the members agreed on at an April leaders meeting in Jakarta.

In August, ASEAN appointed Brunei's second foreign minister, Erywan Yusof, as its special envoy to Myanmar, tasked with mediating the political unrest. But Erywan has not visited Myanmar yet, although he had planned to do so earlier this week.

During last foreign ministers' meeting held on Oct. 4, Malaysia and some countries raised the issue of not inviting Min Aung Hlaing to the summit. The bloc was "deep in discussions" about it, Erywan told reporters after that meeting.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's foreign ministry said on Thursday that the military government was "committed to constructively cooperating in the implementation of five-point consensus."

It stated the military government was not able to accommodate the special envoy's visit because Erywan had insisted on meetings with "some specific individuals," which appeared to mean the elected leaders ousted on Feb. 1, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

The chair's statement released on Saturday notes that the foreign ministers "listened carefully to Myanmar's explanation of its implementation of the five-point consensus." However, there had been "insufficient progress," and "some ASEAN member states recommended that ASEAN give space to Myanmar to restore its internal affairs and return to normalcy in accordance with the will of the people of Myanmar."

Responding to the statement, Myanmar military spokesman Zaw Min Tun told Nikkei Asia that ASEAN's long-standing principles, such as its noninterference policy, "have [been] derailed and weakened due to external pressure."

The military government is also under pressure from international human rights groups.

In an open letter to ASEAN leaders this week, the democracy group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights called for the exclusion of Min Aung Hlaing from the meeting, citing the military's "blatant disregard" for the five-point consensus.

"It is time for ASEAN to act decisively," reads the letter, which goes on to say that this begins by denying the military government "the legitimacy it craves, and which has been rejected constantly by the people of Myanmar."

Before Friday's ASEAN meeting, the governments of several countries including the U.K., the U.S. and Norway issued a joint statement, calling on Myanmar to "engage constructively with the ASEAN special envoy to also implement other aspects of the five-point consensus swiftly and completely."

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group, 1,178 people have been killed by the military as of Friday since Feb. 1.

He needs execution rather than exclusion. Urgently.