By Kavi Chongkittavorn*
Myanmar Times-Apr 25
With Singapore as chair, ASEAN’s every word and move must be meticulously crafted and choreographed. There can’t be any loose ends. There is no exception when it comes to the delicate situation in Rakhine State, where violent clashes since October 2016 have forced an estimated 700,000 Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
The stakes are high for the chair at the ASEAN summit on Saturday, which expects to come out with some tangible steps that the regional group can take on the Rakhine crisis.
Myanmar’s domestic development was a huge challenge for ASEAN long before Nay Pyi Taw joined the group in 1997 and the Rakhine turmoil. With its unique history and tradition, coupled with the charisma of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, ASEAN’s approach must be incremental and based on consensus. One must have a long-term view to understand ASEAN’s behavior.
Nearly a decade elapsed before Myanmar was able to gain any level of comfort with the rest of ASEAN. Ironically, a series of political challenges and harsh words preceded the mutual trust between ASEAN and Myanmar. After the group’s special foreign ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2007, Singapore, as ASEAN’s chair at the time, issued the group’s strongest statement on another member, expressing “revulsion” over the recent deadly crackdown on protests by monks and students in Myanmar.
That was a wake-up call for Nay Pyi Taw that ASEAN members must take care of one another and do the utmost to heed the rest of the community.
A few months later in May 2008, Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Delta was devastated by Cyclone Nargis. Once again, ASEAN was under global scrutiny. Fortunately, its leaders managed to convince the military leaders in Nay Pyi Taw to allow them to play a coordinating role with international relief organizations.
Despite the external threats posed by great powers, it was the trust shared by Myanmar and ASEAN leaders that finally persuaded the country’s military (known as the Tatmadaw) to give the green light for a broader framework recommended by ASEAN to provide humanitarian assistance in the wake of the cyclone.
INVALUABLE EXPERIENCE
Efforts to rehabilitate the region devastated by the cyclone and help its 1.5 million affected people provided invaluable experience for local community leaders in working together as well as with regional and international colleagues. Nay Pyi Taw learned, despite its long isolation, that the international community was willing to provide assistance without threatening its sovereignty. One outcome was the birth of civil society organizations (CSO), which has given Myanmar a young and dynamic CSO culture.
No doubt for ASEAN, the same tenacity and experience displayed during Cyclone Nargis will be used in handling the Rakhine crisis under the current chair. Indeed, against heavy international criticism for its lack of dramatic action and strong rhetoric on the crisis, ASEAN is working ceaselessly behind the scenes to ensure that Myanmar has the same trust in the group as before. The National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has taken exactly a year to reach a comfort level with her nine ASEAN colleagues.
In the past two decades, ASEAN has not always been supportive of her efforts.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s past experience with and sentiment about ASEAN have now been put on the back burner. On top of her diplomatic experience as NLD leader, her attendance at six ASEAN-related and foreign ministerial summits since she took over as the country’s de facto leader has given her insights into “the ASEAN way” as well as its consultative process and narrative.
Closer examination of her statements and views, from her first appearance in Vientiane, Laos, in July 2016, to the recent special ASEAN-Australian summit, shows her pragmatism and better appreciation of the collective-bargaining power and benefits of being an ASEAN member. More than ever before, Myanmar needs that now.
Under the previous government of Gen Thien Sien, Myanmar learned to work with and trust ASEAN despite the different views of individual members. Myanmar’s military leaders had two decades to learn from ASEAN’s unwavering commitment to non-interference, especially when the group stood firm against the West in the early 1990s, reaffirming that regional problems should be settled within a regional context.
AN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s new ASEAN attitude was visible when she called a meeting of her regional colleagues in Yangon in December 2016 to brief them on the situation in Rakhine. It was an unusual move for an ASEAN leader to call such a meeting to discuss a sensitive domestic issue. At the meeting, she pledged to grant humanitarian access to the troubled region and keep her colleagues informed and updated.
But Malaysia was not happy with the outcome. Facing domestic pressures and a looming general election, which is expected to be held in May, Malaysia broke an ASEAN rule by condemning Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by name. At the special ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting last September in New York, Malaysia decided to dissociate itself from the ASEAN joint statement on Rakhine because it wanted to see more ASEAN action on the humanitarian crisis. Her renewed trust and confidence in ASEAN solidarity was severely undermined.
However, through diplomatic efforts by Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, she gradually regained trust and appreciation of their goodwill. Humanitarian assistance from ASEAN members reached Rakhine in early 2017. At the ASEAN ministerial retreat on February 6, Malaysia also returned to the ASEAN embrace, supporting the chairman’s statement, including the 239-word paragraph on the situation in Rakhine.
The appointment in December of Surakiart Sathirathai, former Thai deputy prime minister and foreign minister, as head of the 10-member advisory board on Rakhine was proof that she prefers a regional framework. After the disastrous first meeting of the advisory board in January, at which former US governor Bill Richardson dramatically resigned, it came up with a series of recommendations at its second meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on April 2.
ASEAN’s patient and quiet diplomacy has paid off, and Myanmar has appealed to the group through the advisory board to provide direct assistance to Rakhine.
Although the Rakhine crisis would not be an agenda item at this weekend’s summit, ASEAN leaders would deliberate on it during their retreat, including the advisory board’s recommendations. Nobody expects a miracle, but the outcome would demonstrate that whenever conflicts in ASEAN arise, the group does not run away from problems, as Western countries often charge, and its slow-but-sure method is preferable.
TACKLING THE CRISIS
Four important issues would signify the coming together of ASEAN in tackling the crisis in Rakhine.
First, it must find efficient ways to improve public healthcare in the state. It has to work with the local public health officials there to set up mobile health clinics in isolated areas. Sittwe General Hospital has also been named a top priority facility to be improved and expanded. At the summit, ASEAN hopes to secure Nay Pyi Daw’s pledge for open, universal and non-discriminatory access to public healthcare. This effort calls for the coordination of such agencies as Myanmar’s Ministry of Health and Sports and the Committee for the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine, the ASEAN Secretariat and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance.
Second, ASEAN leaders must support the planned establishment of an independent investigative committee to look into all allegations of human rights abuses in a comprehensive manner. Myanmar will decide on the composition of the new investigative committee. An earlier misunderstanding of seeking an outside independent investigation elicited shrugs from ASEAN leaders. The new team would look into human rights abuses in the Rakhine, Muslim, Hindu, Kaman, Daingnet and Mro communities.
Third, ASEAN can help Myanmar to promote inter-communal dialogue and reconciliation in Rakhine. Myanmar can learn from the rich regional experiences of Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand that involve all stakeholders from state and regional governments and parliamentarians as well as CSOs. In 2015, ASEAN issued the Declaration on Global Movement of Moderates proposed by Malaysia, which aims to promote moderation regionally and globally. The declaration should give Malaysia food for thought about its position and behaviour on Rakhine.
Finally, the issuing of national verification cards (NVC) must be carried out with urgency. It is also important to educate refugees about the benefits of having an NVC. Officials dealing with this information must provide access to local and international journalists, so they can report on it.
In the final analysis, the Rakhine crisis, which has all the elements of injustice and human rights abuses and ethnic conflict, will provide a space for ASEAN leaders to jointly manage the situation and boost ASEAN centrality.
Myanmar’s willingness to engage with ASEAN is crucial to finding a comprehensive and durable solution to the problems at the root of this long-running crisis.
*Kavi Chongkittavorn is a veteran journalist on regional affairs and former editor of The Myanmar Times.
(First published in Myanmar Times – https://www.mmtimes.com/news/making-sense-aseans-view-rakhine.html)