On Wednesday, during its summit in Laos, Southeast Asian leaders once again pressed Myanmar’s military junta and its opponents to take “concrete action” to resolve the conflict that has consumed the country since the coup of February 2021.
In a statement released after the conclusion of the summit, the region’s leaders condemned Myanmar’s efforts to achieve peace as “substantially inadequate.” They also condemned attacks on civilians and “urged all parties involved to take concrete action to immediately halt indiscriminate violence.”
As I noted last week, among the most pressing questions ahead of this week’s ASEAN summits in Vientiane was whether the Southeast Asian bloc would change tack on Myanmar, following a year of significant shifts in the dynamics of the conflict, in particular, large territorial gains by ethnic armed groups and People’s Defense Forces opposed to military rule. While there was some modulation in the language, the substance of the ASEAN statement does not differ much from that released after the corresponding summit last year.
According to the statement, which opened with an expression of “deep concern over the escalation of conflicts and humanitarian situation” in Myanmar, ASEAN leaders agreed to “maintain the [Five-Point Consensus] as the main reference to address the political crisis in Myanmar” with the goal of “an inclusive and durable peaceful resolution that is Myanmar-owned and -led.”
The Consensus, which was formulated at a special meeting in Jakarta in April 2021, calls for an immediate cessation of violence and inclusive dialogue including “all parties” to Myanmar’s conflict. In line with this, the leaders’ statement called on “all stakeholders and parties in Myanmar, in particular the armed forces and security forces concerned, to de-escalate violence and stop targeted attacks on civilians and public facilities.”
The problem for ASEAN is that the military administration in Naypyidaw, which the bloc has continued to treat as Myanmar’s de facto government, has shown little interest in implementing the most substantial parts of the Five-Point Consensus. Rather than ceasing its violent attacks, it has intensified them; rather than engaging in dialogue with the National Unity Government (NUG) and other opponents, it has denounced them as “terrorists” and promised to wipe them out. All the while, it has protested any form of official ASEAN engagement with resistance groups.
As in past years, it is clear that ASEAN is unwilling or unable to compel the junta’s implementation of the Consensus. The leaders’ statement reaffirmed ASEAN’s decision to restrict Myanmar’s attendance at high-level meetings to “non-political” representatives. (This week’s summit was attended by Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of the junta’s Foreign Ministry.) But any more robust actions are seemingly ruled out by ASEAN’s principle of “non-interference” and the need for consensus among its 10 members, which of course include Myanmar’s military regime.
“We are trying to find ways to move forward, because we have to admit that although the five points have been there, we have not been very successful in actually changing the situation,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. admitted to reporters in Vientiane. “We are trying to formulate new strategies.”
One of those strategies was put forward by Thailand during this week’s meetings in Vientiane. In a post on social media, Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa confirmed earlier reports that Thailand will host an “Extended Informal Consultation on the situation in Myanmar” in mid-December. Unlike previous Thai-led efforts, this has buy-in from the current ASEAN chair, Laos, and will support the bloc’s broader diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
Maris said that the informal meeting, which will open to all ASEAN member states, “will be a good opportunity for participants to speak openly and to find ways together to support the effective implementation of ASEAN’s 5-point consensus.” He added, “Hosting this informal consultation is part of Thailand’s proactive and constructive diplomatic approach to help resolve the current conflict in Myanmar, our important neighbor.”
While it is good news that ASEAN is exploring further diplomatic avenues, it is hard to see the talks making meaningful headway. Indeed, deadlock is in some ways built into the structure of the Five-Point Consensus, which treats the two sides of Myanmar’s conflict as equally responsible for the country’s conflict, and assumes their good faith to pursue a negotiated settlement.
Even at the time of its formulation, some argued that the Consensus was out of step with political reality inside Myanmar. It is hard to deny that this is the case now, when the two sides are locked into a zero-sum struggle that seems resistant to a negotiated resolution of any kind.
While the military has stonewalled ASEAN on the Five-Point Consensus, using it to buy time to defeat its enemies on the battlefield, the resistance coalition is equally suspicious of negotiations. Many resistance groups now view the conflict with the military as a revolutionary struggle, one that aims to remove it permanently from Myanmar’s political and economic life. After a year of significant battlefield gains, they are opposed to any compromise that preserves the military’s central role.
This was made clear last month, when the military junta issued a weak public call for its opponents to put down their weapons and engage in political talks. Resistance groups were dismissive of this “peace offer,” saying that they would only negotiate if the military agreed in advance to relinquish power. For example, a spokesperson for the Karen National Union said that peace talks were only possible if the military agreed to a number of “common political objectives,” including its permanent removal from politics and accountability for its long catalog of war crimes and atrocities. This is something that it would never accept.
While it is conceivable that this could change, pending further developments on the battlefield, the current prospects of negotiations, let alone fruitful ones, remain dim. That said, there is still a strong case to be made for ASEAN to adopt a more flexible approach to the conflict, perhaps by ceasing to treat the junta as the country’s de facto government and opening official engagements with the NUG and other resistance groups. At the very least, this would ensure that its humanitarian aid shipments are not hijacked by the military and reach at-need populations in resistance-controlled areas. This would also offer a greater chance of playing an important role if and when internal developments make the conflict more amenable to a negotiated solution.