“(Aung San) Suu Kyi needs to qualify her support for ASEAN’s push for dialogues. Dialogue with absolutely no preconditions – such as a complete moratorium on summary executions of dissidents and resistance, halting air strikes against civilians, whom the military junta view as supporters of the armed resistance”.
By Soth Koemsoeun | Published by Khmer Times on July 14, 2023
Cambodia fully supports moving forward with the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) on Myanmar to create a setting that is favourable to a peaceful and inclusive discourse.
“Cambodia supports the efforts by Indonesia, as the ASEAN Chair for 2023, in advancing the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC),” said Prak Sokhonn, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
“Engagement is key in promoting trust and confidence, and building a conducive environment for peaceful and inclusive dialogue,” he said at the retreat session of the 56th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta, on Wednesday
He emphasised the significance of the ASEAN Leaders’ evaluation and decision on the Five-Point Consensus’ implementation, particularly Point 14 on “exploring other approaches that could support and complement the 5PC.”
Sokhonn also thanked Thailand’s Don Pramudwinai, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for his significant contribution to the 5PC and hailed his meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi on July 9 in Nay Pyi Taw as a constructive step.
During the meeting, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi reaffirmed the importance of ASEAN’s unity and centrality to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
“For more than five decades, Southeast Asia has enjoyed peace, stability, and prosperity. We cannot take this for granted.
“Peace does not fall from the sky. It is a result of a systematic effort to build an inclusive regional architecture, anchored in the habit of dialogue and collaboration based on the principles of the UN Charter, ASEAN Charter, and international law.
“Peace and stability in the region, therefore, must be maintained, especially amidst an increasingly complex global situation. ASEAN must be able to navigate regional and global dynamics and continue to instill the paradigm of collaboration.
“We can only achieve this if we maintain ASEAN unity and centrality,” Retno said.
Meanwhile, Maung Zarni, a human rights activist and well-known scholar in Rakhine State of Myanmar told Khmer Times yesterday that any effort to explore peaceful ways to end escalating violence in Myanmar is good and commendable.
“But this news of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand relaying Aung San Suu Kyi’s openness for dialogues with the coup junta needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt.
“First, she has been held incommunicado since the Feb 1 coup of 2021 and she cannot be expected to offer any informed policy advice to either the Burmese resistance as a whole or to ASEAN.
“Even when she was the de facto head of state, with unfettered access to experts, advisors, the public and the world of information, she consistently made wrong decisions,” he claimed.
Zarni alleged Suu Kyi supported the wrongful jailing of the two Burmese Reuters journalists on grounds of treason who were doing their job, trying to report on the evidence of genocidal massacres of Rohingya by her then partner, the Burmese military.
“She officially supported the military in its military attacks on Rakhine Buddhist resistance and shutting down the Internet for two years in Rakhine state.
“Even as the opposition leader, she sided not with the farmers and local public, but with the military-Chinese joint venture in mining, which resulted in ecological destruction and farmland confiscation,” he claimed.
Zarni added that “Suu Kyi needs to qualify her support for ASEAN’s push for dialogues. Dialogue with absolutely no preconditions – such as a complete moratorium on summary executions of dissidents and resistance, halting air strikes against civilians, whom the military junta view as supporters of the armed resistance”.
