Snubbed yet again: Myanmar junta leader excluded from ASEAN Summit

For the second consecutive year, Myanmar’s junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been excluded from the upcoming ASEAN Summit and Related Summits which will be held next month.

This year’s ASEAN Chair Cambodia yesterday defended its decision not to invite him because there is no “visible progress” by the junta to implement peace initiatives put forward by the bloc following last year’s February coup which ousted Myanmar’s civilian government led by then State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.

For the same reason, Myanmar’s junta Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin had also been barred from attending this year’s ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in August.

Just like Cambodia, last year’s ASEAN Chair Brunei also followed the bloc’s decision not to invite Sen Gen Aung Hlaing to the summits because of apparent lack of progress towards finding a solution to the unrest in Myanmar sparked by the coup.

As did Brunei, Cambodia has instead invited a “non-political representative” from Myanmar to attend the upcoming Asean summits and once again the junta has rejected the offer.

Asean’s angst over the junta’s apparent slow response to take steps to peacefully end what has now spiraled into armed conflict in Myanmar also stems from the fact that the military government has done little to implement the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus agreed to unanimously include by Sen Gen Aung Hlaing, to bring stability to that country.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary of State and spokesman Chum Sounry said yesterday that only a “non-political representative” from Myanmar and not Sen Gen Aung Hlaing had been invited to attend the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summit and Related Summits to be held in Phnom Penh from November 10-13.

“The participation of Myanmar in Asean’s high-level meetings has been linked to the progress in the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus (5PCs),” he said.

Agencies