ASEAN needs to look beyond Myanmar’s Five-Point Consensus – Mon, January 9 2023

Patience has its limits, even for ASEAN, famous or notorious, some argue, for its tardiness in taking action. The regional group must do something drastic soon in its dealing with Myanmar, the belligerent member which has defied its promise to end violence in the country. Failing that, the Myanmar issue is dragging the entire group down.

As this year’s ASEAN rotating chair, Indonesia says it will press the Myanmar junta to abide by the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) that it signed in an emergency meeting held in Jakarta in April 2021, two months after the military grabbed power from the democratically elected civilian government.

More than 20 months later, the military government has not abided by any of the five points that should be obvious to everyone that, by now, the generals in charge in Naypyidaw have no intention of implementing the agreement. They probably never have in the first place and they fooled all the other ASEAN leaders present at that crucial meeting.