ASEAN summit in November excludes Burmese junta again

Another ASEAN summit is nearing and the Burmese military junta leader has once again found himself off the guest list. For the second year in a row since the bloody military coup in February of last year, Min Aung Hlaing was not invited to the summit of Southeast Asian nations.

Citing a lack of any visible progress in the multi-step path created by last year’s ASEAN summit toward peace in Myanmar, Cambodia defended its decision not to invite the Burmese general. Last year Brunei hosted the summit and excluded Myanmar for the same reason as Cambodia, this year’s host.

Shortly after the coup, the ASEAN summit called for a course of action to calm tensions in the embattled country. They called upon Burmese authorities to allow an ASEAN delegation to visit. They also appealed for a cessation of violence against unarmed civilians, allowing humanitarian aid across the borders and releasing political prisoners taken since the February 1, 2021 coup.

Thai PBS World reports the ASEAN summit is scheduled for November 10 to November 13 in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh. Cambodia says that they’ve been consistently committed to improving the situation in Myanmar. They worked in cooperation with other members of the coalition of Southeast Asian countries to bring Myanmar under control and back into the ASEAN family.

A spokesperson for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they have asked Myanmar to send a representative, but insisted it is a non-political appointee. He said so far the military junta refused this option.

“The participation of Myanmar in ASEAN’s high-level meetings has been linked to the progress in the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus. Therefore, Cambodia, as the current ASEAN Chair, has sent a request to the State Administration Council of Myanmar to nominate a non-political representative for the upcoming ASEAN summit and related summits. And yet again the SAC has refused to send anyone to the summits.”