Malaysia needs to lead a regional push for international criminal accountability and reject the military’s planned sham “elections.”
By Chit Seng in The Diplomat
This week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit takes place amidst mounting civilian casualties caused by the Myanmar military junta’s campaign of brutality. Even in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and a self-declared “ceasefire,” the Myanmar junta has intensified its airstrikes against civilians. As ASEAN leaders prepare to meet in Kuala Lumpur for their annual summit from May 26-27, the stakes are high. The people of Myanmar are counting on ASEAN to stop legitimizing the regime that is killing them.
ASEAN cannot claim to seek regional peace while turning a blind eye to atrocities committed by one of its own members.
The Myanmar military is bombing children while they are attending school, as well as monasteries, churches, and mosques where earthquake survivors are seeking shelter. Yet, regional leaders still shake hands and remain on friendly terms with the junta officials ordering the airstrikes on civilians. The latest deadly strike on a school was not a distant or isolated incident. It was the direct result of impunity and the failure of regional and neighboring governments, including ASEAN member states, to hold the Myanmar military junta accountable.
Each time the junta declares a so-called ceasefire or hosts foreign dignitaries, more bombs fall, and more civilians die.
On May 12, a Myanmar military jet bombed a school in Depayin Township, Sagaing Region, killing at least 22 children and two teachers, and injuring over 100 others, just six days after the junta extended its post-earthquake “ceasefire.” Weeks earlier, the same township was bombed. These attacks, including in earthquake-hit areas, show the junta is escalating its war on civilians, not seeking peace or even respecting its own “ceasefire” declarations.
Over two months since the two 7.4-magnitude earthquakes struck central Myanmar, killing more than 3,700 people, the humanitarian situation remains dire, with tens of thousands displaced. These people are now exposed to the upcoming monsoon storms and in urgent need of shelter and humanitarian assistance. While aid is essential, its delivery must not strengthen the Myanmar junta’s grip on power.
The earthquakes did not occur in a vacuum. They occurred amid mass persecution and civil war, all brought about by the illegal, reckless, and corrupt military coup that took place on February 1, 2021. A sustainable recovery demands both aid and accountability, rejecting the junta and seeking justice for its continuing and widespread crimes against humanity.
Since the earthquake, the military regime has moved quickly to exploit the disaster in order to gain international legitimacy, with coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing engaging in a flurry of high-profile meetings hosted in Bangkok, Thailand, including with Malaysian prime minister and current ASEAN chair Anwar Ibrahim and ex-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The optics from these meetings were unmistakable: the once-shunned Myanmar military was framed as a legitimate actor through staged “constructive dialogue,” all orchestrated to diplomatically whitewash its atrocities and illegal rule.
The junta’s self-declared “ceasefire,” which it has violated on a daily basis, should not be mistaken for good faith. The military remains the principal spoiler of peace in Myanmar. During its first announcement of a so-called ceasefire in April, the U.N. reported more than 120 junta air and artillery attacks, including the bombing of civilian targets, including churches, monasteries, and schools sheltering earthquake survivors.
Humanitarians and diplomats often invoke humanitarian necessity to justify their carefully staged handshakes with the ICC-indicted war criminal Min Aung Hlaing, but the U.N.’s own guidance strongly discourages its officials from meeting with ICC-indictees. Humanitarian access and engagement are urgently needed, but the Myanmar military junta has a poor track record on humanitarian aid, often blocking aid or appropriating it for military use.
The Myanmar military has long weaponized humanitarian aid: starving civilians, destroying relief supplies, and targeting aid workers. After the recent earthquakes, reports emerged of junta forces blocking aid and obstructing rescue efforts. In Rakhine State, junta forces are employing siege-like tactics to drive out their opponents, bringing as many as 2 million civilians to the brink of starvation. (Their principal opponent, the Arakan Army, is also engaging in similar tactics.) These methods are central to the junta’s battle strategy. Engaging with junta leadership under such conditions sends the wrong message.
Rather than reinforce the junta’s position, international actors must increase pressure on it. The junta should be diplomatically shunned and isolated, regional sanctions on aviation fuel and weapons must be implemented, and ASEAN should push for international criminal accountability and reject the junta’s planned sham “elections.” Most importantly, aid must go through the National Unity Government, representing the elected government the junta tried to overthrow, allied pro-democracy forces, and other ethnic resistance organizations in areas beyond junta control. Aid must be channeled to local civil society networks, frontline responders, and independent community health providers and leaders.
Aid must resist injustice. A principle of humanitarian resistance – the ethical practice of providing aid while actively opposing injustice, recognizing that “neutrality” can cause harm – must guide the aid response.
Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis is inextricable from its political crisis and from the armed conflict taking place in the country. The earthquake struck a country already in ruins from a junta-caused armed conflict. Treating rights and accountability as peripheral in aid delivery risks “aid-washing” the situation in Myanmar – addressing some humanitarian needs but leaving the underlying causes of the suffering largely unaddressed.
The people of Myanmar need more than just emergency aid. They need security and justice. Delivering aid while junta aircraft continue to bomb communities ignores the core of the crisis. They need long-term recovery from both the earthquake and the junta’s atrocity crimes. They need a world that sees through the junta’s lies.
As ASEAN prepares to gather in Malaysia, the choice is no longer an abstract one: does the bloc stand with the Myanmar military junta, or the Myanmar people?
This article was originally published in The Diplomat.