Thailand says regional talks it hosted Friday on a stalled peace plan for Myanmar were “frank” but reached no consensus on a path forward.
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, gathered in Bangkok to discuss the Five-Point Consensus the bloc agreed to in April 2021, two months after Myanmar’s military seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. That coup sparked a civil war that has killed thousands and displaced more than 3 million people.
In addition to an immediate cessation of violence and negotiations among “all parties” to the conflict, the plan calls for the appointment of a special envoy to meet with all sides and assistance from ASEAN’s humanitarian aid agency.
Myanmar’s junta did grant a meeting last year between Suu Kyi — who has been held in custody since the coup — and Thailand’s then-foreign minister. Some aid has also trickled in via Thailand under ASEAN’s watch. But the bloc has not appointed a permanent special envoy, and there have been no meaningful negotiations between the junta and its foes as fighting shows no signs of letting up.
Friday’s talks followed a meeting in Bangkok on Thursday among Myanmar and its immediate neighbors on cross-border concerns, including crime.
After Friday’s meeting, Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura told the press that the talks between the foreign ministers of Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore were “cordial and very frank.”
The bloc’s other members sent delegates but not ministers, he added.
Bolbongse Vangphaen, director-general of Thailand’s Department of ASEAN Affairs, said the delegates agreed that the peace plan from 2021 would continue to anchor their efforts.
“The foreign ministers reaffirmed that the … Five-Point Consensus remains the main reference for ASEAN’s efforts in addressing the situation in Myanmar,” he said, adding that “all recognize that there is a need to step up efforts” to see it through. “We are aware that there are obstacles to making progress.”
As for any broad agreement on how to tackle those obstacles, however, Bolbongse said “nothing specific” came out of Friday’s talks, and that they would continue at another meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers next month.
“The meeting today was a chance for the foreign ministers and representatives to just sound out ideas and seek various approaches to see … how we could perhaps converge on some common terms to push forward,” he said. “There’s no clear approach as yet.”
David Mathieson, an independent Myanmar analyst, told VOA that Thailand was trying to create momentum on regional efforts after “another lost year of empty diplomacy.”
He called meetings among Myanmar’s immediate neighbors “crucial” now that the junta has lost control of most borders. Those meetings, he added, are potentially more useful than ASEAN, which generally acts only when all members are in agreement.
Like many of the bloc’s critics, he called the Five-Point Consensus “effectively dead” from the start.
“It’s fundamentally flawed, depending on engaging the [State Administration Council, or SAC], who don’t want to respond,” he said, using the junta’s formal title. “That’s where all these efforts will fail, ascribing the SAC with reason they don’t possess.”
Surachanee Sriyai of Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak institute agreed that the plan “has never been a viable path” out of the crisis for Myanmar, but at least gives the bloc the semblance of taking collective action while sticking to its norms of acting by consensus and staying out of each other’s affairs.
Following Thursday’s meeting, Thailand said junta officials told the group it was open to “inclusive political dialogue.” Junta officials, however, have labeled many of their opponents “terrorists” and banned dozens of political parties, including Suu Kyi’s ousted National League for Democracy.
Mathieson said any efforts to help Myanmar out of its crisis need to include both the junta and all opponents. That means not only the National Unity Government comprising ousted lawmakers, but all the revolutionary groups now aligned against the junta.
Whether together or on their own, Surachanee said, ASEAN members should cultivate relationships with those opposition groups as they continue to gain ground on the junta, which, by some estimates, now controls less than half the country.
“Plenty of [situational reports] have pointed at the SAC losing ground and the ability to govern,” she said. “In this way, countries, especially Thailand, should look to other alternative counterparts to work with.”
Following Friday’s meeting, Bolbongse said other ASEAN members were free to “engage with whichever groups that they may have influence on” and that those efforts could “complement each other.”
But by focusing their attention on dialogue with the junta, critics say the bloc and most of its members are legitimizing a regime that many if not most in Myanmar consider illegitimate.
Asked to respond to the critique, Bolbongse said Thailand was simply engaging in state-to-state dialogue.
“Whether the SAC is seen as legitimate or not, Myanmar as a whole is still a member of ASEAN, so we are engaging with Myanmar,” he said. “That’s all, thank you.”
The junta claims its military is waging a legitimate campaign of proportionate force. But numerous well-documented accounts of violence describe indiscriminate air and artillery attacks, with many destroying churches, schools and clinics. Rights groups allege repeated cases of rape, torture and murder. U.N.-appointed experts and envoys have accused the junta of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
