Half a year after the ASEAN special summit on Myanmar, the situation in the Southeast Asian country has not improved.

The economy is idle and the country continues to sink into civil war.

The military regime, responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 and the detention of over 7,000 people since the February coup, holds on to power with cruel determination.

Till Fähnders

Political Correspondent for Southeast Asia.

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But now, for the first time, the federal government, to which ten Southeast Asian countries belong, including Myanmar, has drawn conclusions from the military regime's lack of willingness to cooperate.

According to a statement from this year's ASEAN chairman Brunei on Saturday, the military leadership of Myanmar will be excluded from the summit of the confederation at the end of October.

Instead, the ASEAN foreign ministers agreed in an emergency meeting on Friday evening that only one “non-political representative” of Myanmar could attend the summit from October 26th to 28th.

Juntachef agreed to the five-point plan

It is unclear who will take on this task. At least participation of the coup general and junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seems to be excluded. With the unusual extension, ASEAN is responding to the refusal of the military regime to give its special envoy for Myanmar access to State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint as well as some declared opponents of the regime. The two leaders have been in custody since the coup.

ASEAN special envoy Erywan Yusof recently canceled his first planned trip to Myanmar because the military had banned him from meeting the two of them. At the special summit in Jakarta in April, the junta head even personally approved the five-point plan to settle the crisis, which includes talks between the special envoy and all parties involved.

At that time, the ASEAN states had rolled out the red carpet for the junta chief at their summit, despite international criticism. Shortly afterwards, however, it became clear that the general felt little inclination to implement the ASEAN plan. The junta justified the defensive stance with the fact that Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint are currently being tried and that they regard the other resistance groups, including the counter-government (NUG), which former MPs have founded, as illegal associations. In a letter to some ASEAN members, the NUG also tried to be able to attend the summit as a representative of Myanmar.

As was to be expected, the junta reacted unhappily to the decision of the ASEAN foreign ministers. One was "very disappointed," it said in a statement from the Foreign Ministry. Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun sought blame, according to the press, even on “foreign influences”. Accordingly, the United States and the EU had put pressure on ASEAN. However, the ASEAN states do not fully agree on the question of how to deal with Myanmar. Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in particular want to put pressure on the regime.

For the union of states, the exclusion of the junta chief is an unusual step.

ASEAN usually has a policy of non-interference and consensus.

It has now partly abandoned these principles in dealing with Myanmar.

The decision speaks to the growing resentment of some member states about the regime in Myanmar.

The situation in the country had an impact on the entire region and on the "unity, credibility and centrality" of the confederation of states, the foreign ministers stated in their communication.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision to maintain the credibility of ASEAN," said Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Saturday about the junta's expulsion from the summit.