Crisis exposes Asean weaknesses

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has failed to respond effectively to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar thanks to a lack of leadership and the 10-member organisation's inability to grasp the scale of the human rights abuses, a report from a group of regional lawmakers said yesterday. 

Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights said Asean had been hampered by its own institutional structure, which allowed member state Myanmar the space to "set the parameters of Asean's engagement".

It noted a lack of leadership within the Asean Secretariat in Jakarta, and among member states themselves.

"Caught between respect for its key principles of consensus and non-interference on the one hand, and (an) international and domestic outcry on the other, the regional bloc has struggled to respond to the crisis and articulate a clear vision and strategy that would help end the cycle of violence and displacement," the group said in the report, which examined the reasons for Asean's weak response to the crisis.

Some 750,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in the face of a brutal military crackdown that is now the subject of a genocide investigation at the United Nations' top court. While those who fled now live in sprawling refugee camps, those left behind in Rakhine are in camps for displaced people that rights groups have described as "open prisons".

"Asean has chosen to look at it from a humanitarian point of view, which is Myanmar's approach," Charles Santiago, a Malaysian MP who chairs the APHR board, told a press conference to release the report, noting that the organisation had not addressed key concerns including citizenship, religious rights and land issues. "Asean literally got cornered. The critical issues were ignored."

The situation there has deteriorated since the Rohingya exodus, with more people forced from their homes as a result of the escalating conflict between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group.

"How can we talk about Rohingya refugees returning to Rakhine State, when that area remains an active war zone?" said Santiago.

 "Until Asean and other international actors acknowledge the situation that led the Rohingya to flee in the first place, there's no hope of peace for any of the people who call Rakhine State home," said Laetitia van den Assum, a former member of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State.