New Delhi (Mizzima) – Member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have rejected a proposed meeting with five civil society representatives, including a Burmese delegate, at the 15th ASEAN summit to be held Hua Hin, Thailand.
Debbie Stothard, Coordinator for the Alternative Asean Network (Altsean) said Thai Foreign Ministry officials informed the 10 representatives that five of them – the representatives from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and Singapore – had been denied by their governments from attending an interface meeting with ASEAN leaders on Friday.
“They rejected five and the other five were allowed to meet with them [ASEAN ministers],” Stothard told Mizzima on Friday.
Khin Ohn Mar from Burma, Nay Vanda from Cambodia, Manichanh Philaphanh from Laos, Sister Crescencia L. Lucero from Philippines and Sinapan Samydorai from Singapore were originally selected along with five other representatives to the ASEAN People’s Forum/ASEAN Civil Society Conference to be held in Cha-am, Thailand, from October 18 to 20.
A statement from the ASEAN People’s Forum (APF) on Friday said the development rendered the interface, which is an important space for civil society to engage with ASEAN government officials, utterly meaningless.
Stothard added that the rejection in effect means ASEAN governments have already violated their own charter, which enshrines the concept of a “people centric community”.
“The behavior of ASEAN governments is breaking the charter ratified in just the last year,” she explained.
Though the other five representatives were allowed to proceed to meet with officials, the civil society representatives from Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia reportedly walked out of the meeting in protest over the presence of substitute delegates from Singapore and Burma.
Burma’s military regime, in the enforced absence of Khin Ohn Mar, instead chose to nominate candidates Sitt Aye and Win Myaing from the Anti-Narcotics Association – the latter also being a former high-ranking police officer.
“We walked out as we cannot be seen in the same line with Myanmar [Burma]’s Anti-Narcotics Association. It is totally a different ideology and different position. I don’t want to be registered and come together in the meeting room with them,” Yu Yun of Forum Asia in Indonesia told Mizzima.
“We cannot accept this kind of attitude from the governments. They pick and choose who can come and who cannot come. It is against our beliefs and our principles,” elaborated Yu Yun.
ASEAN is trying to enhance the participation of community-based social organizations (CSOs) in its activities in order to keep them informed of major policies, directives and decisions of the 10-nation bloc.
“The ASEAN summit is the place to reveal and openly discuss the situation in Burma in terms of democracy, human rights, politics, economics, social and cultural problems,” Khin Ohn Mar told Mizzima.
At the 14th ASEAN summit in February of this year, Khin Ohn Mar, along with a Cambodian activist, was again barred from attending a civil society meeting at the bequest of the Burmese government.
“The incident this time is worse than last year,” complained Yu Yun.
With the APF calling on ASEAN governments to take the ASEAN charter seriously and to comply with its conditions, Yu Yun however conceded, “We will continue to engage with the governments as we don’t want them to make decisions without consulting with us.”
Editing by Mungpi
