Open letter from Myanmar civil society organizations to ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus and support Myanmar people’s efforts to build federal democracy

Subject: Open letter from Myanmar civil society organizations to ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus and support Myanmar people’s efforts to build federal democracy

Your Excellencies,

Last week, the military junta in Myanmar unleashed a barrage of lethal, indiscriminate airstrikes across Shan, Karen, and Karenni States and Sagaing Region. Of extreme concern, in Lashio, northern Shan State, the junta conducted four consecutive days of airstrikes, which killed at least six civilians. Last month, from 1 to 7 September, the junta launched airstrikes targeting civilians in Chin, Shan, and Karenni States and Magwe, Sagaing, and Mandalay Regions—killing at least 40 people, including a dozen children.

The utter silence of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in response to these ongoing atrocity crimes by the illegal military junta against the people of Myanmar, once again, highlights its continued failure to address the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. It is imperative that ASEAN change course immediately.

We, the undersigned 240 Myanmar civil society organizations, call on ASEAN to show its political leadership, commitment, and genuine will to support the well-being of the Myanmar people by implementing the following recommendations at the 44^th and 45^th ASEAN Summits in Vientiane under Laos’ chairship. These recommendations were put forth during the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum (ACSC/APF) by the Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF, comprising 15 civil society organizations, and partner organizations. We further call on the international community, particularly the United Nations and ASEAN’s dialogue partners, to assist ASEAN with effectively implementing these recommendations:

1. End all engagement with the Myanmar military junta, including all business ties with the junta and any support for the military junta’s sham election plan.
2. Exclude all representatives of the military junta, both political and non-political, from ASEAN’s platforms at all levels.
3. Formally engage with and provide political support to the Myanmar people’s legitimate representatives and governance bodies, including the National Unity Government, the National Unity Consultative Council, and ethnic resistance organizations.
4. Collaborate with locally led civil society and community-based organizations, including networks of Civil Disobedience Movement professionals, and people-led governance structures.
5. End the involvement of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), as well as the use of any channels involving the military junta or its proxies, in the provision of humanitarian aid, and instead cooperate with revolutionary groups to facilitate humanitarian aid through border channels.
6. Support the Myanmar people’s efforts for transitional justice and coordinate with existing international justice mechanisms to hold the Myanmar military accountable for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. In particular, the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children must take immediate action to hold the military junta accountable for sexual and gender-based crimes.