This year marks the 25th year of Myanmar’s entry into the ASEAN fold. In July 1997 when Myanmar joined ASEAN, it was with the view that ASEAN membership will provide Myanmar the much needed legitimacy to move into the international stage, with a slow and steady progress towards political change. As early as 2003 Myanmar began its seven step roadmap towards democratic transition, giving some semblance of hope that the country would move from decades of isolation and military rule, to a more participatory form of political system.

ASEAN membership was considered as an option where the socialization of member states allowed for ASEAN’s consensus and consultation driven mechanisms, to act as an influence on the members to conform to certain norms. This was particularly enshrined in the ASEAN charter of 2008 and the move towards a more people centered ASEAN. However, since the February 2021 coup d’etat the increasing gap between Myanmar and the ASEAN belies the hope that the ASEAN will be able to exert any kind of pressure on the Myanmar junta led by the State Administrative Council (SAC) and its leadership under General Min Aung Hliang.

In the immediate aftermath of the coup of February 2021, the ASEAN had to deal with a political crisis, even while the pandemics impact was clearly challenging the region. This necessitated a slower approach on how to handle the ongoing political conflict within Myanmar, particularly as the ASEAN had earlier engaged Myanmar through its policies of Constructive and Flexible Engagement. These policies reiterated that engaging Myanmar while trying to influence change within the junta, was a way of leveraging ASEAN’s influence to push forward change. Following the coup, the recourse to holding foreign minister meetings, where Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar representatives met to discuss the political crisis was a preliminary step. This saw the ASEAN’s uncertain acceptance of the military’s promise to hold fresh elections that did not go down well with the pro-democracy protestors.

By April 2021, the special ASEAN meeting on Myanmar evolved the Five Point Consensus which summed up ASEAN’s core agenda for ending the crisis, albeit, a softened approach allowing for maneuverability, given the ASEAN policy of non-interference in domestic affairs. The five point consensus was: (a) cessation of violence and exercising restraint; (b) initiation of dialogue between the conflicting parties; (c) role of the special envoy and the ASEAN Secretary General to help with mediation; fourth, providing humanitarian assistance; and (e) special envoy would visit and meet with the conflicting parties.

Myanmar military’s response to the 5PC met with resistance, as the junta was not willing to concede till it was in a position to control the situation within the country. General Min Aung Hliang returned from the ASEAN meeting and categorically stated that the implementation of the 5PC could happen only when the law and order conditions on the ground returned to normal. The continued protests and the ruthless crackdown within the country left little space for the implementation of the 5PC. From this stage onwards ASEAN’s responses were recalibrated, when in June 2021, for the first time Myanmar was not represented by any state official at the ASEAN meeting. This has continued through till this year.

For the ASEAN, the task of appointing a special envoy took a very long time. As the ASEAN Chair changes each year the special envoy also changes, making the coordination weaker. HE Foreign Minister Prak Soukhon is the current special envoy and along with the ASEAN Secretary General has been coordinating the humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, covering areas of outreach, the tune of assistance and the covid response through vaccine delivery. While this is coordinated by the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre), the actual implementation has been more difficult. One of the challenges for the AHA is the role under which it has been envisaged, particularly as a vehicle for the deliverance of assistance in times of natural disasters and calamities. This role was critical in the case of Myanmar, after the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT) coordinated the delivery of assistance. However, the AHA task force also faced the challenge of delivering assistance in the current crisis as the AHA was not envisioned to address a political crisis. As a result getting the process accepted by all the member states before the task force could evaluate the ground situation has taken much longer than expected and the ERAT team is still to deliver to several areas.

The more recent discord since July has been the SAC’s ruthless execution of four political prisoners which took place just prior to the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting held earlier this month. As ASEAN Chair, Prime Minister Hun Sen requested the SAC not to carry out the executions, which was ignored.

During ASEAN foreign ministers meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his opening remarks, clearly stated that while the Five Point Consensus and its implementation had not progressed according to plan, it still had a modest success in terms of some humanitarian assistance `reaching those who need it the most’. However, the remarks of the member states on the executions showed a critically perturbed regional grouping indicating that the ASEAN may need to rethink its approach to the 5PC.

The recent summit has clearly seen the toughest stand by ASEAN. How far this will translate into action remains to be seen, especially as no binding mechanisms are instilled within the grouping to deal with member states.

Professor Shankari Sundararaman is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.