Myanmar’s Junta Cool on Commitment to ASEAN’s Plan for Stabilizing Country

The Myanmar junta’s equivocal reaction to a plan it agreed to with its regional neighbors for pulling the country back from the brink of collapse is raising doubts about the junta’s commitment to follow through anytime soon. 

Since Myanmar’s military toppled the country’s elected civilian government February 1, the junta has shot and killed hundreds of mostly peaceful and unarmed protesters and sent thousands fleeing to neighboring India and Thailand seeking refuge. United Nations officials and envoys are warning of a pending humanitarian crisis and all-out civil war.  In a bid to keep the crisis from spiraling out of control, leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, met in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 24 with coup leader Min Aung Hlaing. A statement from the current chair of the bloc, Brunei, said the leaders reached a “five-point consensus” including a call for an immediate end to the violence and talks “among all parties concerned.”