MALAYSIA’S chairmanship of Asean sees the kicking off of the 48th Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM) and several other related meetings at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur this week. The six-day event started with the meeting of the regional body’s permanent representatives and will include the Asean Post Ministerial Conference, the 16th Asean Plus Three Foreign Ministers Meeting (16th APT FMM), the 5th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers Meeting (5th EAS FMM) and the 22nd Asean Regional Forum (22nd ARF). Expected to attend is United States Secretary of State John Kerry, who will be involved in a series of meetings with 27 countries. The emphasis of the Asean ministerial meetings will be the Asean Economic Community 2015 (AEC2015) and the Asean post-2015 Vision. This does not, however, exclude other urgent matters, such as the South China Sea dispute over the Spratly Islands with China, a country close to some members of Asean, where China has been aggressively expanding its territory through land reclamation activities.
While the complexities within the organisation requires much work to try and establish a genuine AEC by year-end, these meetings are an opportunity to solve other regional problems of importance. Other than the Spratly Islands dispute is the plight of the Rohingyas and its related problem of human trafficking. The fate of the Rohingyas in recent months — of the thousands stranded at sea and the gruesome discovery of death camps at the Malaysian-Thai border — needs resolution and when best but during the ministerial meetings where Myanmar, an Asean member, is present. For, there will not be a solution without a turnabout in attitude of Naypyidaw to this minority community of Muslims who are being treated as aliens in their own country. Their violent persecution by the majority population is causing them to flee the country in droves, ending up as refugees in Malaysia, southern Thailand and Indonesia. While others are, too, being trafficked by the criminal syndicates, Rohingyas are especially vulnerable because, once at sea, returning to Myanmar is not an option, which makes them an urgent problem needing a firm solution not found elsewhere but in Naypyidaw. Ministers of Asean then must persuade and cajole the Myanmar authorities to opt for a humane solution, which is no other than the recognition of their status as citizens of Myanmar having been there for hundreds of years. Accusing Muslims of terrorism, itself a fallacy, cannot be the excuse denying Rohingyas of their human rights.
As urgent in respect of regional peace is the dispute with China over the Spratly Islands. While Malaysia is amenable to bilateral solutions, Philippines, another Asean member, has taken a more confrontational approach. That the US, with its Pivot to Asia policy, has resurrected naval bases in the Philippines, is easily a potential destabilising force. The war of words between China and the US has been escalating in recent months. All this makes the meeting of Asean with its 10 dialogue partners — the European Union, Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US — especially providential and suitable.