The 32nd ASEAN Summit: These Three Documents of the Agreement, Without a Rohingya Issue

SINGAPORE – The 32nd ASEAN Summit produced three documents without any mention of any agreement to address the humanitarian issue of Rohingya.

The three documents were presented by Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong as chairman of ASEAN 2018 at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, Saturday (4/28/2018).

These three outcome documents are the ASEAN Leaders Statement on Security Cooperation of Siber, Concept Note of ASEAN Smart City Network (ASCN) and Vision of Leaders for Resonant and Innovative ASEAN.

These three documents will results only on the Vision of ASEAN Leaders little mentioned there is a tenth point on the importance of respecting Human Rights and Basic Freedom.

The point states “ASEAN reaffirms its commitment to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in line with the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights (AHRD) and Phnom Penh’s Declaration on Adoption of AHRD as well as international instruments on human rights followed by ASEAN member states.

In fact, various parties, including from the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Parliament on Human Rights (APHR), have appealed to ASEAN leaders to produce a strong statement to enable ASEAN to take immediate action to address the humanitarian issue of Rohingya.

The Head of ASEAN Study Center The Habibie Center Ibrahim Almuttaqi deplored the ASEAN leaders to limit themselves to only produce three documents, whereas there is an issue of humanitarian crisis Rohingya urgent to overcome in Southeast Asia.

Ibrahim believes that the absence of Aung San Suu Kyi at the ASEAN Summit should be able to be exploited by other ASEAN leaders to issue a stronger statement regarding the settlement of the Rohingyas humanitarian crisis.

“Unfortunately, under Singapore’s presidency our desire to get a clear delivery of human rights protection is too fragmented and ultimately overlooked,” he said.

Meanwhile, two other documents, namely the ASEAN Leaders Statement on Cooperation of Siber Security and ASCN are more practical as guidance for internal cooperation of member countries in the field of cybersecurity and the development of smart city network through various programs.

Source : ANTARA