Asean may have got itself into a geopolitical quandary.
The Southeast Asian grouping of 10 countries is holding a special meeting in Jakarta with junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Saturday. To bring the coup to an end, we hope.
A fat lot of good it will do Asean if it gets Min Aung Hlaing and his men back to the barracks. A fat chance. After 79 days and 730 brutal murders of the very people the army claims to protect, Min Aung Hlaing and his generals are not the ones to give up power willingly.
He has more murders on his mind. And he thinks he can, at his pleasure, go on a killing spree. Neither Asean nor the United Nations can do anything to stop him.
He reckons his best friends forever — China, Russia and India — will back him up. After all, the three countries sent their officials to be with him to celebrate Armed Forces Day on March 27, the day his men killed more than 150 people, according to The New York Times. The highest ever death tally for a single day.
Except for some din by this or that country, the Myanmar coup file is marked NFA, no further action. So it was when Min Aung Hlaing went on a murderous rampage, killing thousands of Rohingya and other ethnic minorities. Making the right noise is good, but din without deed achieves nothing. We understand the dilemma of Asean. It is being pulled hither and thither by two groups. One group thinks the military coup is an internal matter. This is a shame because such a view legitimises an illegitimate regime that overthrew an elected government.
Let's not forget Min Aung Hlaing's party was thrashed at the recently-held elections. But he, like former United States president Donald Trump, opted to overthrow the government, claiming fraud without any proof. The only difference between the two is Min Aung Hlaing succeeded where Trump had failed miserably.
The second group in Asean wants democracy restored in Myanmar. There is a hurdle in the way of this group. Asean's consensual decision-making process is making the regional body, at best, a talking shop. Critical issues, especially geopolitical ones, do not get resolved this way.
A joke about the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, based on its acronym, UNCTAD, usually not coming to any decision, may be Asean's as well if it continues thus.
The world is shocked that Asean has seen it fit to invite a murderous regime to its meeting. A good section of the world wants Myanmar to be expelled from Asean. We, too, think it is the right thing to do. Engagement has failed in the past and it will this time, too.
Some allowance, however, has to be made, for Asean's good intent: to bring an end to the brutalities in Myanmar. But the way it went about achieving it is wrong or half-wrong. It should have given a seat at the same table to the ousted national unity government, made up of overthrown politicians from Aung San Suu Kyi's and ethnic minority parties.
Asean recognised them as legitimate in November, why aren't they so now? To be at the table with the generals who were responsible for the putsch without the elected politicians is a costly mistake.
And it will cost Asean dearly. Perhaps as dearly as an existential one.