ASEAN Officials Attacked While Delivering Aid to Burma, Indonesia President Says

Indonesian President Joko Widodo attends a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin following their meeting in Moscow, on June 30, 2022. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via Reuters)

Indonesia’s president has urged all parties in Burma to cease violence after a convoy that included officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was attacked in a “shootout” while delivering humanitarian aid to the country.

“Stop using force because it’s the people who will become victims. This condition will not make anyone win,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said at a news conference on May 8.

Widodo said that the delivery of aid by ASEAN officials was hampered because of the attack in Burma, also known as Myanmar, but he didn’t elaborate. It remains unclear who carried out the attack.

“It is very unfortunate that in the middle of the trip, there was a shootout,” the Indonesian leader said, according to his office.

Widodo urged all parties in Burma to engage in dialogue to find solutions. He said the attack wouldn’t hinder ASEAN’s efforts to push for the implementation of the five-point consensus by the military junta.

The attack occurred a day before the 42nd ASEAN summit began in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia, which will run through May 11, involving leaders from 10 member nations. Indonesia is the chair of ASEAN this year, while Burma’s military junta has been barred from participating in high-level ASEAN meetings.

Widodo told reporters on May 7 that Burma’s implementation of the five-point consensus will be discussed at the summit. He emphasized that the regional bloc “must not become a proxy for any party or country.”

“The Myanmar issue will be specifically discussed. Our parameter for Myanmar is a five-point consensus. We must carry out dialogue, but I am of the view that sanctions are not part of the solution,” he added.

The regional bloc has barred Burma’s military junta from attending any key meetings unless it agrees to implement the five-point consensus, which includes ending violence, facilitating constructive dialogue, and allowing a visit by an ASEAN delegation to Burma.

Several Western countries have imposed sanctions on the Burmese military and its businesses over its suppression of anti-coup protesters and the prosecution of deposed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the elected civilian government in Burma.

One of the houses that were destroyed in an airstrike by the military junta in the Khuafo village, located north of the Chin State town of Thantlang, Burma, on March 30, 2023. (Free Burma Rangers)

Escalating Violence in Burma

Burma has been in turmoil since the military ousted Suu Kyi’s elected government in a February 2021 coup, with violence flaring in several regions as opposition groups clash with the junta.

More than 1.6 million people in Burma have been internally displaced, with an estimated 55,000 civilian buildings destroyed since the military takeover, according to the United Nations on March 16.

About 3,000 civilians in Burma have been killed since the military seized power, the U.N. stated, adding that “figures of casualties likely represent an underestimation of the reality on the ground.”

U.N. special envoy Noeleen Heyzer said that “atrocities, beheadings, and the mutilation of rebel fighters’ bodies have been recorded, together with escalating violence in ethnic areas.” But popular resistance persists across much of Burma.

“A generation that benefited from Myanmar’s previous opening up, especially the youth, is now disillusioned, facing chronic hardship, and many feeling they have no choice but to take up arms to fight military rule,” she said.

Heyzer said the military junta has intensified the use of force to include more aerial bombing, the burning of civilian homes, and other “grave human rights violations to maintain its grip on power.” She said the junta has placed 47 townships under martial law.

“The impact of the military takeover on the country and its people, has been devastating,” she added.