Dear Members of the Press,
Please see below quotes from Charles Santiago, APHR Chair and a Malaysian MP, on the planned visit to Myanmar by Prak Sokhonn, Cambodian Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and ASEAN Special Envoy on Myanmar, from 21 to 23 March 2022.
“It is absolutely disgraceful that in a week when the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner has released such a damning first report on conditions in Myanmar since the coup, that the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen is once again normalizing the illegal junta in Myanmar on multiple levels, having already invited a Myanmar military delegation to the country this week. Hun Sen and Min Aung Hlaing’s contempt for the collective will of ASEAN is seriously damaging the reputation of the bloc and the region.”
“As ASEAN chair, it is in the Cambodian government’s best interests to strengthen its own, and ASEAN’s, credibility by remaining fully committed to the Five-Point Consensus. It should provide a roadmap to explain how it plans to progress the agreed action points. Instead, Prak Sokhonn’s visit, which comes without any conditions or demands on the junta to meet its obligations under the Five Point Consensus, is a betrayal of the collective decision of ASEAN, and the will of the Myanmar people. We all witnessed how PM Hun Sen’s similarly condition-free visit in January did nothing to deter, and possibly emboldened, the junta to undertake operations the very next day that may amount to crimes against humanity. Cambodia’s continued reckless departure from the ASEAN consensus puts more innocent Myanmar people’s lives at risk from this junta.”
“It is ridiculous that the ASEAN Special Envoy says his visit to Myanmar is aimed at “creating a favourable condition” to end the violence. It is way past time to stop holding hands with these accused war criminals. ASEAN and its Chair must demand the military junta cease all violence and attacks immediately against the people, in line with the five-point consensus agreed by the leaders of ASEAN Member States. Anything less risks giving the military council a licence to commit further crimes against humanity.”
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