Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis exposes ASEAN weaknesses: Report
Al JazeeraOct 20, 2020
On Sunday, the United Nations expressed fears that a boat carrying about 180 Rohingya who fled camps in Bangladesh has sunk with no survivors after it went missing in the Andaman Sea, with relatives of those onboard having lost contact with them.
As around 200 people are already presumed dead or missing, this sinking would make 2022 the third worst year for dead and missing Rohingyas at sea in nearly a decade after 2013 and 2014, when 900 and 700 people died or went missing, respectively.
The Rohingya people have desperately risked their lives crossing the ocean for years, trying to find a safe place to live after suffering human rights abuses in Myanmar. This crisis has exposed structural flaws in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as its rules made it possible for Myanmar to prevent regional powers from investigating the scale of human rights abuses and taking action to halt them.
It's hypocritical to criticize solely ASEAN when Western democracies have done nothing to help the Rohingya — even though the International Court of Justice has long called for measures to protect those persecuted. While this is likely to be a consequence of fears that Myanmar would strengthen ties with Beijing if pressed, not acting to preserve the universal validity of human rights can only damage the West's reputation — the plight of the Rohingya at sea is the world's responsibility.