Cambodia urges Myanmar to allow meeting between special envoy, Suu Kyi
Bangkok, May 3 (EFE).- Cambodian government urged Myanmar’s military junta to allow the ASEAN special envoy to meet with ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his visit scheduled for late May.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen requested access to the Myanmar politician, detained since the early hours of the February 2021 coup, during a videoconference meeting on Monday with coup maker Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, according to a Tuesday Cambodian Foreign Ministry statement.
Hun Sen did this “to create an environment conducive to starting an inclusive political dialogue,” while the leader of the military junta “promised to facilitate meetings with other interested parties,” without directly rejecting an encounter with Suu Kyi, the document read.
ASEAN’s special envoy for Myanmar, Cambodian Minister Prak Sokhonn, is scheduled to make his second visit to the country at the end of the month, at an as yet unspecified date, after an unsuccessful trip in March.
Until now, the Myanmar authorities have prevented all access to Suu Kyi, who is faces a tangle of legal proceedings filed since the coup and through which she could spend more than 150 years in prison if convicted of all the charges against her.
The military keep the ousted leader, already sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison, under house arrest in an unspecified place and away from the public spotlight, since they have only shown a few photographs of Suu Kyi in front of the court since the coup.
Hun Sen influenced the implementation of the five points of consensus, reached a year ago between the leaders of Southeast Asia and Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to facilitate a peaceful solution to the deep political and social crisis in Myanmar as a result of the military uprising.
Among these points, which the military junta later called “recommendations,” are ending the violence against the civilian population and a constructive dialogue that includes all the parties involved.
The little progress made on this pact has led the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to veto the junta leader and foreign minister’s participation in high-ranking meetings of the bloc, although military representatives have participated in other quotes.
The ASEAN foreign ministers are scheduled to hold a consultative online meeting Friday on ASEAN humanitarian assistance to Myanmar.
The military coup has plunged Myanmar into a deep political, social and economic crisis, and opened a spiral of violence with new civilian militias that have exacerbated the guerrilla war that the country has been experiencing for decades.
At least 1,803 people have died as a result of the violent repression carried out by police and soldiers, who have shot to kill peaceful and unarmed protesters, according to data collected by the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners in Myanmar. EFE
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