Myanmar has “all the ingredients for civil war,” a senior Cambodian official said on Monday, ahead of a visit by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to the crisis-wracked country.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup last year, with more than 1,400 people killed in a crackdown on dissent by security forces, a local monitoring group estimates.
Hun Sen, whose country this year holds the rotating ASEAN chair, is to visit Myanmar tomorrow and Saturday in an effort to defuse the crisis.
Photo: AFP
However, Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Prak Sokhonn said that the outlook was dire.
“The political and security crisis in Myanmar is deepening, and has led to [an] economic, health and humanitarian crisis,” he said. “We feel that all the ingredients for civil war are now on the table. There are now two governments, there are several armed forces, people are undergoing what they call the civil disobedience movement and [there is] guerrilla warfare around the country.”
He was speaking at a lecture organized by Singapore-based think tank the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The event was held under the Chatham House Rule, which means that the speaker must give permission before his comments are reported to facilitate candor.
The Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on Tuesday gave permission for Agence France-Presse to report his comments.
Prak Sokhonn rejected criticism that Hun Sen’s visit would legitimize the junta, saying that Phnom Penh’s “immediate attention is on improving the situation in Myanmar”.
Efforts would remain focused on a peace roadmap and the “five-point consensus” agreed on by ASEAN leaders last year, he said.
The visit aims “to pave the way for progress” by “creating a conducive environment for inclusive dialogue and political trust among all parties concerned,” Prak Sokhonn added.
Since the coup, there has been little sign of progress.
A visit by an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar has been delayed after the junta refused to allow him to meet with ousted Burmese civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In response, the bloc excluded Myanmar’s junta leader from a high-level summit in October last year, a rare rebuke by a group often criticized for being toothless.
Myanmar’s crisis has bad implications for “regional stability ... ASEAN’s image, credibility, unity,” Prak Sokhonn added.
Nevertheless, he said Cambodia was making efforts to allow Myanmar’s junta chief to resume attending meetings of the bloc again.
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