This statement is issued by ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) and the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M)

9 November 2026: The Philippines as ASEAN Chair must immediately confirm that it will not invite accused war criminal Min Aung Hlaing to the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Manila, slated for 16-18 November 2026.

Extending an invitation to Min Aung Hlaing or any senior member of Myanmar’s military junta would torpedo ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus (5PC), the bloc’s only agreed framework for addressing the junta-made polycrisis that is ravaging the country and destabilising the region.

What is more, overturning the years-long ban on senior junta representation at key ASEAN meetings would constitute complicity in the junta’s atrocities. To date, every concession that ASEAN has granted to the junta has been swiftly followed by a fresh outrage. On 12 July 2026, as ASEAN Foreign Ministers met informally with the junta’s “foreign minister”, junta jets bombed civilians in Karen State.

More recently on 16 October, the junta’s newly appointed “defence minister” characterised the aerial bombings of civilians as “steps taken to obtain peace”. During October alone, junta airstrikes killed at least 100 civilians, 12 of them children, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The violence has not paused for diplomacy. During and after the ASEAN Special Envoy’s humanitarian mission to Myanmar in late October, The Irrawaddy recorded nine junta airstrikes in four days that killed 16 people, including three children and a newborn, at a school in Karenni State and a maternity clinic in Rakhine State. We acknowledge and welcome humanitarian engagement, but it must not become a pathway to legitimacy for a junta that bombs civilians.

These attacks also expose the junta’s false claims of governance and stability. UN Special Envoy Julie Bishop told the General Assembly in October that up to 70 per cent of Myanmar is contested or controlled by resistance forces, undermining the junta’s claims of nationwide control. She also called for measurable benchmarks to enforce the 5PC. UN Special Rapporteur Kelley Currie warned that unconditional engagement risks legitimising military rule.

“Given ASEAN’s mounting political and moral failures on Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing’s attendance at the Summit would mark a total capitulation,” said Yanghee Lee, SAC-M founding member. “It would be a permanent stain on ASEAN.”

Min Aung Hlaing’s strategy to outlast ASEAN is succeeding, with bloc members dissembling while the country burns. In recent months, the junta has accused ASEAN of “discriminatory” treatment, declared that ASEAN’s Myanmar Special Envoy role is “no longer necessary”, and threatened “countermeasures”. Yet rather than drawing rebukes and sanctions, some ASEAN members have rewarded this insolence with creeping legitimisation.

Elevating the stakes for ASEAN is the International Court of Justice’s judgment in The Gambia v. Myanmar case, to be delivered on 19 November. The Court could well find that the Myanmar military had a central role in perpetrating genocide against Rohingya in Rakhine State during its 2016-2017 “clearance operations”. Min Aung Hlaing was Commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces at the time. ASEAN Leaders will be judged by the company they keep.

“The Philippines, as Chair, can end this uncertainty now by confirming that Min Aung Hlaing will not be invited. Inviting him would signal that the junta can disregard the Five-Point Consensus without consequence. As parliamentarians, we call on ASEAN Leaders to stand with the people of Myanmar, not with the military that is bombing them,” said Hon. Mercy Chriesty Barends, APHR Chairperson and Member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives.

 APHR and SAC-M call on ASEAN Leaders to:

• Immediately confirm that Min Aung Hlaing or any other senior junta member will not be invited to attend the November ASEAN Summit.
• Adopt concrete, measurable benchmarks for compliance with the Five-Point Consensu, with clear implementation deadlines. These benchmarks must include an end to the junta’s violence, the full, immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, who remains under strict house arrest, and the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance to all persons in need.
• Adopt a series of escalating punitive steps that will be triggered by the junta’s non-compliance with these benchmarks.

Furthermore, during their transitional period as outgoing and incoming ASEAN Chairs, the Philippines and Singapore must prioritise engagement and consultation with Myanmar’s legitimate democratic actors, including the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, the National Unity Government, ethnic organisations, women-led organizations, civil society and minority communities.

Signed by Board Members of APHR:

• Mercy Chriesty Barends, Chairperson, Member of the House of Representatives, Indonesia
• Charles Santiago, Co-Chairperson, Former Member of Parliament, Malaysia
• Eva Kusuma Sundari, Former Member of the House of Representatives, Indonesia
• Kasit Piromya, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Member of Parliament and Diplomat, Thailand
• Wong Chen, Former Member of Parliament, Malaysia
• Shwe Maung, Former Member of Parliament, Myanmar
• Charles Chong, Former Member of Parliament, Singapore
• Arlene D. Brosas, Former Member of the House of Representatives, Philippines

Signed by the founding members of SAC-M

• Yanghee Lee, Former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
• Marzuki Darusman, Former Chair of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar
• Chris Sidoti, Former Member of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar