Police tape cordons off the area where a woman was found dead a day earlier at a secluded spot on the southern island of Phuket, Thailand, on Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. Photo: AP
BANGKOK (AP) — A suspect in the death of a 57-year-old Swiss woman on Thailand’s tourist island of Phuket was charged with murder and robbery, police said Sunday.
The suspect, Teerawat Thothip, a 27-year-old Thai man living in Phuket, confessed to the killing and even spoke by telephone at a police press conference to admit his guilt and describe the crime.
Investigators were able to trace the suspect using security camera footage, and during the interrogation he was found to have scratches and bruises on his body, said Police Maj. Gen. Nuntadech Yoi-nuan, deputy commissioner of Provincial Police Region 8.
The body of the Swiss woman, Nicole Sauvain-Weisskopf, was discovered Thursday at a secluded spot on the island. Swiss media reported she was a member of the country’s diplomatic service.
The suspect told reporters he went into a forest on Tuesday to try to find rare plants to sell, but was unsuccessful.
On his way back, he said he passed a waterfall and saw Sauvain-Weisskopf. He said he strangled her from behind, and that she resisted for a while before losing consciousness.
He then covered her with a black sheet, which was found nearby, took 300 baht ($9) from her backpack and threw her sneakers away. He said his motivation was because he had no money and no work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The cause of death has not been confirmed, and an autopsy report has yet to be released by the authorities, said Kissana Phathanacharoen, a national police deputy spokesperson.
The incident has cast a pall over Thailand’s so-called Phuket Sandbox program to try and bring fully vaccinated foreign tourists to the popular destination, which has been struggling massively during the coronavirus pandemic.
In this photo released by Provincial Police Region 8, Thailand National Police Chief Suwat Jangyodsuk talks to media during a press conference at Provincial Police Region 8 in the southern island of Phuket, Thailand, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2021. Photo: Provincial Police Region 8 via AP
Below a sign marking indigenous species of trees, flowers are placed at the scene where a woman was found dead a day earlier at a secluded spot on the southern island of Phuket, Thailand, on Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. Photo: AP
BANGKOK (AP) — Thai police said Saturday they arrested a suspect in the death of a Swiss woman on the tourist island of Phuket.
Thailand’s national police chief, Pol. Gen. Suwat Jangyodsuk, confirmed to reporters that a suspect was arrested but offered no other details.
According to an ID published by Thai media, the man is 27, and a Thai resident of Phuket.
The body of the 57-year-old Swiss woman, Nicole Sauvain-Weisskopf, was found Thursday at a secluded spot on the island. Thai media reported that the her partially clothed body was lying face down in a rock crevice near a waterfall and appeared to have been concealed by a sheet.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered a quick investigation. Swiss media reported that Sauvain-Weisskopf was a member of the country’s diplomatic service.
The incident casts a pall over Thailand’s so-called Phuket Sandbox program to try and bring fully vaccinated foreign tourists to the popular destination, which has been struggling massively during the coronavirus pandemic.
Police tape cordons off the area where a woman was found dead a day earlier at a secluded spot on the southern island of Phuket, Thailand, on Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. Photo: AP
Riot police launch tear gas to anti-government protesters during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Photo: Anuthep Cheysakron / AP
BANGKOK (AP) — Thai riot police on Saturday fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to repel a crowd of several hundred young anti-government protesters who marched on an army base where Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has his residence to demand his resignation.
The demonstrators threw rocks, bottles, fireworks and fired slingshots during the hourslong confrontation in the Din Daeng area of Bangkok, which was obscured by swirling smoke.
The rally was led by the Free Youth, a student protest group that drew tens of thousands to its protests last year. It’s demanding Prayuth’s resignation over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, which has seen the number of cases spiraling and the health care system stretched to the limit. Prayuth has been criticized for a slow vaccination program.
Thailand reported a new high of 21,838 confirmed cases on Saturday, with 212 more deaths. Bangkok and surrounding provinces have been under lockdown, including overnight curfew, for weeks.
According to the city’s Erawan Medical Center emergency services, five people were hospitalized, including three police officers. The march was called off in the early evening but disturbances continued, with protesters battling the police and hurling objects.
A motorcycle ride pass the police detention truck was put on fire during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Photo: Anuthep Cheysakron / AP
The protesters are also calling for part of the budget for the monarchy and the military to be redirected into the COVID-19 fight.
Saturday’s protest was originally planned in an area near the Grand Palace in the old part of the capital but switched to the compound of the 1st Infantry Regiment, where Prayuth – a former general who originally took power in a 2014 coup – continues to live.
The protest movement began last year with demands for sweeping political change, including unprecedented public calls for the reform of the powerful monarchy to make it more accountable.
After going dormant due to prosecutions, internal disagreements and the pandemic, protests have returned in recent weeks, fueled by the growing discontent over the government’s response to the health crisis and its massive impact on the economy, which is reliant on tourism.
Anti-government protesters try to control smoke from tear gas fired by riot police during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Photo: Thanachote Thanawikran / APRiot police launch tear gas to anti-government protesters during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Photo: Thanachote Thanawikran / APAnti-government protesters march on a road during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Photo: Thanachote Thanawikran / AP
Pro-democracy supporters light candles or shine their mobile phone lights during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021.
Political protests have resumed over the past few weeks despite unprecedented upsurge in the number of COVID-19 daily deaths and infections. Friday saw over 21,000 new daily infections and 191 deaths.
All protesters want Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha to resign for the COVID-19 management meltdown. But some also want to pursue their year-long goal of monarchy reform if not more.
Leading the first group is veteran political activist Sombat Boonngam-anong who devised the “car mob” protests last month in order to minimize possible COVID-19 infections while making their anti-Prayut presence known on the streets. Sombat told me last week that it’s imperative that Prayut leave now to prevent further COVID-19 public health disaster and economic ruins despite the fact that there’s no viable or even visible replacement that could assure the public that whoever replaces Prayut will be more competent. Sombat’s rationale, shared by quite a few, is that you cannot possibly get a dumber leader than Prayut even if you try.
Then there’s the second group of political protesters which is more diverse. On one hand you have monarchy-reform activist Arnon Nampa, who gave a rousing speech on Tuesday marking the first year since the issue of monarchy reform was raised in public by no less than himself a year ago on Aug 3, 2020. Arnon himself is more willing to take risks and unlike Sombat who told me he’s “afraid of COVID-19,” Arnon wrote on his Facebook over a month ago that if you end up getting infected by COVID-19 for joining political protests, so be it.
Motorists assembling Aug. 1, 2021 at Victory Monument to call for Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha to resign over COVID-19 mismanagement.
Two tangible outcomes over the past 12 months of calls for monarchy reforms are: over a hundred people, including Arnon, have been charged with lese-majeste and social media have become bold in discussing negative aspects of the monarchy, real or imagined, particularly on Twitter.
By comparison, Arnon, who warns about growing republicanism sentiment if the monarchy institution fails to reform, is not militant compared to another group, Free Youth.
Free Youth is back and called for a march from Democracy Monument to the Grand Palace this afternoon (Saturday) at 2pm. Marching, or trying to march, to the Grand Palace is highly controversial – at least to die hard royalists and ultra-royalists.
Police are more willing to use force and they’ve warned on Friday that they will take all necessary measures to prevent the protesters from getting close to the Grand Palace.
When protesters tried to march there back in February, they were blocked at Sanam Luang and police violently dispersed the demonstrators. My most watched video clip, 3.7 million views, was captured on that night after riot police managed to cordon off most reporters and cameraman. I was “fortunate” to see what the police didn’t want others to see. What I saw of an ugly beating of a lone protester by around ten police officers by baton. It was savage and that’s why it was retweeted on Twitter by others over 910,000 times.
Wearing Gryffindor robes, human rights lawyer and activist Arnon Nampha speaks to monarchy reform demonstrators Aug. 3, 2021 at Pathum Wan Intersection at a Harry Potter-themed protest.
A key member of the group, “Uaw Free Youth” wrote a defense on why protesters have to march to the palace. Uaw said it’s because Thailand’s only COVID-19 vaccine factory, Siam Bioscience, is owned by the crown and the factory has failed to produced the amount of vaccine originally anticipated, leading to a delay of inoculation programme. “We cannot wait,” Uaw wrote on Friday.
Now, not only ultra-royalists and police have become incinerated by today’s planned protest, a leading ultra-royalist has even accused Free Youth of willifully wanting to spread coronavirus by calling for the demonstration.
Warong Dechgitvigrom, leader of Thai Phakdee Party, wrote on Thursday that today’s demonstrators are using “biological weapons – which is spreading COVID-19 because their assessment was that at their age, if they become infected they won’t develop severe symptoms [because they are young] but they seek to spread [the virus farther] and use it as a pretext to undermine the government and the monarchy.”
Make it what you will but Free Youth on the same day instructed the demonstrators through its social media to also carry with them rotten eggs and fermented fish gravy (pla rah) in a sign that things will at least turn smelly if not ugly and violent.
More mainstream activists like former redshirt leader Nattawut Saigua said he will not join Free Youth’s protest march this afternoon but will join the “car mob” on Sunday instead. This is a sign that even some protest leaders are still uncomfortable touching the monarchy issue and just want to kick Prayut out.
Free Youth seems to want to let off some adrenalin but beyond that, their biggest challenge is not battling with anti-riot police but to win more hearts and minds to support their political agenda.
With COVID-19 ravaging Thailand and potential spread of virus at the protest site, their timing is far from ideal.
The complaint, filed Thursday with the sheriff’s office, is the first known instance where a woman has made an official report with a law enforcement agency over alleged misconduct by Cuomo. Its filing is a potential first step toward bringing criminal charges.
“We take every complaint seriously,” Albany County Undersheriff William Rice said Friday.
It’s possible the Democratic governor could be arrested if investigators or the county district attorney determine he committed a crime, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple told the New York Post.
“The end result could either be it sounds substantiated and an arrest is made and it would be up to the DA to prosecute the arrest,” he told the newspaper, which was the first to report on the complaint. “Just because of who it is we are not going to rush it or delay it,” Apple said.
Apple didn’t return a phone message from The Associated Press.
The Cuomo aide who filed the report has accused him of reaching under her shirt and fondling her when they were alone in a room at the Executive Mansion last year. The woman also told investigators with the attorney general’s office that Cuomo once rubbed her rear end while they were posing together for a photo.
The sheriff’s office didn’t immediately provide a copy of the complaint.
Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, didn’t immediately address the criminal complaint in an online briefing with reporters, but said the groping allegation — which was also outlined in newspaper articles and in a report released by the New York attorney general’s office — was fabricated.
“He is 63 years old. He has spent 40 years in public life and for him to all of the sudden be accused of a sexual assault of an executive assistant that he really doesn’t know, doesn’t pass muster,” Glavin said.
The Albany County district attorney would not confirm that they received a complaint, saying they had no plans to release any information because “this is an ongoing matter that is under review,” spokesperson Cecilia Walsh said in an email.
The attorney general’s report describes a series of times Cuomo allegedly acted inappropriately with the aide described as Executive Assistant #1, culminating with the groping encounter at the mansion in November 2020.
According to the woman, Cuomo pulled her in for a hug as she prepared to leave the governor’s office at the mansion. Told that “you’re going to get us in trouble,” Cuomo replied, “I don’t care,” and slammed the door shut. He slid his hand up her blouse, and grabbed her breast over her bra, according to her account.
“I have to tell you, it was — at the moment, I was in such shock that I could just tell you that I just remember looking down seeing his hand, seeing the top of my bra,” she told investigators.
She said she pulled away from Cuomo, telling him “You’re crazy.”
Cuomo has adamantly denied touching her breasts, saying “I would have to lose my mind to do such a thing.”
Records confirm that the woman was at the mansion for several hours on Nov. 16 and had at least one interaction with the governor, but Glavin said she also sent emails to staff while she was in the building that didn’t mention that anything upsetting had happened.
Mariann Wang, an attorney for two other accusers, said the governor’s lawyers are ignoring any fear the employees had of being punished by Cuomo if they complained.
“The fact that any assistant might try to continue with her day or act ‘normal’ even after being harassed brutally is something many women who have been harassed at work understand,” Wang said. “These women are trying to survive.”
The woman told investigators she had initially planned to take the harassment claims “to the grave.”
The Albany Police Department, the primary law enforcement agency for the city, had been informed of the woman’s allegations regarding the encounter at the mansion several months ago and had spoken to her lawyer, but didn’t open an investigation at the time because she didn’t make a report.
Lawyers working for the state Assembly sent a letter to Cuomo Thursday giving him until Aug. 13 to respond to the allegations against him or provide documents to bolster his defense.
The state Assembly’s judiciary committee plans to meet Monday to discuss the possibility of impeachment proceedings. Nearly two-thirds of the legislative body have already said they favor an impeachment trialif he won’t resign.
Glavin and a lawyer representing the governor’s office, Paul Fishman, criticized the attorney general’s office for not providing its findings to them ahead of time and claimed the investigators didn’t take a strong enough look at the accusers’ credibility. They also demanded an opportunity to see transcripts of interviews witnesses gave to investigators.
Attorney General Letitia James’ spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said the office will be providing interview transcripts to the Assembly, and said the women’s accounts were “corroborated by a mountain of evidence.”
“To attack this investigation and attempt to undermine and politicize this process takes away from the bravery displayed by these women,” Levy said.
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Story: Marina Villeneuve. AP reporter Michael Hill contributed from Albany, New York.
This July 27, 2007 file photo shows the United Nations Headquarters building in New York. Photo: Osamu Honda / AP
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Two Myanmar citizens were arrested on charges alleging that they conspired to oust Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, who opposes the military junta that seized power earlier this year, by injuring — or even killing — him.
Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw plotted to seriously injure or kill Myanmar’s ambassador in an attack that was to take place on American soil, U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a release Friday.
According to court documents in White Plains federal court, a Thailand arms dealer who sells weapons to the Myanmar military hired the pair to hurt the ambassador to try to force him to step down. If that didn’t work, the ambassador was to be killed, authorities said.
Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s civilian government in February. Myanmar’s currently recognized U.N. ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, staunchly opposed the ouster of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In a speech to the General Assembly in late February, Tun called for “the strongest possible action from the international community” to restore democracy.
Myanmar’s military has tried to remove Tun from his post, but the 193-member General Assembly is responsible for accrediting diplomats and has not taken action at the military’s urging.
There was no immediate response to a phone call and email to Myanmar’s U.N. Mission seeking comment.
The plot to maim or kill Tun was to be carried out in Westchester County, where the ambassador lives, according to two criminal complaints.
Htut last month was contacted by the arms dealer, who wanted to pay several thousand dollars for Htut to carry out the attack, the complaints said. Htut received a $2,000 advance on July 23, it added.
After the FBI learned of the plot on Tuesday, it arranged to interview Htut on Wednesday, when Htut described the plan, which included initially tampering with the ambassador’s tires to cause an accident, the complaint said. It said Htut received $4,000 in payments to carry out the attack and was to be paid another $1,000 once it was finished.
In a complaint against Zaw, authorities said Zaw admitted after his arrest that he sent the $4,000 to Htut.
Htut, 28, and Zaw, 20, are each charged with conspiracy to assault and make a violent attack upon a foreign official, which carries a maximum sentence upon conviction of five years in prison.
At an initial appearance in White Plains federal court Friday, Htut consented to detention. Zaw awaited an initial appearance.
Messages seeking comment from their lawyers were not immediately returned.
Public and private agencies, including Ministry of Agriculture, the Seni Pramoj Foundation, Siriraj Hospital, the Royal Thai Navy, Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group) and Charoen Pokphand Foods (CP Foods), have come together to provide meal boxes, healthy drinks, snacks and other essentials to patients in Community Isolation Center at Suwannaram Wittayakhom School, Bangkok.
The relief effort is a part of CP Group’s “Krua Pan Im” project and CP Foods’ “Food from the Heart Against COVID-19 project, to give away a total of one million boxes of hearty ready-to-eat meals to 40 locations across Bangkok within two months.
Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chalermchai Sri-on, who is also the Seni Pramoj Foundation committee’s secretary, thanks all partners, including CP Foods, that come together in an effort to support Thai people during the surge of Covid-19 outbreak. He says: “Safe and sufficient foods are much importance to both patients and volunteers In an unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19. Therefore, many thanks to CP Foods, the company that has been supporting people in need since the beginning of the outbreak, for a helping hand that reached out to help the country and the people in this crisis,”
Assoc. Prof. Visit Vamvanij, Director of Siriraj Hospital, said the hospital staffs are currently caring asymptomatic and mild-symptom COVID-19 patients at the 120-bed community isolation center to reduce the spread of infection within their family. This will be a model for Community Isolation Centers in other areas. He added that the food supports from CP Group and CP Foods can alleviate the burden of daily food management, helping them to be fully focused on medical treatment.
CP Foods’ CEO Prasit Boonduangprasert added that the company has been using its expertise food production to help healthcare workers and people in need since the beginning of the outbreak in early 2020. As a part of “CP Hearts as One Fights COVID-19” project initiated by CP Group to fight the current outbreak, CP Foods has produced 1 million boxes of delicious, ready-to-eat meals to deliver to infected people in various isolation centers as well as community affected by the pandemic.
Since 2020, CP Foods has donated millions of beverages, raw materials, and food products as well as other essentials to over 500 places, covering hospitals. vaccination centers, test centers and vulnerable communities. The efforts aim at supporting Thailand through the crisis under a guidance of CP Group’ senior chairman Dhanin Chearavanont.
(Phuket, Thailand) – Montara is excited to unveil its new innovative F&B concept, “JAMPA”. The award-winning hospitality group, following recent success of other brands such as “PRU”, who is the only MICHELIN Starred restaurant outside of Bangkok, as well as first and only MICHELIN Green Star in Thailand, “Seafood at Trisara” and “Praya Dining” who also won the coveted Michelin Plate accolade, has decided to launch this new project within the group’s upcoming visionary wellness community, Tri Vananda
“JAMPA is an extremely exciting project, which will focus on Local Ingredients, Live Fire, Zero Waste Cuisineand it will have a key role at Tri Vananda’s Community House” says Quentin Fougeroux, Group Director of Food and Beverage. “Being the center of the community, it is a space for sharing, learning and focusing on the good life, as well as being based on the principle of Self-reliant “Living”. It is a gathering place, where food and craft are of the utmost importance”.
The name JAMPA comes from the Magniolia Champaka, an indigenous, fragrant flower found around Phuket, but is also coming from the name of the small village where the group farm is located, Pru Jampa. The first half of the village name was given to Montara’s award-winning restaurant, PRU, and it came naturally to use the second half for this new concept.
JAMPA’s culinary team aspire to position the restaurant at the forefront of culinary innovation in Phuket by only using live fire to transform local ingredients into amazing culinary creations with an emphasis on healthy, balanced food that is good for the soul.
The JAMPA team will be helmed by Chef Rick Dingen, formerly of Madison in Bangkok, as well as having worked with Michelin starred restaurant in Thailand and in his native Netherlands, including 3 MICHELIN Stars Inter Scaldes and renown farm to table Restaurant De Kas, is dedicated to showcase the ingredients harvested on the day using open fire cooking to showcase the natural benefits of each ingredient.
“For us, it was important to showcase the locally sourced, seasonal ingredients in the best way possible” says Chef Rick. “Cooking is a craft, and service and setting the scene are amongst the most beautiful arts that exist. We want guests to connect with the Chefs emotion, to share with them why we have selected these ingredients, why we cook them the way we do and our guest are welcome to come and learn from us. We often do outdoor open fire cooking at our weekly pop up, Hideaway by JAMPA, where we experience new ingredients and we get creative ideas. We try things, we laugh, and it is something that our guests can experience as well”.
The restaurant will be located in Tri Vananda’s Community House, a stunning building designed by award winning Habita Architect and Arsom Silp Institute of the Arts, with the interior design by AvroKo, who has earned a reputation as one of the most innovative design firms in the field. Surrounded by sand dunes and beautiful landscape, the Community House will serve as the center of Tri Vananda wellness community, a place where residents can meet and share. Residents and guests alike will able be able to focus their energy on taking parts of community projects around sustainability, gastronomy and well-being, which will be organized regularly by the Tri Vananda team.
The restaurant, which was mentioned in the “Newest Opening” section of Phuket 25 Top Restaurants by Amazing Thailand, will also feature a state of art bar, where beverages are beneficial for health, body and mind and served in a form familiar to bar lovers, as well as an exciting zero waste grocery offering the day harvest, freshly baked breads and other fine food to residents and visitors alike.
The zero waste, no plastic grocery will also be a focal point of the Community life. Here, residents and guests can discover homemade products, fruits, vegetables and herbs harvested on the day, freshly baked breads still hot from the fire oven, local cheeses and vegan cheeses as well as many other products available via refill stations. Additionally, the chefs will always be available to give some advices or tips on how to best use each of these products.
Also, the restaurant aims to become the first in Phuket to achieve zero waste to landfill cuisine. “We want to exert the absolute minimal impact upon earth and we break down all our kitchen waste to ensure nothing goes to landfill” says Quentin. “Our waste are separated, and food remnants are turned into animal feed or composted at our farm. Manure and compost are used are fertilizer to grow our vegetables, thus completing the cycle of life”
An officer inspects the scene where a woman was found dead at a secluded spot on the southern island of Phuket, Thailand, on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021. Thai media, quoting police, said the woman was a 57-year-old Swiss national. Photo: AP
BANGKOK (AP) — An investigation is underway in Thailand after the body of a Swiss woman was found Thursday at a secluded spot on the southern island of Phuket.
Thai media reported that the woman’s partially clothed body was lying face down in a rock crevice near a waterfall and appeared to have been concealed by a sheet. Personal documents nearby showed she was 57 years old.
The circumstances of the death weren’t immediately clear, but Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanee Sangrat said in a message posted to an online media group that Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai had contacted the Swiss ambassador to express his condolences “on the murder of a Swiss woman in Phuket.”
Tanee said the Phuket governor has promised an immediate investigation and autopsy.
The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs said in an e-mail it was aware of the death of “an alleged Swiss citizen” in Phuket and that the victim had not yet been definitively identified. The Swiss Embassy in Bangkok was in contact with Thai authorities, it said, while declining to comment further for privacy reasons.
Thai police have not yet commented.
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
In this Sept. 30, 2019, file photo, Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof, Second Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei, addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Photo: Richard Drew, File / AP
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Wednesday picked Brunei Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as their special envoy to Myanmar, in a breakthrough for regional mediation aimed at ending the country’s deepening crisis after months of delay.
The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asians said Erywan will begin his work in Myanmar to “build trust and confidence with full access to all parties concerned.”
The 10-nation bloc has been under increasing international pressure to act on violence and instability in Myanmar, an ASEAN member. Myanmar’s military in February toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and cracked down on opponents.
In a joint statement Wednesday after their annual meeting, the ministers reiterated their concerns about the situation in Myanmar, including reports of fatalities and violence. But they stopped short of calling for the release of political detainees, saying only they “heard calls” for their freedom, in a reflection of the sensitivity of the issue.
The regional group is hamstrung by its bedrock policy of noninterference in the domestic affairs of member nations and by its consensus decision making, meaning just one member state can shoot down any proposal.
Erywan was among at least four candidates proposed by ASEAN, and Myanmar was believed to have preferred a former Thai diplomat. Its decision to yield to the group’s pressure indicated its military rulers are still hoping to rely on ASEAN support as they face international condemnation.
Sidharto Suryodipuro, head of ASEAN Cooperation at Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Jakarta that it was an arduous process to persuade Myanmar to commit to the envoy and the mediation process. He said Erywan is expected to draw up a timeline on his mission to ease the violence and meet with all parties involved.
He said the joint statement doesn’t amount to ASEAN’s recognition of the military government.
“Myanmar must now work together in the context of ASEAN because the success of the special envoy will also be Myanmar’s success in settling a crisis that has become multilayered, involving not just politics but also economics and worsened by COVID-19,” he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Yusof’s appointment, calling it “an important step towards the implementation of the five-point consensus” adopted by ASEAN leaders in April that includes the selection of an envoy as a mediator who should visit Myanmar, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“The United Nations looks forward to continuing its cooperation with ASEAN on a coherent response to the crisis in Myanmar, noting the complementary roles” of Yusof and U.N. special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener, Dujarric said. The military has refused to allow Schraner Burgener to visit Myanmar since its February takeover.
Secretary-General Guterres reiterates his urgent call on the military “to respect the will of the people, refrain from acts of violence and repression, and act in the interest of peace, sustainable development and human rights” — and ensure unimpeded humanitarian access to confront the growing impact of COVID-19, the spokesman said.
Even with the envoy’s appointment, it remains uncertain if and when the Myanmar military leaders will allow access to Suu Kyi, who has been detained with other political leaders and put on trial on a slew of charges, diplomats have said.
More than 900 people have been killed by Myanmar authorities since the February takeover, many in anti-government protests, according to a tally kept by the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Casualties are also rising among the military and police as armed resistance grows in both urban and rural areas.
In this April 22, 2021, file photo, flags of some of the ASEAN member countries fly at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo: Tatan Syuflana, File / AP
Myanmar’s troubles have deepened with its worst coronavirus surge, which has overwhelmed its crippled health care system. Its military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, has repeated his pledge to hold fresh elections in two years and cooperate with ASEAN on finding a political solution.
Some ASEAN lawmakers responded warily to Erywan’s appointment, noting that he led a delegation to Myanmar in June and met only with the junta.
Erywan must ensure “he does not become a pawn in the junta’s game” of using ASEAN to gain international legitimacy while it continues its oppressive rule, said Kasit Piromya, a Thai board member of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights.
In another touchy issue, the ministers said ASEAN and China have completed the preamble for a proposed “code of conduct,” a nonaggression pact the two sides have been negotiating since 2017 to avoid armed conflicts in the disputed South China Sea.
China, Taiwan and ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have overlapping claims in the disputed waters and have been locked in increasingly tense territorial standoffs for decades. China turned seven disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases in recent years, ratcheting tensions with rival claimants, along with the United States and its allies.
Two Southeast Asian diplomats said the preamble consists of principles that will reflect the rival claimant states’ adherence to international law, including the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
An analyst expressed little hope the proposed pact can effectively restrain aggression in the disputed sea, given a Chinese insistence on its vast territorial claims and penchant to interpret agreements in a way that will buttress its claims.
“I hold no illusion that the code of conduct, when it comes to pass, will be of meaningful effect in constraining Chinese coercive behavior in the South China Sea,” said Hoang Thi Ha of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
China has refused to recognize an international arbitration ruling in 2016 that invalided most of its claims in the South China Sea.
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Story: Jim Gomez and Eileen Ng. Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press reporter Nini Karmini contributed from Jakarta, Indonesia.
