SINGAPORE: Former top diplomat from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bilahari Kausikan, has appeared to take another veiled swipe at ruling party politician Vivian Balakrishnan, just days after publicly questioning the Minister’s views on social media.

In a Facebook post on Saturday (18 Mar), Mr Kausikan suggested that ASEAN may have gotten on a moral high horse in the case of Myanmar and will find getting off without breaking their head tough.

Dr Balakrishnan is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Ministry has taken a “principled but restrained position” on Myanmar and has supported the exclusion of the Burmese junta leaders from ASEAN-level meetings due to the lack of progress in implementing a peace plan, which called for (among other resolutions) an immediate end to violence in the country and dialogue among all parties.

The democratically elected leaders of Myanmar were overthrown in a military coup in early-2021 and the ensuing civil war has left “thousands” dead and an estimated 1.5 million displaced.

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After military junta’s took over Myanmar, Dr Balakrishnan said failing to take meaningful action in the case of Myanmar “would starkly underscore (ASEAN’s) lack of unity, and undermine our credibility and relevance as an organization.”

In January last year, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong backed Dr Balakrishnan’s “principled and restrained position” on Myanmar and urged ASEAN to continue excluding Myanmar’s junta from its meeting until it cooperates on  agreed peace plans.

There appears to be a fracture in the unity of the leaders of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in how the Burmese junta should be dealt with. In December last year, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry hosted a meeting for the Burmese coup leaders and the meeting was attended by foreign ministers of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines did not attend.

In contrast to the “principled and restrained position” employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) led by Dr Balakrishnan, the same Ministry when it was led by Mr Kausikan took the position that ASEAN should not wield moral influence over Myanmar because its economic leverage is insignificant.

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The MFA believed then that it is better for Myanmar to remain a part of the ASEAN family than be by itself a buffer state sandwiched between two rising powers, China, and India. In the years 2006 and 2007, Singapore was one of Myanmar’s biggest investors and under pressure from rights groups to use its economic clout to push the previous junta chiefs down along a more democratic path.

Mr Kausikan’s Ministry did not capitulate to such pressures.

If Mr Kausikan was disagreeing with the direction the MFA has taken under Dr Balakrishnan, it is the second time in weeks that he was expressing his dismay. The former top diplomat took to Facebook in early March to slam the Foreign Minister’s views on the “peace dividend”, calling it a “fashionable myth.”