Myanmar Spring Chronicle – August 3 Viewpoint
(MoeMaKa – August 4, 2025)
ASEAN’s Myanmar Meeting: NLD Sends Letter, Unable to Attend in Person
To address Myanmar’s political crisis, Malaysia—currently the rotating chair of ASEAN—is hosting a Stakeholders Engagement Meeting on Myanmar on August 4. The meeting is intended to bring together key relevant parties, and the National League for Democracy (NLD) was invited to attend. However, on August 3, the NLD Central Working Committee (CWC) announced via the party’s Facebook page that it would not be able to participate, and instead submitted a letter expressing its stance on eight key points.
In the letter, the CWC cited difficulties with international travel as the reason for non-attendance. Malaysia, as this year’s ASEAN chair, had already met in April with both Min Aung Hlaing, head of the military regime, and Mahn Winn Khaing Than, Prime Minister of the National Unity Government (NUG), via video conference. It remains unclear who else was invited to the current meeting—whether ethnic armed organizations, junta representatives, NUG, or political parties.
The NLD CWC was established in 2021 after the coup, while many senior party leaders were in prison. It was formed with two core CWC members, Aung Kyi Nyunt and Tin Htut Oo, Dr. Khin Soe, and four additional party members, totaling seven. The body was formed to implement the NLD’s 2020 election commitments, coordinate party affairs, and manage international relations during the absence of key leadership.
In the open letter sent to ASEAN, the NLD reaffirmed its belief that Myanmar’s political crisis must be resolved through political means. The letter acknowledged ASEAN’s efforts based on the Five-Point Consensus, while emphasizing that the root cause of the current crisis was the military’s illegal power grab, which violated the constitution and overthrew the democratically elected government. Therefore, the NLD stated that the military’s actions should not be recognized, and that cooperation with the junta should be avoided.
It further condemned the upcoming sham election orchestrated by the military, stating that Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD have been deliberately excluded and that repressive laws have been passed to prevent citizens from freely expressing their political will, making any such election fundamentally illegitimate.
The letter went on to demand:
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Rejection and prevention of any sham electoral process
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Immediate release of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, who are being unjustly detained and suffering health risks in prison
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An end to the junta’s airstrikes and targeted killings of civilians
ASEAN, through the Five-Point Consensus, has attempted to mediate Myanmar’s crisis. Since the junta has failed to implement this roadmap, ASEAN had previously decided to bar political appointees of the junta from high-level ASEAN meetings. Western countries, including the United States and European Union, have supported ASEAN’s approach. China, while not opposing ASEAN directly, has continued to pursue its own policies and mediation efforts with Myanmar’s military and ethnic armed groups.
Compared to ASEAN, China’s “carrot and stick” approach appears to have had more direct influence on both the junta and armed groups along the border regions.
This ASEAN meeting is part of continued efforts to include all relevant parties in the dialogue. Had the NLD CWC been able to attend in person, it could have presented its position directly to ASEAN member states.
However, the NLD CWC’s lack of international travel access remains a disadvantage and limits diplomatic engagement. Another open question is the legitimacy and mandate of the CWC to represent the full NLD, given that one deputy chair has died, the chair is imprisoned, and the CWC was formed with only a handful of members. Some within the NLD may still have questions about the committee’s authority. Nevertheless, the fact that ASEAN formally invited NLD-CWC as a participant is noteworthy.
Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi, the most popular figure in Myanmar’s political landscape, remains jailed, and the country continues to suffer from a brutal civil war, ongoing human rights abuses by the military, and the collapse of the rule of law.
Against this backdrop, the people of Myanmar struggle daily just to survive. And to this day, the central question remains unanswered: how can the country find a way out of this crisis?