THBT it is legitimate for ASEAN to compromise its non-interference principle in response to Rohingya crisis (+)

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Position : 1 positive (prime minister)
Background The Rohingya crisis is the largest refugee and humanitarian crisis, at least in South East Asia
itself. Myanmar, as one of the members of ASEAN, should be stopped from violating human rights
principle. Nevertheless, ASEAN itself has non-interference principle, a bedrock principle to prevent
any countries to take any action, ranging from military excursions to sponsorship of political
movements, designed to change existing structures of political authority. Thus this means any
member of ASEAN can’t take further action to stop and help this upheaval but only rely on
constructive engagement and giving humanitarian aid—which we believe it’s still not enough to help
more than thousands refugee of this conflict.

Model What we want is we compromise this principle and have direct intervention as in both military
intervention and constructive engagement to reform political authority structure and give help to the
Rohingya

Goal prevent more atrocities and crisis, and assist Myanmar to stop this violent ethnic cleansing and
discrimination

Argument 1. Non interference principle is not relevant for this case

The justification of having non-intervention policy is to respect one’s national sovereignty, in order
to prevent “great powers” from intervening military against weaker ones and exploit their internal
affairs. ASEAN came with this policy—by history of some of counties were trying to intervene
others’ internal affairs (ex. Indonesia & Malaysia case) in order to pursue their own self interest and
objection. We are now united under the same organization therefore generally we have the same goal
which is to create regional stability and greater/communal good.
Notice, ASEAN interference does not equal to exploitation of internal affairs, but rather as an
attempt to end the crisis soon (by both direct contact to the government, military, and rohingya
citizen). We are very different from US trying to intervene Afghanistan or Palestine only for its own
benefit.
Principle is something we can compromise.
Even though for example, The UN has non-interference policy, it could be compromised. The study
case of successful interference is the British and UN interference in Sierra Leone. The
intervention aimed to stop the civil war, uphold the democratic value by holding the election, and
push back the rebel group to stop the dreadful civil war. This proves, military intervention can be
used to rescue “failed states”
Failing state associates with many atrocities by the authority or rebel group and human right crisis.
Therefore as a region who wants to maintain our human right value and principle as our own
fundamental principle, we want to prioritize human right over national sovereignty and compromise
our non-interference policy.

At least there are four criteria why can we compromise this principle in this case :
a. it is urgent and massive scale crisis : Rohingya crisis is a systematic and massive scale conflict.
Each year is getting more violent and worrying. The military authority literally burn 50% of
Rohingya villages and causing many of them flee to Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The crisis is on a massive scale, proven by thousands of Rohingya are prosecuted, raped, and
arbitrary shooting by the police authority. Therefore, it’s a proof that this “internal issue” is not a
small case, but a massive and urgent case that it creates other countries’ instability.

b. no other better solution or at least current solution is stagnant

Solution like constructive engagement or diplomacy has been used by ASEAN but it seems not
working well and very stagnant proven by increasing number of atrocities and refugees.
Even if there is big organization like UN, its help is not always reliable, knowing the fact that big
countries are busy with their own problems (ex. America with trade war with China, UK with Brexit,
etc) and no one really intended to help Rohingya. Proven by only little humanitarian aid given by
UNHCR and it is not going to stop the conflict because: it is limited, and the refugees are spread
randomly. In addition, what these people want is they want to be recognized by Myanmar as citizen
and go back to their own homeland.
In conclusion, this is the only way we can do at this moment to stop the crisis soon.

c. it harms the regional stability and reputation

Due to its massive scale, this has drawn international community’s attention. The head of UNHCR
himself has urged Myanmar to stop this conflict; even the U.S. has imposed economic and military
sanction towards Myanmar.
Therefore, the international community questions our credibility as a regional organization. When
we are seen as “unsafe” region, this will have bad long-term impact to our economic and geopolitical
stability as well. Moreover, if many countries keep imposing sanction towards Myanmar, this will
block their ability to export goods and we don’t want to see Myanmar back as a failing country
which will create domino effect to its neighboring country.

d. no or very little effort given by the country to prevent and stop the crisis
Even if Myanmar is a democratic state, “power sharing” makes the junta army still have prominent
position and role in the government and control many affairs. The de facto leader also couldn’t stop
this even if she has been given chance to stop the oppression and has the will to do so, therefore
many sanction are imposed due to her inability to use her power to this crisis.
If we managed to involve directly in Myanmar, we would be able to help the official state
government to end this conflict and uphold the democratic value like what their leader has been
fighting for.

In conclusion : we can compromise our non interference principle for the sake of more important
principle which is human right.

2. Impacts we hope
a. Give government direct help and prevent atrocities
We want to give full and direct support for the democracy to work properly in this country. We want
to change this power sharing system and political authority structure to be more proportional—or at
least democratic like in a way that military have the power to control security and defense but still
under the order of the official state government
Moreover, as we put our peacekeepers there, this will create safe zone for the remaining Rohingyas
and secure the villages for a while. At least, the brutal killing and atrocities can be prevented and
helped quickly. In addition, the humanitarian aid can be distributed easily because we have our
agents there.
b. Gain international community’s support
International community support is important to sustain our effort. We hope by we interfering this
issue, we will get more funds and aid from the global society since we show our seriousness in
solving human right issue.

In conclusion, this is a legitimate action for ASEAN to compromise their non-interference principle
because it’s worth saving thousands of people in Myanmar.