LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia
\nSoutheast Asian leaders condemned an armed attack on an aid convoy that the regional group had arranged for displaced people in Myanmar, calling Wednesday for an immediate stop to violence and for the military government to comply with a peace plan.
\nLeaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened in the picturesque harbor town of Labuan Bajo in southern Indonesia at the start of a two-day summit. Their host, President Joko Widodo, called for unity amid global economic headwinds and major-power rivalry that\u2019s lashing the region.
\nOver the weekend, a convoy delivering aid to displaced villagers and carrying Indonesian and Singaporean diplomats came under fire by unidentified men armed with pistols in Myanmar\u2019s eastern Shan state.
\nA security team with the convoy returned fire and a vehicle was damaged, but no one in the convoy was injured, state-run television MRTV reported.
\nIndonesia, which serves as ASEAN\u2019s chair this year, had arranged for the delivery of the aid after a long-delayed assessment.
\n\u201cWe condemned the attack and underlined that the perpetrators must be held accountable,\u201d the ASEAN leaders said in a joint statement Wednesday.
\nFor the second year, the top general of member state Myanmar was not invited to the summit. He and his army forcibly took power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 in a power grab that degenerated into a civil strife in what has become ASEAN\u2019s gravest crisis since its 1967 founding.
\nASEAN leaders said they were \u201cdeeply concerned with ongoing violence in Myanmar and urged the immediate cessation of all forms of violence and the use of force to create a conducive environment for the safe and timely delivery of humanitarian assistance and inclusive national dialogues.\u201d
\nIn an additional concern involving Myanmar, Indonesian officials said Sunday that 20 of their nationals, who were trafficked into Myanmar and forced to perform cyber scams, had been freed from Myanmar\u2019s Myawaddy township and brought to the Thai border over the weekend. During the summit, ASEAN leaders planned to express their concern over such human trafficking schemes in a joint statement, a draft copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
\nMore than 3,450 civilians have been killed by security forces since Myanmar\u2019s military forcibly took power, and thousands more remain imprisoned, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which keeps tallies of casualties and arrests linked to repression by the military government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia Southeast Asian leaders condemned an armed attack on an aid convoy that the regional group had arranged for displaced people in Myanmar, calling Wednesday for an immediate stop to violence and for the military government to comply with a peace plan. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-330357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n