When the 34th ASEAN Summit concluded in June 2019 in Bangkok, it came as no surprise that the bloc was met with heavy criticism for suggesting Rohingya refugees will repatriate back to Myanmar within two years. More than 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee northern Rakhine state in western Myanmar during a 2017 military-led crackdown the United Nations (UN) has said included mass killings and gang-rapes executed with “genocidal intent”.

It was recently reported that Myanmar had conceded that it had committed “war crimes” against its Rohingya Muslim community. This is as far as Myanmar has ever gone in admitting responsibility for the atrocities committed against its Rohingya minority. Still, to some observers, this is not good enough.On 20 January, a Myanmar-appointed panel concluded that some soldiers likely committed war crimes against the Rohingya but that the military, however, was not guilty of genocide.

When the 34th ASEAN Summit concluded last month in Bangkok, Thailand, it came as no surprise that the bloc was met with heavy criticism for suggesting Rohingya refugees will repatriate back to Myanmar within two years. More than 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee northern Rakhine state in western Myanmar during a 2017 military-led crackdown the United Nations (UN) has said included mass killings and gang-rapes executed with “genocidal intent”.

Following the conclusion of the 34th ASEAN Summit last weekend in Bangkok, Thailand, it came as no surprise that the bloc was heavily criticised for suggesting Rohingya refugees will repatriate back to Myanmar within two years. More than 740,000 Rohingya have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh since a 2017 army crackdown on the stateless minority.

Last month, media freedom advocates praised the surprise release of two Reuters reporters in Myanmar but stressed the pair should never have been jailed in the first place.

The military in Myanmar, also known as the Tatmadaw, is guaranteed 25 percent of parliamentary seats under the country’s constitution. If the National League of Democracy (NLD) - the party under Aung San Suu Kyi that won the general elections in 2015 - wants to implement any constitutional changes, it would need more than a 75 percent majority.

When Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party won the general elections in 2015, a new wave of hope swept Myanmar. Previously under a military junta for almost 50 years from 1962 to 2011, Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi and her cohort represented the change the country so badly needed; a shift from military dictatorship to a functioning democracy.Throughout the election campaign, Suu Kyi and the NLD promised bold political reforms that would transform the country.

Myanmar's military Saturday said they would thwart any attempts by leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party to alter the "essence" of the country's controversial constitution, putting the army and civilian administration on a collision course over the politically-charged issue.Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) dominated the 2015 elections ending decades of military-backed rule.But because of a 2008 charter scripted by the military, the NLD was forced into an u