South East Asian communities in Australian from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, to name a few, have protested their governments at ASEAN-Australia Summit 15-18 March 2018 at Sydney. However there is no one from Hmong community within Australia joining the protest. Former President of Hmong Australia Society said that Hmong community should take more active role to show their opinions and join other South East Asia communities protesting. Social activists also want Australian government to add human rights issue part of the summit agenda.
Lao communities spokesperson Ms. Po Bounthorn Chanthalavong has joined other communities to protest Lao government during this summit, urging Lao government to govern with democracy according to the United Nations charters.
The Lao protesters are urging current Lao government to allow Lao people to express their opinions freely without fear or prejudice, allow social media and press freedom, respect human rights, find Sombat Somphon, stop abuse authorities power, halt Vietnamese interfering with Lao internal affairs, put an end to illegal logging, stop land grabbing and building dams, deal with illegal drugs and human trafficking and support Lao youth to have better educational opportunities according to protesters chanting.
According to SBS News report, some protesters said that some of their prime ministers has blood on their hands, they are brutal, authoritarians, exploiters, and criminals.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen even said before the summit started that whoever burn his effigy he will follow them home and beat them up. Malaysian Prime Minister also said that IS could exploit Rohingya Muslim for their benefits and ask the Myanmar government to allow international communities to investigate the incident which its military force were involving with Rohingya Muslim conflicts.
In terms of security, many leaders from ASEAN including Mr. Turnbull has said that this region needs more cooperation, sharing more intelligence information about terrorism. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rasak said that "we need legislations to prevent and take action against terrorism, not cleaning the mess they have made."
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that this Asia Pacific region is Australian's future as it has the fastest economic growth in the world and Australia has over half a million Australians with South Eat Asian background.
He concluded that it is a successful summit in terms of trade which they have sing the MOU about trade with this organisation.#
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