Burma’s plight — it’s time the west tried a little jaw-jaw with the junta
Nelson Mandela was 70 when he initiated talks about talks with the apartheid regime and prevailed upon the African National Congress to climb down from its rigid positions.
Aung San Suu Kyi, now 65, faces a similar — though more difficult – choice. Does she carry on with her generation-long struggle, knowing her adversaries in the military government hold all the most important cards in their hands, or does she try to follow the path of resilience and compromise without abandoning her convictions?
Standing at the crossroads, the people of Burma are perhaps counting on their leaders to take the less travelled road in order to pull them out of the impasse that has continued for far too long.
As good Buddhists, the Burmese are aware that, in the end, salvation lies within. Burma is a nation of nearly 60 million people, strategically located between China, India and Thailand. Twenty years back, Suu Kyi’s party won a decisive victory as the Burmese people, tired of tyranny, flocked to vote for her and against the military. The latter just ignored and overturned the results and went on to rule the country with an iron hand.
A fundamental clash of ideologies exists, therefore, at the root of politics in Burma. Although daughter of an army officer who emerged as the ‘Father of the Nation’, Suu Kyi has always believed in the supremacy of the people — that is, in the notion that power vests in the people and their elected representatives alone have the right to govern. The military, on the other hand, believes it knows better than them.
The military still has its hand on all levers of state power. Suu Kyi, on the other hand, retains her massive popularity and charisma, but her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is in a precarious condition today.
The results of this month’s elections are yet to be announced, but the military’s political front, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, claims to have won about 80% of the seats. Besides, the constitution’s stipulation giving 25% of seats automatically to the military is an ironclad guarantee that nothing of political consequence can happen without the generals’ approval. Naturally, the junta will make sure Suu Kyi and her NLD, and the nation’s persecuted ethnic minorities, are isolated from any real power.
As Burmese prime minister Thein Sein put it before the polls, the regime was “determined to do its utmost for the successful conclusion of free and fair general elections…(but) based on past experiences and lessons learned in the best interests of the country and its people.” In plain language, they were only ever promising a highly limited democracy under their guidance to be ushered in through an electoral process tailor-made for the purpose.
According to pro-democracy forces, the elections are “a travesty”, “a sham” and “a poisoned feast” held so that the military could attain legitimacy. Further, they point out that Suu Kyi has been released to blunt international criticism of the regime.
So, with the fait accompli of the recent general elections staring her in the face, does Suu Kyi reject them altogether and face the consequences, or should she find a way this time to work with the military without alienating her constituency?
The latter option is not an attractive one.
That Burma is a rogue state, and an intensely paranoid one at that, is pretty universally accepted in Europe and North America. It is also increasingly dangerous. The junta under General Than Shwe is possibly the only government in the world which sees North Korea as a positive model, having secured itself from external interference through possession of nuclear weapons.
Words cannot fully capture quite what an unpleasant and anachronistic regime they are running there. Burma should be a comparatively prosperous nation; it has abundant gas deposits and enormous mineral wealth. It is also a beautiful country ripe for tourist development. But its people have absolutely nothing — apart from the opportunity to admire a very large army. The military junta has reduced its people to being among the poorest and the least free in the world.
Suu Kyi’s remarks upon release may provide a few indicators of her thinking. She called on her followers to work together for national unity. She urged the people that if they wanted change, they would have to achieve it in the right way. Referring to the authorities, she stated: “They treated me well. I wish they would treat the people the same.”
But if Aung San Suu Kyi faces a difficult decision, so do we. Two stark realities ought to be faced. There is not the slightest chance of anybody intervening militarily in Burma, or indeed intervening in any other way in opposition to the Burmese government. Even to talk of it is to partake in self-indulgent prattle, which is an alternative to action.
Second, the policy of sanctions and isolation that has been applied by the US and Europe during the past decade and more has been a disastrous failure. Simply issuing statements and imposing ever more travel bans on the regime’s leaders and apparatchiks won’t work.
The Burmese generals pursue a policy of isolation for themselves and for their society. They have had no better friends, no more effective allies, in effect if not in intent, in achieving this isolation than the governments of the US and Europe and their human rights lobbies.
THE more we continue to isolate Burma, the more we drive it into the welcoming arms of China and the more likely it is to follow North Korea down the nuclear path.
It is as if the European and American vision of Burma is trapped in that brief moment, now 20 years past, when regime change seemed just around the corner and a democratic leader stood ready to take charge. While life in Burma continues, outsiders seem to relive the Suu Kyi story in endless loops, unintentionally forgetting that there is more to Burma than a single, extraordinary woman.
As things stand, the west can feel complacent in its condemnation of the Burmese government. But sanctions and isolation haven’t worked and all the while the plight of the Burmese people worsens. The west’s threats have merely hardened the regime’s resistance. Further, these threats have been counterproductive, especially when Burma’s all-important Asian neighbours categorically refuse to jump on the sanctions bandwagon.
US and European sanctions ban investment in Burma and imports from Burma but the only people who suffer for it are the Burmese people. Suu Kyi supports the sanctions, but they are the wrong policy nonetheless. Merely reciting Suu Kyi’s name, admirable woman that she is, does not constitute a sensible Burma policy.
Instead, it is time to jaw-jaw. Engagement with evil is morally fraught but, when all else fails, it has to be attempted as the option of last resort.
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