Debating carrots and sticks for Myanmar

By John Feffer
Asia Times Online: 14 November, 2006

Washington:  Myanmar is in the middle of a national convention that its military leaders claim is the first step in a sevenfold path toward democracy. But what mix of toughness and engagement the international community should employ against the country remains an open question, one that has drawn some comparison with North Korea.

Observers remain divided over the prospects for political change in the Southeast Asian nation, the degree of security threat that Myanmar poses to its neighbors, and the most effective measures that the international community can adopt to encourage greater freedom within the country.

The example of North Korea hung over a recent discussion organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation on international policy toward Myanmar and the utility of current US-led economic sanctions against the ruling junta and the elements of a package deal that could potentially bring the country out of its relative isolation.

"As someone said of North Korea, it doesn't respond to pressure, but also doesn't respond without pressure. The same can be said of Burma," Michael Green, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said at the discussion. (Burma, the former name of the country, is still preferred by Western governments, by some Western media, and by many opponents of the Myanmar regime.)

As with North Korea, the assembled experts spoke of Western frustrations over inducing change in Myanmar and the difficulty of acquiring accurate information about the state of the government and the conditions on the ground. Unlike the North Korean regime, however, Myanmar's military government faces a significant opposition movement, which continues to exist amid strong government repression.

Toward military-led democracy

The ruling military junta, which has failed to recognize the 1990 elections won by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), appears to be on the threshold of introducing some measure of democracy.

Although opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and her NLD has boycotted the national convention, the 1,000-plus delegates at the event plan to complete a new constitution by year's end, as part of the government's "seven-stage path to democracy".

The government promises to put the new constitution to a vote through a national referendum followed by multi-party elections that reserve a certain portion of seats in the new parliament for the government party. The NLD and ethnic minorities in the country favor a federal constitution that permits greater decentralization of power.

"All the minorities and the NLD have talked about a federal system," said David Steinberg, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and a renowned Myanmar expert. "To an American, federalism makes a lot of sense. But frankly, I don't see the military agreeing to that. The convention was tightly scripted and the military will remain in control."

Peter Christian Hauswedell, former director general for Asia and the Pacific region for the German Foreign Ministry, asked: "Will the NLD competes in these [multi-party] elections - even if some of the constitutional framework conditions were decided in their absence and probably with the idea to limit their voting appeal? But the outcome of those elections may be that Myanmar gets a constitutional government.

"Even if that government will be heavily controlled and influenced by the military, its formation may be an improvement over the present situation," the former German official argued. "So the NLD will have to think about the consequences of a continued total rejection of the government's plans and the non-participation in that election."

The regime's critics describe a still-dismal human-rights situation. Human Rights Watch, a US-based advocacy group, has cited the regime for the detention of 1,300 political prisoners, the killing of protesters, and the use of 70,000 child soldiers, which if accurate is the largest concentration of under-18 conscripts in the world.

According to Jeremy Woodrum of the US Campaign for Burma, "over a million refugees, most of them from eastern Burma along the border with Thailand and China, are fleeing because the regime has burned down 3,000 villages over the last 10 years" as part of an effort to target civilian populations in areas that provide a base for ethnic armies.

Hard to ignore

The flow of refugees, drug trafficking and the spread of infectious diseases have made it difficult for Asia to ignore Myanmar. These problems extend beyond the region as well.

Myanmar "presents a serious security threat to the region and requires attention from the United States and the UN Security Council", argued CSIS's Green, citing how the Security Council has under US pressure recently agreed to address Myanmar's rights record.

Others, such as Myanmar watcher Hauswedell, disagree. "If you would ask Myanmar's neighbors India, Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand and China whether they see Myanmar as a threat, they would not affirm this. Rather, India, China and Thailand compete for the country's raw materials and resources and refrain from criticizing Myanmar."

Recently deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra notably did not press for political change inside Myanmar, and now his family stands accused of profiting from their telecommunications-business investments in deals brokered with the rights-abusing junta. The September 19 military coup that ousted Thaksin has raised hopes that Thailand will take a tougher stand toward Myanmar's military regime.

"The new Thai leader is known for his toughness against the [ethnic] Burmese oppression of minorities living along the border and his criticism of Burma pushing drugs into Thailand," explained Pavin Chachavalpongpun, the author of A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations. "The United States has already suspended military aid given to Thailand and is using the military suspension to urge a return to democratic rule and new elections and to push Thailand to toughen up its position toward Burma."

However, whether the West's use of the stick since the 1980s has positively influenced the junta's behavior is open to question. "I don't think the leaders of the Myanmar military regime are necessarily receptive or sensitive to outside voices," argued Shigeru Tsumori, Japan's ambassador to Myanmar from 2000 to 2002.

Hauswedell maintained, "We have seen 16 years of sanctions and unfortunately they have not achieved their aim of restoring and securing democracy in Myanmar. The sanctions are not universal and are not supported by Myanmar's Asian neighbors.

"They were meant to hurt the military government but on balance, they have rather contributed to the economic misery of the common people in the country," he said, adding: "Rather than isolating Myanmar, the Western sanctions have isolated the West from Myanmar and deprived it of influence over the country's development."

The US Campaign for Burma's Woodrum believes that the economic and investment sanctions, which the country's opposition has continued to endorse, have been effective. And, absent the sanctions that the United States imposed in the late 1990s, Woodrum argued, "the regime would have been much wealthier and much more of Burmese natural resources would have been sold off".

Given the differences in emphasis between engagement and isolation, the question remains whether all countries need to approach Myanmar with the same policy. Tsumori believes that "all countries don't have to put the same pressure on Myanmar to the same extent. It depends on the individual country. Japan, with its particular history, should use different pressure from the United States. Coordination is, however, indispensable."

Green believes such coordination could lead to a grand bargain. In exchange for improving its human-rights record and moving toward democracy, Myanmar would receive humanitarian assistance, official recognition of the country's name by Western governments, and the gradual lifting of Western economic and investment sanctions.