Rethinking Relations With Burma

(Voice of America) - President Barack Obama has held out his hand to world leaders seeking engagement, rather than confrontation to solve international disputes. This entails a review of the way the United States deals with specific countries, and such an effort is now under way regarding the government of Burma.

The U.S. government has long sought to encourage peaceful change in that Southeast Asian nation and has promoted genuine dialogue with opposition groups as necessary for transition to a representative government that responds to the will of its people. Since the 1960s, Burma has been controlled by a military junta that tolerates no opposition and keeps tight control of the nation's economy.

More than two thousand political prisoners languish in Burmese jails, a number that has doubled in the past 18 months, and democracy activist leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has remained under house arrest for the majority of the past 19 years. In response, the U.S. has maintained economic sanctions and visa bans against members of the junta and its top supporters, but with no appreciable change in attitude by the generals in Rangoon.

On her recent visit to Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is looking at the best ways to influence the Burmese regime, acknowledging that neither sanctions nor engagement have worked. No decisions have been made, but there is a clear goal to develop a policy that ultimately benefits the Burmese people in their desire to shape the future of their own country.

In what the regime touts as a nod toward reform, the Burmese government has planned elections next year under a constitution approved in a referendum that was neither free nor fair, and conducted amid the turmoil following Cyclone Nargis, which devastated parts of the country. But it has a long way to go before achieving true representative government, since the military is guaranteed a quarter of the seats in both the upper and lower houses of parliament.

In its review of its approach to Burma,
U.S. leaders will have much to consider.

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Time for NLD to Step Up to the Plate

By YENI
The Irrawaddy News

Burma's military government last week announced it would release more than 6,300 prisoners, of whom just 23 were classified as political prisoners—including nine Buddhist monks. State-run television in Burma reported that the prisoners were being released for the "social consideration of their families" and to take part in the 2010 elections.

The statement coincided with a five-day visit to Burma by the United Nations’ human rights envoy, Tomás Ojea Quintana, and occurred at a time when the UN Security Council was meeting to hear a firsthand account from that other special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, on his recent visit and meeting with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and leaders of the military junta. The announcement was also timely in that it came just one week ahead of an Asean summit in Thailand.

Whatever cosmetic appearance the junta was trying to solicit, most observers agreed that the release of prisoners represented the regime’s rather futile attempt to prevent—or at least reduce—the international criticism on their poor human rights record which raises its ugly head any time regional or global bodies meet to discuss Burmese issues.

Meanwhile, global diplomacy has failed yet again in Burma by its inability to produce any movement on the key Burmese issues: opening dialogue between Suu Kyi and junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe; releasing her and some 2,200 other political prisoners; and ensuring that the elections scheduled for next year will include all opposition parties and minority groups.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a trip through Asia, lamented last week that neither US sanctions nor engagement by regional nations have convinced the junta. "It is an unfortunate fact that Burma seems impervious to influences from anyone," Clinton said. "The path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta, but ... reaching out and trying to engage them has not influenced them either."

The Burmese generals in Naypyidaw know only too well that the overseas criticisms are no more than the toothless growls of a paper tiger. Their unilateral decision to hold elections next year will be little more than a pantomime to rubber stamp the junta’s new constitution guaranteeing the military a quarter of the seats in both the upper and lower houses of parliament.

However, sitting on the sidelines, some so-called "experts" have naively come to believe that the election in 2010 could represent a major turning point in Burmese politics, opening a space from which the pro-democracy groups will take initiatives for gradual economic and political reform.

In fact, Than Shwe has still not approved the election law. Rumors are circulating in Rangoon that no consensus has been reached in Naypyidaw on which officers will be given parliamentary seats and which will continue in military service.

If we compare the situation to Zimbabwe, we see that—like it or not—the grip of the African nation’s strongman Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party has not weakened because of any international or regional pressure, but due to the effects of drought, HIV/AIDS and economic meltdown.

After months of deadlock, Mugabe has finally been forced to confront the division of ministries in a planned national unity government with the opposition. In the wake of Zimbabwe's economic collapse and spiraling humanitarian crisis, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister with Mugabe remaining president, despite Western leaders calling on Mugabe to step down.

Likewise in Burma, after 20 years of struggle for national reconciliation and talk of rebuilding the failed nation, political leaders and policymakers in Burma must come up with more effective and pragmatic ways to deal with Burmese armed forces, or Tatmadaw.

To persuade the military to engage, the Burmese opposition should focus not only on its demand to free political prisoners, but to exploit the stagnation of the domestic economy and the humanitarian crisis. The NLD, in particular, has to date been too slow to react and has tiptoed around the issues. It needs to let the people know that it is capable of tackling the economic challenges that Burma will face in a post-dictatorial world.

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