Sanctions Are Working

…

_ By Cedric Snodgrass 

For a better understanding of this article, we shall define what is here meant by the word sanctions :
   the denial of the financial and material means by which a government wages war.

This is a government which is waging war against its own people.

The self-appointed Burmese military government is thought to be killing some ten thousand men, women and children every year, typically through starvation and disease.
This figure is necessarily conjectural. The true figure may be higher.

For decades this government has been burning villages, destroying crops and the means of survival, mining fields, gardens, orchards and paths, raping, torturing and killing.
These are not the wild excesses of indisciplined troops.
This is government policy.

Trade and investment sanctions, arms embargoes, travel restrictions, and the like — which are an essential ingredient to diplomatic pressure, otherwise there would be no pressure only meaningless talk serving to calm public anger — are working.

The effects of current sanctions might be insignificant if the regime were economically competent.
The regime is not.
Their incompetence gives the sanctions much greater leverage than would otherwise be the case.

Few now believe that diplomatic pressure will produce measurable results.
The regime can no more be persuaded to give up power than could Hitler, Stalin, or Tojo before them.
Power will have to be taken from them.

This brings us back to the definition of sanctions we gave in paragraph one above.

The regime is failing in its goal of turning Burma into a major regional power based upon military strength, thanks largely to a failing economy.
They do not understand that military strength, if needed, must be based on economic strength.
Instead they look back to a golden age when great wealth could be accumulated by plundering the neighbours.
The credit (if one can call it that) for the failing economy is largely theirs.
But sanctions also play their part.

Sanctions have other uses, such as helping to keep fickle international opinion focused on Burma.

The regime will resist diplomatic pressures to reform, to the bitter end.
So, of what use are sanctions ?
Expressed in its simplest terms :
The generals’ projects must fail so abysmally, that even those upon whom they rely to keep them in power decide that the time has come to kick them out.

Do sanctions and boycotts hurt the ordinary Burmese ?
Yes, they do.
They may even be killing people.
However sanctions are an indispensable tool in the non-violent tool-box.
No one has yet claimed that non-violent methods can be used against a ruthless, brutal dictatorship without anyone being killed.

Of course, current sanctions are very far from being 100% effective.
Bearing in mind our definition, let’s look at another form of sanctions :  military or naval blockade.
The German WWII submarine blockade of Britain was not 100% effective. Likewise, the British naval blockade of German sea-borne trade could not cut off land-based supplies. However, the former came very close to total success in the second half of 1942, while the latter was a factor in the ultimate downfall of Nazism : it made it essential for Germany to hasten her attack in the East to secure oil and other vital commodities.

The alternative to sanctions is the military strike.
This, if rapidly and successfully concluded, might actually save lives.
However foreign military intervention will not occur in the foreseeable future.
It seems that most Burmese do not want it anyway. Although it might be interesting — if such were possible! — to hold an opinion poll of Burmese living inside Burma.

The only military strike the Burmese will see will be when the Tatmadaw — a part of it — decides to throw out the lunatics in power.

The legitimacy of their move will be measured by the support they receive from the people, and by their subsequent actions.