By Derek Tonkin

Though there would seem to be several reasons for Barack Obama’s very clear mandate in the US presidential elections, most pundits agree that it was the “need for change” which primarily influenced American voters after eight years of an increasingly unpopular Administration under President Bush. International reactions to Obama’s election have been very positive, even ecstatic. US prestige has had its best boost this century.

The basic principles of freedom and democracy which have been the cornerstone of US domestic policies  for a very long time are unlikely however to be exported with quite the missionary zeal which Bush’s “neo-con” lieutenants like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney demonstrated over Iraq, probably the most damaging episode in US history since the Second World War, if not of all time. But those principles will continue to guide US foreign policy, which perceives the military regime in Burma as an anachronism in our 21st Century whose continuance is unacceptable.

US policies towards Burma are most unlikely to change in the short to medium term. Bush has invariably accepted the advice of the State Department on how to handle the military regime. Accordingly any change in the main thrust of US sanctions policy is most unlikely, though in the wake of the devastation of Cyclone Nargis and the developing humanitarian crisis in many other parts of Burma, notably the current famine in Chin State, we may expect a greater willingness by the new Administration to focus on humanitarian and even development assistance, including a more reasonable attitude to support by UN agencies which currently operate under serious congressional restrictions.

There are prospects however of much better coordination of US policies, not only with Europe, which is delighted with Obama’s victory, but also with the countries of ASEAN, China and India. The US may adopt a less hectoring attitude towards Burma’s neighbours, who have in recent years been constantly urged to step up pressures on Burma by both the US and EU, mainly because the latter have lost all influence with the regime and seem inhibited even from talking to them. The latest US exchanges with Burma were only at senior official level in Beijing in June 2007, the first for three years.

Both the EU and Burma’s neighbours would welcome better coordination of their policies towards Burma and it would not be unreasonable to hope that the new US administration will respond to this need. For while there is general agreement, highlighted in the UN Security Council Presidential Statement of 11 October 2007, on the steps which Burma needs to take, that agreement has been undermined by a continuing polarisation of opinion about how pressures may best be applied. Indeed, it may not so much be a question of pressures, but rather of an understanding of how quite different policies may best be coordinated and dovetailed. After Cyclone Nargis and against the background of the global financial crisis, due primarily to the West’s laisse-faire profligacy and lack of regulation, there is little appetite for further sanctions, and even a growing awareness in the EU that a complete trade and financial embargo would be ineffective simply because the level of commercial and financial exchanges between the EU and Burma is so low.

The US, and it is hoped the EU, may sense at  long last that, while they have sought to isolate Burma, it is rather they who have been isolated from Burma and have thus lost whatever influence critical contact could bring. Burma’s neighbours have in the meantime moved away from their “constructive engagement”, which was little more than appeasement, towards more critical policies reflected in the ASEAN declaration of “revulsion” in New York in September last year at the savage repression of the “Saffron Revolution”.

I would therefore like to think that we can look forward to a much more effective level of coordination and cooperation within the international community over Burma and that this will be reflected in due course with a resumption of better working contacts between the US and Burma in the same way that the US even under the Bush Administration has sought to engage North Korea. These contacts are vital if the US are to exert their influence, and as these contacts would come from a new US Administration, they are likely to be welcomed by both the EU and Burma’s neighbours.

It is not that I expect to see any changes of consequence in the political scene in Burma in the short term. The regime clearly intends to press ahead with its 7-Point Road Map and to complete by 2010 the 5th stage, which are the elections to the various Assemblies. The 6th stage will be the convening of the Assemblies and the 7th stage the creation of “a modern, developed and democratic nation”. Much will depend on the decision of the “pro-democracy” forces within Burma on whether or not to contest the elections. In 1989 the NLD initially decided that they would not and could not, until civil and political liberties had been guaranteed, but they later changed their minds and decided to contest the elections, which resulted in a massive popular mandate. In 2009 and 2010 the issue may not be whether they will decide to contest, but whether they will be allowed to contest. This could depend on the decision of the military regime on whether to require the re-registration of existing political parties.

US attitudes towards the military regime may well be influenced by the willingness or otherwise of the latter to allow relatively free and fair campaigning and permission for “pro-democracy” parties to register for the contest. I would not like to predict whether that might happen. But if it does, I would think it likely that the flaws and inadequacies of the Constitution might then be less relevant to US thinking. As it is, there are signs that the old certainties of military rule, which are reflected in the structure of command and control from the top down, will be replaced by the uncertainties of unknown and untested forms of parliamentary procedure, and though many of the candidates in the 2010 elections are likely to have military backgrounds, indeed, to be currently serving military officers, when they have to operate within the confines of procedures which are alien to military experience, they may well find that, for the first time in their lives, they have to think for themselves. For most, it will be uncharted territory.

My broad conclusion is that the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency is very welcome to those struggling for freedom and democracy in Burma. The fundamental principles on which US policy has been based since the Founding Fathers have not changed, but have been strengthened. What we can now look forward to is a more enlightened and effective application of those principles in much closer coordination and cooperation with all those countries which are closely involved with Burma’s future, as well as with the nation itself.