By Prof Kanbawza Win

Kanbawza Win (a) Dr Ba Than Win is a former secretary of foreign affairs to the Burmese prime minister. He is now the Dean of AEIOU program (the Burmese University in Diaspora) at Chiangmai University Thailand, and an adjunct professor of the School of International Studies at Simon Fraser University of British Columbia, Canada; also a patron of BURMA DIGEST team.

If the Obama administration can reach a rapprochement with Cuba whose willingness to discuss sensitive topics, including human rights or support reconciliation with the Taliban and offer an olive branch to Iran, with which it does not even have diplomatic ties, why with not Burma? But will the shaking hands of Uncle Sam met with the clenching fist of the Junta is still to be seen. Jim Steinberg the Deputy Secretary of State announced that the US wanted a “collaborative and constructive” approach and that the US was open to setting up new “flexible” frameworks similar to the six party talks on Pyongyang’s ambition. But the six-party talks on North Korea had not halted Pyongyang’s nuclear program. However, this will give the Junta a chance to sit as equal among these countries and looks important that Burma now has the global attention it deserves. No doubt the state controlled Burmese media will crow that Nga Pwa Gyi (the Burmese slang for hook-nose poking Americans) have no choice but to kow tow to the Myanmar Crisis, that whatever their punitive actions have no sway over the Myanmar. Its state control media will surely interpret an easing of sanctions as an acknowledgment that it has won the struggle with its people and proved its right to rule.

Not a New Idea

It is a country sown with moral minefield where the US needs to tread carefully, critically and creatively. A multi-party initiative to tackling the Burma issue is not new at all.  In 2003, Thailand initiated a “Bangkok Process” and diplomats from 12 nations, including China, Japan, India, Indonesia and several EU members, took part calling on the Junta to release of all political prisoners and seek national reconciliation. In March 2006, Michael Green, a former senior director for Asian Affairs, called for the replacement of the “Bangkok Process” by an international coalition for change in Burma. Again in Oct. 2007, Thailand suggested to UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari that something like the six-party talks on North Korea could be organized on the Burma question as Ban Ki-moon had called the “Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Myanmar,” (US, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Australia, Norway, Japan, South Korea and the EU presidency) but so far nothing has come to fruition.

If the US is not in a position to effectively counter China’s growing presence in Burma, whether through high-risk investments or security assistance, the best antidote is to opt for transparency and accountability governance, long championed by the people of Burma including the NLD. If the global economic downturn is a crisis with a silver lining for cash-rich Chinese companies intent on bargain deals, it is equally so the image-conscious governments whose human right critics have been silenced by the need  to cooperate with Beijing on overcoming the recession. It is to be admitted that Western powers’ control over the human rights debate is diminishing as they struggle with the huge scale of bailout needed to rescue their banks and revive their sliding economies have increasingly turned to China, signalling their willingness to downplay human rights concerns. On the other hand the current crisis is seen by Chinese leaders as an opportunity to reach out and work more pro-actively for the protection of their national interests. Burma will be an acid test for all.

A story goes that, in a remote village of Burma there were many tigers coexisting with the villagers. One day a villager brought a donkey and nobody has seen this creature and was surprised and shocked when he kicks and brays very loudly. So the tigers asked the donkey not to behave irrationally but the donkey did not listen and continue to behave as usual. So one day the tigers get together and say, “After all we are tigers, let us eat the donkey.” The story ended there.

Now there is a prospect that the Burma donkey will soon be meeting the tigers US, China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Korea, etc and if the consensus is reached “Southeast Asia’s Darfur” will be over. The big huddle today is will the tigers reached a consensus regarding the fate of the donkey, when every body knows that neither engagement nor sanction that has failed to bring a democratic change in Burma, only it is because of the conflicting approaches of the international community which led the Junta to perpetrate its “Crime against Humanity.”?

China and India have clearly demonstrated that their first and only priority in Burma is their economic interests and not the welfare of the people of Burma, not to mention the prevalence of human rights, democracy or genuine federal system. However, they will choose to take part as they did not want to be sidelined. The policy of Constructive Engagement Policy carried by individual countries of ASEAN was seen as a façade to mask their economic interests, once they secured business concessions from the regime, their call for positive change in Burma disappeared and defended the regime by blaming Western countries for using punitive measures. Korea is for offshore oil and Japan is keen that China will not take over its traditional follower.

Rethinking

Last year, when a cyclone struck Burma, the world watched with horror as military government refused offers of help to save thousands of people clinging to survival. Instead the Burmese Junta mobilized thousands of forces not for rescue but to herd people to the polls to install a constitution that will give them power in perpetuity, a real manifestation of the heartlessness. Now the Obama administration is reviewing America’s policy toward Burma. A thoughtful review is needed; Burma is more than just a human-rights, democracy and genuine federal problem. Illicit drugs, diseases, and refugees migrate to neighbouring countries, creating major social – and financial – burdens on local and national governments. Geo-strategic interests, including natural resources and access to deep water ports for a growing Chinese navy, should be of increasing concern to the region, as well as the US and Europe.

Sanctions is the only leverage which the United States has to ensure a democratic transition in Burma and we should not loose that fact that Burmese hope lies primarily with the silent majority. It includes the brave members of the dissident and human rights movements who remain at the vanguard; the political prisoners who from their cells remain undaunted; intellectuals challenging the military authority, the brave Buddhist monks who dares a peaceful demonstration. Bloggers debunking the lies spread by the regime and the ethnic nationalities that bravely carry on the struggle for a genuine Federal Union. Injustice and oppression will not have the last word in Burma (or Zimbabwe, or Sudan), any more than they did in South Africa, Poland, Chile or anywhere else the human spirit is alive. The brave Burmese people who have struggled for their freedom believe this is a moral universe, where right and wrong still matter. They need to know that the world’s most powerful democracy still believes it, too.

The street smart Generals are not to be underestimated as they have divide and exploits the West, ASEAN and the UN without losing their ultimate goal of  remaining in power. Lifting sanctions unilaterally will only strengthen the regime and weaken and hurt the democratic opposition inside Burma, while a rash engagement could give them legitimacy to remain in power as they have done already in the last two decades. Aside from critical and strategic approach suburb diplomacy and extreme pressure must be employed.

Key decision about Burma seems to be pending as more important and urgent crisis are popping up in the international scene. The United States has announced it is reviewing its Burma policy and at the end of April the EU will consider whether to renew its sanctions regime. As the international community waits, the United Nations waits, as the Burmese people wait, we should remember that the Burmese government is not waiting. Each day, it moves a step closer to its goal of eliminating opposition and consolidating power, with another stage-managed “election” looming in 2010. The administration does not have the luxury of considering its options and then starting to lead; it must somehow think and lead at the same time, before it loses the initiative, and misimpressions about where it stands spread.

The Burmese generals, like any other dictators, did not seem to care not a bit for the economic and welfare of its country and people. Diplomatic engagement is likely to succeed only when sanctions have truly hit their mark, as the South African episodes reveal. Only when targeted sanctions became affected and implemented in a sophisticated way that a negotiated solution, that seemed impossible took shape.

Nuclear Burma

The Kremlin which often insists, that all countries have a right to develop peaceful nuclear technology cannot be leave out in the impending Conference. By blocking the international action at the UN Security Council has proved beyond doubt that it has high potentiality to be a spoiler. Since it Soviet days, Russia had make its presence felt in Burma where they have made Rangoon, the Asian headquarters of the KGB operations and was already known to the Americans when one of its staffs defected to the American embassy in Rangoon. It continues to retain the much sophisticated espionage works and when the Junta announced its determination to build a nuclear reactor they readily responded. In May 02, Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry, Minatom, had agreed to “cooperate in designing and building a nuclear studies centre that will include a research nuclear reactor with a thermal capacity of 10 megawatts and two laboratories,” It is well-known that Russia has given training to the Aum Shin Rikyo cult in Japan and sold satellite photos of South Korea to North Korea. The involvement of Russia opens a conduit for possible misuse.

But the most ambitious project was with North Korea, suggesting that a much larger reactor is building near Maymyo, with the assistance of North Korea. This has raised the spectre of a future nuclear weapons program that could intimidate Burma’s neighbours and be used as a bargaining chip against the US and its allies. In particular, fears have been expressed that Burma might become a rogue state, and try to develop a nuclear weapon. Even if a nuclear weapons option was not available, it was argued, the presence of a nuclear reactor would at least give the Rangoon regime the capability to develop a “dirty bomb,” which could spread radioactive material through a conventional explosion. Often than not north Korean technicians are working hard on the site of the future nuclear research reactor. These developments apparently coincided with the arrival in Rangoon of representatives of the Daesong Economic Group, which has a record of secretly proliferating nuclear technologies to Pakistan. The small research reactor Burma was getting from Russia was said to be unsuited for the manufacture of fissile material, but Pyongyang has the expertise to provide Rangoon with other options. These fears were confirmed when Burma send 80 army officers to study nuclear technology. It is likely to be several years before the facility is built and comes on line, but the US should nib Burma in the bud before she too can send ballistic missiles.

The best bet for the US is to work with ASEAN as they are eager to improve their image and have good relations with the regime. But the key player will be China, after the successful Olympic Games and the London G20 Conference will she be matured enough to be a world leader and stop supporting one of the rogue regimes as it greatly tarnished her image?

Recently Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s was mentioned for the first time in the Chinese media while Wen Jiabao, stressed that China’s development was no threat to anyone. But last month a book “Unhappy China” (with an initial print-run of 70,000) published in Chinese says that  widespread discontentment among the Chinese and the financial crisis could result in an envious West going to war with China to keep it down. Blocking progress in the Doha round of global trade talks, aiding rouge countries without regard to human rights or the environment and resisting adoption of a flexible exchange-rate policy will all be a great challenge for the US tiger to come to terms with the Chinese counterpart to eat the Burmese donkey.