Vision of 2010

Kanbawza Win

We’re just days away from 2010 – a defining year for Burma, as we witness the opposition composed of ethnics and pro democracy movement. have to admit that they have been soundly beaten. First, they lost is in the battle fields and very lately in the diplomatic arena, where the Junta scored a major victory of recognition without yielding an inch from the Western countries who claims to be the defender of Democracy and Human Rights. Now, the Junta is going to be legitimized by its phony elections.

The Burmese regime has claimed to hold a new election in 2010 to facilitate a formation of a civil-military government in accordance with the military-orchestrated constitution with a rigged referendum. The prospect of the new election is a moral and strategic dilemma to the democratic movement, especially the NLD and its supporters who are entrenched in upholding their eighteen-year-old election. Will the moderates group participate or not seems to be the key factor in deciding the authenticity of the elections. That is why the Euro Burma Office, Director said, “For the people inside, they cannot avoid casting votes and if they don’t have their own candidates, then they will have to choose the Junta’s candidates. Or better if they could set up their own parties, hoping some of their candidates will win some seats. It’s up to each locality to decide for itself, and is not a question of opportunity or survival but depends on planning. It’s not the resistance armies that will suffer if fighting resumes, but it is the people who suffer, because when there is war, the Burma Army always pick on the people, not the resistance.”

This is but one way of encouraging the moderates. View internationally, the Burmese pro-democracy movement was merely a moral case and moral concern which is usually inferior to strategic needs in international relations and one could be compared to the Free Tibet Campaign that seems to share the same fate. Both movements have been remarkably successful in awareness campaigns and then come to a full stop. They managed to mobilize international support in transnational causes but failed to realise that it has to be followed up by pursuing the international authorities. The actual policy making depends on the willingness and capability of the international powers and the international system. Sadly, both the Diaspora democracy movement and the ethnics leaders could not comprehend the situation and have little or no knowledge about economic incentives and the country`s resources to play with, that are so crucial in the international scene. Lamentably the opposition groups are unable to learn the lessons from Iraq where US allotted $100 if compared to Burma not even $10 including the care of refugees and IDPs.

Analysing Contemporary History

Gen. Ne Win’s military coup in 1962 has the ability to consolidate its power by institutionalizing a one-party state, a decade after the military takeover. The current Junta unlike Ne Win is not capable of institutionalizing its rule into a formal political system. Hence the transition plan is based on the regime’s orchestrated constitution which the Junta forced through a forced rigged referendum and the coming unfair elections.
But the interpretation of the constitution in practice will depend on the degree of participation by civilian politicians in the election and the authority of the elected representatives in the government. The constitution itself does allow elected members to hold substantial power in the new government. Hence the legitimacy of the 2010 election depends on the participation of pro-democracy civilians and their roles in the new government.
The regime’s strategy appears to minimize the influence of hard liners, including the NLD. The major arrests and severe jail-terms imposed on the activists are a part of the plan to steer clear hard-line elements before the election comes. On the other hand, an alternative third-force in the opposition movement is not in an organized form. Because of the nature of polarization in Burma’s conflict, many moderate individuals are reluctant to engineer a third-force platform which is a politically derogative term for the Burmese oppositions.
Regarding the participation of the civilians it depends on their roles and stance towards the coming election, there seems to be four categories of civilian politicians, in addition to the pro-military elements to contest the election. The first type is the majority of the oppositions strongly condemned the regime’s road map. They will continue to reject the 2010 election and refuse to participate. These hardliners among the opposition movement are mostly in exile. Most hardcore activists inside the country are under lock and key. These hardliners voice will make little or no impact on the holding of the election.
The second type of oppositions sees the election as a step towards a confrontation with the military.  Despite its call to recognize the result of the 1990 general election, the splinter group of the NLD and the likes e.g. veteran politician U Shwe Ohn of Shan State, the daughters of U Nu and U Kyaw Nyein, choose to participate in the 2010 election because it is the only option to reclaim its legitimacy and remobilize its supporters after 2010. For many hardliners, including some of the ethnic nationalities and the defunct Burmese Communist Party, the coming election is a tactical battleground for further escalation of the conflict.
The third type is political groups who view the coming election as an enticing opportunity to pursue their self interests. Many smaller ceasefire groups like the DKBA, KNPLF, KDA and the likes fall into this account. They will seek to strengthen their legitimacy through the existing electoral process regardless of the degree of fairness and freedom of the election. Some ceasefire groups may also incline to transform into the third force.
The fourth type is the individuals regard themselves moderates and share a view that the current NLD-led opposition movement is a failure. Many individuals include former political prisoners, elected representatives from the NLD, current leaders in NGOs, and environmental activists and some exiles even though may have not emerged as an institutionalized political force, are likely to establish their political platform to contest the 2010 election.

The Junta’s Perspective
It seems that the regime is also facing a dilemma based on three major concerns. First, the military is reluctant to open up political space for the civilian politicians to mobilize to contest in the election because the regime learned a hard lesson after it had released former student leaders and allowed them to organize their supporters. Their mobilization paved a way to the monk-led protest in 2007. The regime is very careful this time not to repeat the previous mistake.
Second, the regime is concerned with the repetition of the NLD’s another victory in the 2010 election. The dominance of anti-military oppositions in the civilian portion of elected representatives will encourage the oppositions to challenge the military after the election. In other words, the military wants more ‘moderate’ opposition to contest in the election than the hard-liners. The release of student leaders in 2004 partially aimed at creating a so-called ‘third force’ between the NLD and the regime. However, the student leaders chose to take hard-line stance.

Third, the regime is worried that the emerging civilian-led government would undermine the military’s institutional interests. The military wants to avoid creating itself a

“Frankenstein or Dracula” image by its own Road Map. The military therefore embedded protective clauses in the constitution to guarantee its own interests because of its distrust on civilian politicians. Overall, the Junta does not have viable civilian partnership in the new government after 2010. Lack of confidence on civilian politicians and amicable partnership has fostered siege mentality among the military leaders who will desperately cling on to the constitution and use suppression to safeguard their interests.
Hence there is a faint possibility that Burma may become a liberal democracy and the most potent ingredient for instability, when poor economic performance and factional mobilization characterize a new transition. Any new government, regardless of the forms of transition, will not be able to revive the country from current economic pauperization in a short term. Poverty will continue and quality of life remains poor after 2010. Economic destitutions are usually channel towards political discontent. Under poverty, Burmese people will remain dissatisfied with the government as long as the military is a part of the ruling institution.
It will eventually expand political space for formerly suppressed oppositions who were deprived of political mobilization under the previous system. Economically dissatisfied public is vulnerable to political instigation stirring up unrests. The hard line oppositions will utilize newly emerging political space to mobilize poverty-stricken angry publics to pressure the new government. Their objective will aim to scrap the existing constitution and boot the military out of politics.
On the other hand, the military is likely to be politically defensive after the 2010 election while taking shelter under its brainchild constitution. The military’s 25 percent of representatives in the parliament and its supporters will continue to preserve the military’s institutional interests threatened by the oppositions’ mobilization. Alternatively, the military may disenfranchise potential hardliners in the 2010 election and continue to deny their political freedom even after 2010. In both scenarios, the confrontation between the military and hardcore oppositions is likely to escalate after the election. But it will be the first time in more than two decades that the civilian politicians and the military representatives will be sitting under the same roof in the Parliament. It will also be the venue for both the military and civilians to interact in policy making and mutually envisioning the future. Against all odds, the transition in 2010 offers an opportunity to jumpstart confidence building to seek much need reconciliation for the country.

O! Burma betrayed by Obama

President Obama and his strategic advisors acknowledge that the extension of US power has reached a critical threshold.  The US has become a declining power in the face of a rising China, Russia and India. The US economy is largely interdependent with the Asian economy. The combination of Japanese and Chinese ownership of US debt has reached 45%t of US Treasury securities. In addition, the military gap is narrowing. A study conducted by the RAND Corporation, an influential think-tank, concludes the Chinese military could defeat US forces in the Taiwan Strait, if the US attempted to deter a Chinese offensive to reclaim Taiwan. Russia has fielded its latest S-400 air-defence system far superior than the US’s second-generation Patriot missile system. Hence Obama realizes that the most effective approach to totalitarian countries is the utilization of ‘soft power,’ which calls for friendliness rather than coercion and the end result was that the Junta’s representative Thein Sein sat smiling besides Obama in S`pore. The other Western countries like the EU are bound to follow the American lead.

For one thing, Obama clearly wants to distinguish himself from George W. Bush, who badly tainted the human rights agenda by linking it to the war in Iraq and by adopting an overly moralistic, evangelical tone about democracy. Will P resident Obama be forcefully advocating democracy abroad if he believes that  negotiating about human rights behind the scenes works better than bullying in public, since it permits nasty regimes to save face while, at least theoretically, allowing them to quietly make concessions? It seems that the president seems to believe that, no matter how brutal a government he is dealing with, he can find common cause.

Though the Bush administration established a deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy, Obama’s National Security Council structure has explicitly downgraded the role of democracy specialists. And some parts of the government seem to be backing away from even the word “Democracy.” What more proof is wanted when Obama’s administration became the first since 1991 not to meet with the Dalai Lama, even privately, when the Tibetan leader was in Washington last October?

On matters of democracy and human rights, past presidents have wielded the bully pulpit to impressive effect, sometimes winning the release of high-profile dissidents e.g. after Bush highlighted the case of Ayman Nour, the most prominent Egyptian dissident, in early 2005, Hosni Mubarak’s government released him from jail even though he is locked up again. After much rhetoric of Obama and Clinton about the new Burma policy, the American delegate lead by Assistant Secretary of East Asia and Pacific Kurt Campbell who went to Burma never uttered a word for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Sadly the American Nobel Laureate has failed his duty to the Burmese Nobel Laureate.

The Chinese Card
The Burma-China relationship will enter a new chapter after China completes an oil pipeline connecting the Andaman Sea with China’s Yunnan province. The move is alarmingly strategic. Past Chinese interest in Burma was less critical than many observers have speculated, with trade accounting for a fraction of one percent of overall Chinese exports, while China has failed to transfer any strategic weaponry to Naypyidaw.  But the 2.9-billion dollar Chinese oil pipeline will drastically transform the role of Burma in China’s strategic calculus. China has been geographically vulnerable to a naval blockade, being confined by Japan to the east, Taiwan to the south and South Korea to the north of China – all US allies. In addition, China lacks a naval force capable of protecting its sea lines. The projected oil pipeline from Burma will reinforce China’s long-term strategic energy initiative. The pipeline will be much more significant than any existing China-Burma engagements. China may even consider protecting its interest in Burma under a nuclear umbrella. One of the main reasons for China to send its advanced submarines to the Andaman Sea is to protect its strategic interest, simultaneously restricting the regional power projection of the US Navy’s 7th fleet.  As I had said earlier if Burma used to be a moral issue for the United States now it is for the current leaders of how to play it into the hands of US security and its national interests. Perhaps one should recollect that Obama in the Nobel Academy said that “evil does exist in the world and that there will be times when nations…will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified,” if this is a clear statement of American foreign policy principles in international realm we would like to see how it applies to Burma or rather a hypocritical aspect of quid pro quo engagement, ranging from counter-narcotics to political prisoners. But I am afraid that among all initiatives, however, the focus of US policy will be on the 2010 elections.

Likely Scenario

Obviously the military will not drop its Road Map and seek an alternative political settlement with the opposition. Any political outcomes have to go through the military-led transitional process. In the past, the military is asked to sit down at a table set up by the opposition, now it will be vice versa. The process will be likely initiated in phases, starting with the military and moderate political forces in the parliament and the government.  If we look at the world we see that democratic transition history we see that in 108 democratic transitions, only 12 countries have consolidated democracy since 1955. In many cases, instability follows transitions and often than not fell back to autocracy.
Burma conflict is vastly factionalized, and the polarity between the military and the oppositions is deeply entrenched. The traditional opposition forces will likely take the path of confrontation with the military after 2010. Confidence building won’t be materialized as long as both the civilian politicians and the military fail to cooperate in shared common interests, such as economic development, health care, security and public welfare.
As long as the junta sees no viable civilian partnership after 2010, the military will restrict the participation of civilian politicians in the coming election and their capacity to mobilize. The only civilian force willing to categorically cooperate with the military is moderate non-NLD pro-democracy activists who feel discontented with the status quo in the opposition movement. Although the military may not trust this so-called third force, it is the only viable civilian partnership the military needs to implement its Road Map.
The moderate force has not been able to organize its political platform and leadership structure to function as a feasible political institution. The election in 2010 will likely be a breeding ground to shape the structure of moderate force in Burmese politics. Regardless of whether the NLD fields’ candidates through proxy parties or contests the elections, the generals will make sure her party is in no position to field any sizable number of candidates, much less win a landslide again. What other benchmarks, then, could be treated as signals that the regime is serious about democratic transition? It could, relax media and Internet censorship; show increased tolerance towards valid public criticism of its policy and leadership failures; enable existing parties to reorganize themselves with full organizational rights and responsibilities; adopt conciliatory gestures towards multi-ethnic dissidents and armed resistance organizations; allocate public resources fairly and equitably among the parties for election purposes; and grant them equal access to the State-owned media outlets; and last but not least, encourage and educate the Burmese electorate in general about their voting rights, as well as fundamental rights as citizens of a soon-to-be democracy. But without institutionalizing legal regimes of human rights to protect citizens’ and communities’ socio-cultural rights, as well as economic and political freedoms, no polity can be label democratic.

We don’t expect culturally conservative and semi-feudal society such as Burma be expected to evolve into something that can sustain a formal democracy and its further advancement because those who are at the helm of wearing uniform have grown accustomed to power, privileges, wealth and State protection, as well as adept at control, manipulation and domination over the public, economy and the State.  As such, these men in uniforms are not going to be agents of change, rather it is the people themselves—multi-ethnic communities, religious leaders and associations, individual professionals, educators, entrepreneurs, artists and intellectuals, and pockets of enlightened military officers, as well as the webs of informal networks—that need to be viewed as potential change agents. If ever change come to Burma, for sure it will not be achieved through the generals’ elections.