By Ramtanu Maitra
(this is an excellent article!)Last month, speaking from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, US President George W Bush announced that he would withhold some US aid from Myanmar. Then at the United Nations on September 21, while promoting democracy for Myanmar, as he has done so often for Iraq, Afghanistan and the whole of the Middle East in recent months, Bush told the General Assembly: "The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, 'We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary, democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency and accountability.'"
It is fortunate that not many outside of the United States - except those dyed-in-the-wool liberals who consider Suu Kyi to be Myanmar and Myanmar to be Suu Kyi - believe what Bush says when he talks about democracy. Such strident pro-democracy rhetoric could just as well be a precursor for a unilateral strike on Myanmar, some say.
Many outside the United States have scant respect for the democracy rhetoric issued from Washington because when they look at the record of these noisemakers it doesn't take them long to figure out that this is really a series of threats, dressed up in the fancy garb of democracy.
Individuals such as Republican Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas - both of whom are on the front line in the United States promoting democracy and human rights in Myanmar - belong to the Christian right and were champions of "shock and awe" in Iraq. A visit to their websites makes clear their warlike sentiments.
It doesn't take long to apprehend their untrustworthiness, either. There is no question that Aung Sun Suu Kyi and her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won Myanmar's general elections handsomely in 1990, and the military's nullification of the elections, which would have put the NLD into power, was wrong. At the same time, the events surrounding the 1990 elections merit substantial redefinition. The old shibboleth that the NLD won the 1990 elections but the junta refused to hand over power implies that the military authority then in power had agreed to the transfer of power before the elections; whereas the military authority had undeniably set conditions for the transfer of power through the promulgation of a new constitution, a process that Suu Kyi herself had articulated before she was placed under house arrest.
There is also no doubt that keeping Suu Kyi and a number of NLD leaders, many of whom were former high-ranking army officers, imprisoned is not in the best interest of the nation. At the same time, it is almost laughable to believe that US policymakers under President Bush have in their hearts only the interest of bringing democracy back to Myanmar.
Different yardsticks
If ushering in democracy in other nations is so precious to Washington, why then does it have different yardsticks for different nations? In 1999, for instance, General Pervez Musharraf took power in Pakistan through a bloodless coup. Musharraf had the duly elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, jailed and then exiled to Saudi Arabia. If Sharif tries to come back to Pakistan now, there is no question that he will end up in prison, if not hanged. Even his brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is also in Saudi Arabia, cannot show up in Pakistan.
A similar situation exists for Benazir Bhutto Zardari, another former prime minister of Pakistan, who spends her time shuttling between Dubai and London. She cannot go to Pakistan either. Musharraf, now Pakistan's president, was questioned by some US lawmakers on many other issues, but no mention was made of his exiling Sharif.
For Washington, clearly there are acceptable military dictators and unacceptable military dictators. Just as clearly, there are considerations more important than democracy for the US administration. The Myanmar junta is considered by Washington to be bad military dictators.
In the years since the 1990 elections, the junta has kept the NLD out of power and, for much of that time, Aung Sun Suu Kyi under house arrest. The junta has also cracked down on opium cultivation. In fact, according to the United Nations Narcotics Control Board, "opium cultivation in Myanmar shows a 29% decline [this year] in comparison to 2003". Opium cultivation this season in Myanmar is estimated at 44,200 hectares, representing a significant cumulative decline of 73% when compared with the 163,000 hectares under cultivation in 1996. The production of opium for the year 2004 amounted to 370 tonnes, representing a decline of 54% with respect to 2003. One would think that accomplishment deserving of US support - opposition to drug-trafficking is core to US policy, isn't it? Not necessarily, it turns out.
The apple of Washington's eye at this point is Afghan President Hamid Karzai. During his watch, and under the supervision of Washington, opium production in Afghanistan this year will be close to 4,500 tons. During the period of the US occupation since the winter of 2001, Afghanistan's opium production has shown a "healthy" growth rate of more than 20% annually. This opium, and heroin in its refined form, is destroying human beings, mostly in Europe, in larger numbers every year. But neither Senator McConnell nor Brownback has expressed any doubt publicly about the drug policy of the Karzai administration or criticized the Bush administration for allowing drug production to grow in leaps and bounds in Afghanistan.
Another core US "democracy and human rights" policy commitment is to the battle against HIV/AIDS. Yet Washington is blocking international aid to Myanmar to fight the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Myanmar has already paid an extremely high price for its isolation. International organizations have cut back or eliminated their work in the country and much bilateral foreign aid has been eliminated too. One result is that HIV and AIDS, the disease the virus causes, have run rampant in Myanmar, and the country has received almost no help in getting the epidemic under control. Myanmar's HIV/AIDS crisis is now by far the worst in Southeast Asia.
Sanctions: Who benefits?
If US policy seems confusing from a distance, there are indications that it is less so close up: within Myanmar not many really believe the US sanctions are meant to right the wrong. To begin with, the NLD, which for cheap political reasons had endorsed US sanctions on Myanmar, has now come to realize that the sanctions never achieved what was intended. The official spokesman of the NLD, U Lwin, told Reuters on October 12 that economic sanctions, especially those imposed by the United States, had been ineffective in persuading the Yangon government to reform. "Nothing has happened. What we really need in our case is meaningful dialogues," U Lwin said.
His admission pulls the rug out from under the US sanctions policy. In 1997, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright justified sanctions on the Burmese (despite the change of its name to Myanmar in 1989, US authorities could never get away from addressing the country as Burma) junta by claiming that "the junta had run that country's economy to the ground".
Indeed, the sanctions U Lwin's party had supported, and even actively lobbied for in the United States, have further jeopardized the economic situation within Myanmar. Young women with no visible source of income have now become involved in prostitution in large numbers in order to survive. But this has not deterred the McConnell-Brownback crowd, which has attacked this phenomenon as though the Yangon government had sponsored "human trafficking".
The inadequacy of sanctions is widely appreciated among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). "Well, you know that the position of me and Indonesia - not only Indonesia but the entire ASEAN - we don't believe that sanctions are very effective and, especially in a country like Myanmar, sanctions can even seriously hurt the livelihood of the ordinary people," said Indonesia's envoy to ASEAN, Ali Alatas, when he spoke to the Washington-based Radio Free Asia on October 12. Indonesia is the current chair of ASEAN.
Outside of ASEAN, India is in the midst of an important initiative toward Myanmar. On Monday, Myanmar's top authority, Senior General Than Shwe, will be in New Delhi. Six agreements will be on the table for signing during Than Shwe's visit, including a protocol on bilateral cooperation against terrorism.
Sources say that Than Shwe will be welcomed with a gun salute, accorded to a head of state, in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan (the President's House). That will be followed by delegation-level talks and a lunch hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Hyderabad House. President A P J Abdul Kalam will host a banquet in the general's honor the same evening.
On Tuesday, Than Shwe will fly to Bangalore to explore India's information-technology industry. A visit to the Hindustan Aeronautics establishment is also in the offing, given Yangon's interest in Indian military hardware, especially the advanced light helicopter. The next day, Than Shwe will visit Kolkata before returning to Yangon.
Old geopolitics
It is evident from the schedule set up for Than Shwe in India that New Delhi has now begun to realize the importance of stabilizing Myanmar. China understood the importance of a stable Myanmar years earlier.
Myanmar sits where three great regions of Asia meet. China in the north, Southeast Asia in the south, and India in the west all meet at Myanmar. Myanmar is the key to a smooth infrastructural land-based link-up among Central Asia in the west, Japan in the east and Russia in the north. If Asia - and it must - hopes to develop a strong economic developmental structure based on a viable physical economy, Myanmar must not only be a stable nation, but it must also be developed economically. Strong infrastructural development, a far-reaching educational base and the development of wide-ranging small-scale industries would put Myanmar fully in the picture. This would not only bring an Asian economic integration process in to play, but would work as the necessary first step to resolving Asia's security problems.
For US policymakers, brought up with British-taught choke-point theories, Myanmar is conceived to be the quintessential choke point, where the prevalence of US influence would prevent the integration of China, India and Southeast Asia, and indeed, the integration of the whole of Asia.
Washington would like to see a regime in Myanmar that would depend on the United States and reliably check Asian integration moves. That necessitates a regime change in Yangon. This is the crux of the present US policy toward Myanmar. The rest is hokum.
Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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