Why intervention in Burma is an urgent need?

In adopting a foreign policy, states usually adopt one of the following principles such as - isolationism, non-alignment, and polarization. Burma back in the parliamentary days, had joined the non-alignment idea. One of the main reasons for choosing the non-alignment was because of its geographical situation (Burma lies between two highly populous nations, India and China). Under the “Burmese Way to Socialism”, Burma obviously adopted ‘isolationism’ and kept away from the international affairs. Today, SPDC’s Foreign Minister Win Aung said “our foreign policy evolved in the context of these external and internal conditions.” (see “Myanmar enters the New Century.” Irrawaddy. April-June 2001).

After the event of the ‘Massacre 8. 8. 88’ and ignoring the result of the election in 1990, the regime of Burma had to face continuous international condemnations for its performances and pressure to improve it, but not the serious treads. Reports by the UN, Amnesty International ai, Human Rights Watch, and other groups have repeatedly detailed a gruesome litany of abuses, including murder, torture, rape, detention without trial, massive forced relocations, and forced labour, which shows only that the regimes in Burma have been among the world’s worst violators of human rights. Many governments have used ‘diplomatic sanctions’ on Burma, all of which share one clear objective, which is to modify the regime's deplorable behaviour in the areas of human rights and democratisation. Assembly resolutions condemning the junta demonstrate that little has changed since then.

The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) has criticized the SPDC for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, death in custody, torture, and politically motivated arrests and detention, absence of a due process of law, severe restrictions on freedom of opinion, __expression, movement, assembly, and association, including portering for the military. The coalition to ‘Stop the Use of Child Soldiers’, a coalition of the NGOs recently revealed that Burma has one of the highest numbers of child soldiers in the world (see Robertson, Sept 2000). In 2000, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), for the first time in its more than 80 year history, activated Article 33 of the ILO Charter, a sanction clause, against the military regime in Burma, in order to urge the military junta to drastically and urgently improve the forced labour situation in the country. The ILO also argues the governments are to refrain from engaging in commercial undertakings with Burma until real, demonstrable
progress is registered by the Burmese junta. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a report on the 30th October 2002 - documenting the shattered lives of child combatants in six countries in the East Asia Pacific region.1 The UNICEF had asked Burma’s military government, which is included in the report, to allow them entry to investigate the conscription of child soldiers by both the government and ethnic insurgent groups in Burma. However, securing space for an independent human rights investigation in Burma is quite difficult, and UNICEF was denied entrance into the country-side. Since 1988 there has been a lot of resolutions concerning Burma made by the main International Governmental Organisation such as the UN and the European Union (EU) (see “UNICEF Releases Report.” Oct 2002). Whether they have been affectively implemented is an open political question

At the UN, the General Assembly’s annual resolutions on Burma are increasingly ignored by specialized UN agencies. In the first half of 2000, both the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held major conferences with the SPDC government in Rangoon, lending international legitimacy to the junta. On the one hand, the UN envoy urges more aid to spur Burma reform by reasoning that more intensive international engagement would facilitate political change (see Kazmin, Oct 2002), and on the other hand, International aid agencies in Burma include UN agencies and international NGOS often claim their work is no political, but ‘neutral’, despite Aung San Suu Kyi’s statement “unless there is good governance, you cannot ensure that the assistance will really benefit the country” (see “Myanmar needs reform, not aid: Suu Kyi.” Oct 2002), it is simply because the regime clearly views humanitarian assistance as political
demonstrated by continuous surveillance and arbitrary heavy-handedness of international NGOs, UN agencies and independent local initiatives (see ALTASEAN-Burma, ed., Oct 2002, 7). Although there is merit in the efforts of some activists in lobbying for suspension of the SPDC as the legitimate representative of Burma at the UN, China’s veto in the UN Security Council will make that politically impossible.

In spite of the calls for ‘Economic Sanctions’ towards Burma by the democratic opposition, the NGOs, and the International Governmental Organisations (IGOs), these sanctions have yet to be imposed. Even the U.S. policy of imposing unilateral trade and investment sanctions against Burma has proven to be a failure on all fronts.2 Meanwhile the Clinton administration, while taking commendable steps to unilaterally stop new U.S. investments in Burma, has failed to use its leadership to lobby Australia, Canada, and key European countries to deepen Burma’s diplomatic and economic isolation. Among anti-regime western nations privately conceded that sanctions and ostracism are not working, but have well-funded and efficient pro-Aung San Suu Kyi lobbies back home, and they cannot risk publicly recommending policy changes. However, the international ban on new investments in Burma will not help to stop the possible investment coming from ASEAN countries and China.

The ASEAN policy of constructive engagement toward the SPDC, primarily composed of forging commercial links and defending the SPDC from external criticism, continues largely unchallenged. Moreover, Japan is now moving to resume partial overseas development assistance to the SPDC (see Robertson, Sept 2000), although the SPDC intransigence has scuttled good faith international efforts to create a road map for political reform that would involve guarantees of aid in exchange for reform.

Burma becoming a member of ASEAN in 1997, the ASEAN’s reasoned that there could be further more unforeseeable Chinese influences in Burma because of its isolation, which can affect the regional economic recovery and security. ASEAN neighbours are convinced that only “flexible and/ -or constructive engagement” could drag Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta into a dialogue, which has never been done since she has become a legitimate elected leader of the country. However, Desmond Tutu who himself actively involves in Burma’s pro-democracy movement, argued in his article “Burma as South Africa” in Far Eastern Economic Review that:

As a South African, I can claim some expertise on the subject of constructive engagement. For years, some governments claimed that the best way to deal with the apartheid regime in South Africa was by continuing to talk and trade. This gradualist approach, they said, would persuade the white minority regime to share power and end its flagrant abuses. Today the world knows what a failure that policy was. These ties gave the apartheid regime the political will and economic sustenance to continue its repressive policies. Only when serious sanctions started to take a significant economic toll on my country did the road to real reform begin (1993, 5).

Although claims as such are not so unusual - the state press runs cartoons denigrating Aung San Suu Kyi on an almost daily basis - they come at a time when the regime has been preening itself as host to ASEAN and its three dialogue partners, China, Japan and Korea. Top leaders in the junta have claimed that their hosting of the meeting demonstrates that Burma is now generally accepted to be a respectable nation, even though virtually all full ASEAN members are automatically eligible to host the meeting.

The membership of Burma causes serious problems to ASEAN, even endangering the existence of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), because there have been two questions which were raised: “Was Burma, the country, accepted as a member of ASEAN, or was it the military regime of Burma?” and “Whose interest was served by the admittance of the military regime into ASEAN, the national interest or the regime’s interest?” – it is because, obviously outrageous to say that it was Burma, the country, that has been admitted, because the military regime and the SLORC do not represent the interest of the nation (see Yawnghwe, Chao-Tzang, Dr. “Politics in Burma: Activism and Scholarship.” 2002, 11). However Southeast Asian leaders seemed to be convinced of their decision for Burma’s entry. Therefore, this decision poses another question; - “Does ASEAN need Burma more than Burma needs ASEAN?”

ASEAN’s efforts to turn around the ‘perception’ of disunity were not just confined to the road show idea; the grouping also reiterated the one-China policy (see Mitton, Aug 1999). In financial matters, ASEAN argues that Burma is a member of the WTO, so it has low tariffs, and it has got a good civil service, therefore there should be no problem with Burma. The ASEAN has been beset by the crisis and unable to provide investments that could have lifted the Burmese economy. Rangoon may well be able to attenuate Chinese penetration, but for the foreseeable future, China’s economic embrace will remain a fact of life. However problems of Chinese control in Burma remain unsolved (see Talow, May 1999). Burma being imposed by sanctions from western countries, and being a member of ASEAN-10 has another facet of foreign affair which is with its neighbours – the two regional powers: China and India. This facet makes it complicated to answer the question of “whether the ‘sanctions’ or ‘the
flexible or constructive engagement’ will bring Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals to the dialogue table for Burma’s meaningful transition?”.

Since Burma becomes a member of ASEAN, there is a question “Does ASEAN need Burma more than Burma need ASEAN?”

Politically the regime might need ASEAN for the recognition at least in the region and also to prove to the international society what is happening in Burma is an internal matter; it is not at all strange in their ASEAN-Ways. The ASEAN's “constructive engagement” with Burma is financially oriented, it is especially an interest of the ASEAN founding fathers: Mahathir Mohamed, Mohamed Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos, Lee Kuan Yew and Thailand. It is essentially phoney, because Thailand now has good foreign affairs leadership and some have written eloquently about human rights in Burma. To Burma, the ASEAN market is second only to that of the ‘other Asian countries’, comprising mainly of China, Japan, and India.

Of all the Southeast Asian nations, Singapore is Burma’s biggest trading partner followed by Thailand. However Thailand is more dependent on Burma economically than Burma on Thailand, therefore the Burmese regime permanently blackmails Thailand’s economic stability for some political solutions which are needed between the two countries. The smallest trading partners, Vietnam and the Philippines, remain the least important in Burma’s foreign trade. Indonesia’s trade with Burma has dropped substantially because of Indonesia’s successful Green Revolution and Burma’s supposed self-sufficiency in oil in the early 1980s. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have hardly any trade with Burma as they have never been important trading partners of Burma, probably because of former colonial ties. However till today the balance of trade between Burma and Southeast Asia has almost always been in Burma’s favour (see Than, 1996, 95).

The US and EU wanted ASEAN to exert pressure on the harsh military regime in Burma after it failed to implement the results of the 1990 general election. The EU wanted to insert a human rights clause in a new bilateral co-operation agreement with ASEAN, making progress on human rights a condition of normal trading relation (see Vatikiotis, 1998, 96). Yet without wider political reform, despite differences over Burma's troublesome junta, the renewal of the ASEAN-EU ties will remain vulnerable and under threat. While the EU is also seeking new ways to influence the junta, worried that its isolationist approach is not working, back in Rangoon there is no sign that the junta is ready to reform, and is also desperate to overturn the result of the last election, held in 1990 and won overwhelmingly by the NLD, now existent of its leadership is endangered.

ASEAN’s arguments of “flexible and/ -or constructive engagement” which are to lead a constant dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the Generals, and future political changes in Burma are seemed to be in vain. For ASEAN, it is now the time to admit that the policy of “constructive engagement” is a failure, even as it failed to persuade the apartheid regime in South Africa to make more than cosmetic changes, because of it’s hard economic sanctions, not constructive engagement, which finally brought the release of Nelson Mandela and the dawn of a new era in South Africa.

Burma’s relationship with Regional Powers: The three major powers of the Asian-Pacific region, other major powers - China, Japan, and India have been struggling for the past decade to define their future strategic priorities and policies. As these powers expand their capabilities and interests, they are turning their attention to Southeast Asia in general and their immediate neighbour in particular, which is emerging as the central field of security competition between them. Despite co-operation in other areas, including the fight against international terrorism, they each have strong political-military interests which are expanding and increasingly likely to conflict. Rangoon's location has placed it squarely in the middle of the testy relationship between Beijing and New Delhi. Burma’s history has been shaped by the uneasy relationship between its two largest neighbours, China and India. Burma's international relations and domestic politics are influenced by giants. Yet Burma is increasingly affected by the desire of Southeast Asian and other nations to maintain stable peace in the region and be free of great power interference. India and Burma have had a very close relationship due to their historical, cultural and administrative ties. The nationalist leaders of both countries developed close political links during their struggle against the British Empire. Nehru and U Nu shared a common world view such as non-alignment ideology. India extended military assistance to U Nu, in fact saving his ‘Rangoon Government’ from falling into the hands of insurgents. Even after General Ne Win seized power in 1962, despite Burma’s increasing military ties to Pakistan, the relationship between the two countries remained positive. In the early 1990s Rajiv Gandhi’s3 open support for the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has unbalanced the Indo-Burma relationship. Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to power, India decided to normalize the relationship with
Burma, a complete reversal of its long-standing commitment to democracy in that country, because of the presence of Indians in Burma, insurgency problems in northeastern India, and not only Beijing’s, but also Pakistan’s improving relationship with Burma became a fear of India. Policymakers in New Delhi also worry that the influx of cheap Chinese goods through Burma to northeastern India will undermine India’s national commercial interests (see Myint, Sept 2002).
Despite the problematic past between the two countries, since the SLORC came to power, the Sino-Burma bilateral relationship in formal terms is improving. The human influx is but one facet of a wider expansion of Chinese influence into a strategic Southeast Asian nation, which has stirred concern in Burma and beyond. The People’s Republic of China is the SPDC’s closest ally and as the primary diplomatic supporter has provided $1.8 billion in military equipment for the SPDC’s military modernization drive. The military intelligence apparatus also includes nine special departments, based in Rangoon, that look after such areas as foreign relations, information coordination, counter-terrorism and strategic planning. In the past decade the government has bought vast quantities of military hardware like jet fighters, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, artillery pieces, naval patrol boats mainly from China. As China’s economy is emerging and spreading its reach to the rest of Asia and the world,
it’s influence has sometimes aroused passions in the region. For co-operating with Burma on military expansion, the rewards China gets from Burma are not only economical ties, but also the possible establishment of a secure route to the Bay of Bengal, which has been long considered an Indian preserve, would exacerbate Sino-Indo problems (see Steinberg, “Myanmar as Nexus” n. d.). Apparently both geo-economic and geo-strategic calculations lie behind China’s ‘long march’ into Burma. Therefore recent events of closer Sino-Burma ties are also seen as of great significance to the national security of China (see Malik, 1994, 143). For the regime in Rangoon the Sino-Indian relationship means gaining a powerful friend who is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, who comes bearing gifts of much needed military hardware (see Malik, 1996, 21).

Australia is facing challenges from within on its policy toward Burma, which is closer to the Asian way of dialogue and engagement than to the Western approach of harsh criticism and economic sanctions. Burma is important to Australia, because it is an ASEAN country and ASEAN as a whole is very important to Australia for geo-political reasons. Canberra continues to insist that further isolating that already reclusive military government in Rangoon has done nothing to hasten democratic reform in the Southeast Asian country. But the debate continues on whether dialogue has any more chance of success. The Australian’s aid program to Burma on human-rights education is similar to the one Australia conducted for Indonesia during the Suharto regime (see Senevirante, Oct 2002).

Japan changes its position from time to time.

The present sanctions as such which are imposed on the SPDC are obviously not tough enough for a change. Other than U. S.’s policy, other countries are inconsistent and not persistent in dealing with the junta (e. g. despite visa’s ban, …. was in Belgium). U. K. and E. U. in particular are pathetically in delay. No real help from outside was there to move the regime towards a meaningful dialogue with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The regime shows any kind of those (sanctions, engagements, etc. ) were not the language that they understood. Despite its situation under international pressure, the regime in Burma, rights in front of the eyes of many citizens of Burma, has tried to kill Burma’s most inspired leader “Dawn Suu”, only daughter of “Aung San”, the most respected man of Burma’s history. The regime tends of ignore and disrespect both internal and external interests. With their weapons and size of the army, the regime is in the position to despite the will of its citizen, and because of their geographical position and check and balance relations in the region, the SPDC is convinced that they can act and react whatever and however they like to, and can afford to dame the West.

The SPDC tends to be playing as an active actor role rather than a passive one - concerning economic, politics, and security in the Asia Pacific region. The Chinese expansion of all dimensions in Burma, the so-called “flexible and/ -or constructive engagement” policy pursued by the ASEAN and supported by India and Japan because of either their economical interests in the Asia Pacific region – led to no success in paving a way toward a democratic transitioning in Burma. It is clear to see that with economical and military backing from China as well as diplomatic support from the ASEAN, the SPDC believes it can bide its time and selectively dismantle the NLD, and even can kill “AUNG SAN SUU KYI”.

However un-popular was the military invasion in Iraq, it seems the only alternative left to safe the future of Burma, remove the crucial regime. The last three years have seen humanitarian organizations calling for military intervention in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and elsewhere, this is now the time to include Burma in the list. Both relief agencies and human rights organizations should also implore the United Nations, or individual Western countries, to dispatch troops to strife-torn nations facing humanitarian disaster in Burma.

zinmin htun.

1 Twenty five percent of the world's estimated 300,000 child soldiers are found in the East Asian and Asia Pacific region, according to the UNICEF report. The six countries surveyed in the report are Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Burma.

2 Successful efforts by the Free Burma Coalition to pass “Burma selective purchasing” legislation in two states (Massachusetts and Vermont) and twenty one cities (including New York and Los Angeles) have pressured at least thirty nine international companies to withdraw from Burma. But on June 19, 2000, the Supreme Court upheld the National Foreign Trade Council challenge to the Massachusetts Burma law, marking a counterattack by a coalition of America’s largest businesses, who oppose any restrictions on foreign trade. Current U.S. sanctions are inadequate, because they only ban new investments - allowing most existing projects to continue unimpeded - and do not address imports into the United States (see Robertson, Sept 2000).

3 Raja Gandhi was a Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He was the son of India Gandhi. He entered politics after the death of his brother Sanjay in 1980. Sworn in as prime minister the day his mother was assassinated (Oct. 31, 1984), he led the Congress Party to a landslide victory in elections that year. He resigned in 1989 but remained leader of the Congress Party. He was assassinated in 1991 while running for re-election.