Jan 20, 2007  Straits Times (Singapore)
Time to Change Tack with Myanmar   by Zarni
A RARE Sino-Russian veto at the United Nations Security Council on Jan 12 against a watered-down Myanmar resolution co-sponsored by the United States and Britain all but drove the final nail in the coffin of the international Free Burma Campaign. After two decades in existence, Myanmar's organised political opposition led by Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and backed by the West has evidently ceased to represent a catalyst for change. The ill-conceived Anglo-American-driven resolution at the United Nations has practically destroyed any leverage the United Nations and its agencies might have over Myanmar's junta. The generals' worst nightmare has effectively passed.

As one Asean minister at last weekend's Asean Summit in Cebu put it, 'Washington has overstepped on Myanmar'.

The failed resolution has sent the pro-change Myanmar camp back to the drawing board. It is an unmistakable signal of the end of a 20-year-long struggle in the country's political history, a chapter which opened with Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's parachuting into Myanmar's domestic political scene and her subsequent meteoric rise in influence and popularity, following the bloody crackdown of the popular revolt in 1988.

International campaigners such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who failed to influence South Africa's stand on the resolution - the African National Congress-led government joined Russia and China in voting against the Myanmar resolution - should pause and reflect on the evident futility of their principled but counterproductive push for reconciliation in Myanmar. Reconciliation among parties in conflict is not something the Security Council is equipped to impose, and Archbishop Tutu should have known better.

The West, more specifically the United States and Britain, has little or no leverage over Myanmar's domestic developments. Discharging the 'white man's burden' requires thoughtful planning, understanding the realities on the ground, and genuine concerns. Obviously, Myanmar matters little - not even symbolically or ideologically - to the Bush administration, thereby explaining the sacrifice of the Myanmar issue on the altar of Washington Beltway politics.

As a former dissident in exile for the last 18 years, I have, for the last several years, agonised over the strategic direction of pro-change factions on Myanmar, while having offered a less palatable - not to mention a highly unpopular - alternative of talking to the generals and engaging with Myanmar's society and economy.

The people of Myanmar should understand that changing a society and polity steeped in isolation requires intellect, reason and a viable strategy - not just moral righteousness, parroting the fashionable liberal language of civil society, democracy and liberty. We cannot continue with the same old strategies and policies of threats and sanctions against the generals. These strategies have failed over the past 20 years.

Myanmar's future has been held hostage not just by the generals - although a lion's share of responsibility must be assigned to them because they are in power - but also the opposition. Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and her international supporters have pursued a principled but highly counterproductive strategy of empty threats against the regime, destroying through boycotts and sanctions an already ailing economy, and isolating a junta whose comfort zone is intellectual and political isolation.

Blinded by the West's empty moral support, symbolic gestures and the raft of accolades on our fellow dissidents, both Myanmar's opposition and the public at large have chosen to overlook the existing geopolitical and domestic realities that govern the international system. Symbolism and moral support count for very little here.

The modern state pursues its national interest, however defined. We, as a pro-change opposition and people, have ignored this at our own peril. Beijing's veto and India's policy of deepening its strategic and economic ties with the junta should serve as a clear reminder of what drives international politics and why continuation of the present Anglo-American policies towards Myanmar will continue to fail.

Myanmar simply lacks geopolitical and economic significance to the so-called freedom lovers in the White House and in Whitehall. This is a reality unlikely to change, not least because of the moralising rhetoric from London and Washington.

The forces for change in Myanmar must stop their genuine social change agenda from being hijacked by professional Western lobbyists and their patrons in high places, lest they turn Myanmar into a Cuba of the East. Fidel Castro and his communist regime have outlived at least 10 American administrations, and Havana shows no sign of being positively affected by American policy after having been subjected to American sanctions for nearly half a century.

As far as the junta is concerned, the West is hostile towards it and neo-imperialist in character, thus ruling out any prospect for reconciliation or compromise with Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) or any Western-supported opposition group. The generals show little or no respect for individuals and organisations whom they consider local proxies engaged in neo-imperialist bidding. This ideological world view is institutionalised in their political calculus.

Fifteen years after its decisive electoral victory, the opposition, more specifically Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD, has lost its potency and vitality. Yet, the opposition still behaves as if it were accorded eternal legitimacy and mandate by the people, refusing to get off its moral high horse. The NLD has become a useless fixture in Myanmar's national politics, neither being able to pursue revolutionary politics or to facilitate an evolutionary process of change.

A strategic reorientation is urgently required and parties within and without Myanmar would do well to comprehend the new realities of the Myanmar question.

The West should begin to explore ways to de-escalate its hostile campaign against the junta, cease to look for a quid pro quo where none exists, and move towards normalising relations with Myanmar. This is the only option left in terms of facilitating change in Myanmar, as the junta has called the West's bluff.

Based on my sustained and first-hand conversations with ranking military officials from various camps over the past five years, I can say that there is a new generation of military officers who will take over the reins of the government once the ageing General Than Shwe departs from the scene. These officers take a keen interest in the West, wish to be accepted by the international community and want to see the country reintegrated fully into the international system.

At the same time, the European Union (EU) should embark on a critical review of its 'Common Position' on Myanmar. For starters, the lifting of travel bans against the junta and entering into direct and open policy dialogue with it could be a first step towards normalising relations. Germany has been clamouring for the normalising of relations between the EU and Myanmar. Perhaps it is time sensible voices from Berlin are heard.

Critically, the international community in general should normalise trade and commerce with Myanmar, encourage travel and tourism there, increase intellectual engagement, welcome cultural and sport exchanges, and build institutional and organisational linkages with the Myanmar state and its society.

Over the past 45 years, the people of Myanmar have had the greatest misfortune of living under authoritarian rule without development, first in military-imposed isolation and now under externally mandated sanctions. They should at least be permitted to enjoy development, irrespective of who is in power.

The people of Myanmar should not be punished for the sins of the junta.

The writer is a visiting research fellow at the Department of International Development (Queen Elizabeth House), University of Oxford. He founded the Free Burma Coalition. Copyright: OpinionAsia. www.opinionasia.org