Burma is notably absent from this month's UN Security Council agenda. The council is supposedly taking a subdued position on the issue to pave the way for the US to follow its own direct engagement policy with the junta.
End of the Rogue
Newsweek's latest issue runs an interesting piece on rogue states. Burma gets a healthy plug, see below. Read the full article here.Burma presents perhaps the starkest and most advanced case of the failure of Western strategies aimed solely at cutting off repressive regimes. The two-decade old policy of isolating Burma now looks like a carefully constructed attempt to weaken Western influence and open the door to China, while devastating Burma's legitimate economy and doing nothing to improve its people's human rights.
Rangoon today is a city in a time warp, with battered cars from the '50s driving down unpaved roads alongside rickshaws, and barefoot children selling Chinese-made trinkets to the few tourists walking among the dilapidated, abandoned villas of the city's faded colonial glory. Virtually no aspect of Western policy here has worked: the military junta is as firmly in control as ever; the democratic opposition is in disarray; and where Western policy toward Burma used to be primarily concerned with the regime's domestic behavior, it now must contend with the generals' suspected ties to North Korea, including in the area of nuclear cooperation.
This is not to say that the sanctions haven't had an impact—only that they have been entirely counterproductive. In a series of recent conversations with civil-society leaders, businessmen, and foreign diplomats in Rangoon, a grim picture emerged: a middle class decimated and forced into exile; an educational system entirely unable to develop the country's human capital; a private sector hollowed out, with only the junta's cronies able to profit from trade in the country's natural resources. One Burmese businessman I spoke with put it best. "We are twice sanctioned," he lamented. "First by the regime and second by the West." Hillary Clinton recognized as much recently, stating that "the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta." She added, with considerably less evidence, that "reaching out and trying to engage them hasn't influenced them either." Now tentative signs of a thaw in U.S.-Burma relations suggest that engagement may well have an impact—just not one that satisfies the short-term needs of Western policymakers and their demands for dramatic concessions.
For the rogues, the rising powers provide both diplomatic cover and alternative political and economic models. In Burma, Western sanctions have provided an opportunity for China and India to gain unchallenged economic and political influence within a country they consider of strategic significance.
Chomsky on Burma
2009 Matt Kennard interview:
I’m not optimistic, because there’s no real pressure. I mean the US makes a fuss about it at the UN, but it’s just showboating. If they meant anything they would say they are going to sanction India for cooperating with the Burmese junta.
As long as India and China support the junta there’s no reason for the generals to back off. If they back off they are just going to be killed, they are not going to survive if there is a popular uprising, so you can’t expect them to give up peacefully.
The history of the US and the Burmese junta is an ugly one which is not being talked about. In the 1950s – the period of decolonization – Burma kicked the British out, like they were everywhere, they were moving towards a functioning parliamentary democracy, with some major international statesmen like Rhutan, who was Secretary-General of the UN and a decent person, I met him.In 1958 the Eisenhower administration was involved in serious clandestine operations all over the region – they were trying to overthrow the government of Indonesia, they were sponsoring an insurrection in Cambodia, Vietnam we know about – but they were also trying to harass China, and one of the ways they were doing this was by bringing Chinese nationalist forces and exporting them to northern Burma so that they could carry out terrorist attacks from China. The Chinese nationalist generals had different ideas.
Instead of moving into China and getting killed by the Red Army, they decided to organise tribesmen in the hill areas and start narcotics production and enrich themselves, and in fact that’s one of the main sources of the famous Gold Triangle. It became one of the major centers of opium production worldwide. The Burmese tried to repress it, but they were unable to. The military were upset about it and eventually staged a coup which overthrew the parliamentary government. The junta is still there now.
The US is vocal about Burma now because it's cheap. They can say they are terribly upset about something we can’t do anything about. Why were they upset about Pol Pot? It was horrible, did they have a suggestion? You take a look back, there was not one suggestion about what we should do about it. So it’s a cheap way to pontificate and look righteous.
What I think might really make sense is diplomatic efforts that would involve primarily India, where the US has plenty of influence. It doesn’t have that much influence on China but India is different. To pressure India, Thailand and China also, to make moves towards some kind of rapprochement. Sanctions are probably meaningless and harmful. But diplomatic steps could be made – some way to ease the Burmese junta out without committing suicide, you’ve got to give them some options otherwise they won’t let go. As long as they have the complete loyalty of the army which apparently they do have, no uprising is going to take place, people are going to get slaughtered in the streets.
Burma had one of the few elected governments in the region in the 1950s, and was intent on pursuing a neutralist course. The Eisenhower administration was carrying out vigorous efforts to enlist the governments in the region into its Cold War crusades. As part of this broad campaign of subversion and violence, Washington installed thousands of heavily armed Chinese Nationalist troops in northern Burma to carry out cross-border operations into China. Burma vigorously objected, but in vain. The China forces began arming and supporting insurgent minorities in that turbulent region. In reaction, power within Burma began to shift to the military, leading finally to the 1962 coup. The matter is discussed by Audrey and George Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy. George Kahin was one of the leading Southeast Asian scholars, virtually the founder of the academic discipline in the US. The consequences of the US-UK-Israeli operations you describe (enormous UK investment in Burma, earlier US weapons sales, recent Israeli weapons sales to the junta, Chevron Oil's continued supply of millions and millions of dollars in oil money) are, of course, to strengthen the military junta. These matters are unreported and unknown in the US, apart from specialists and activists, because they interfere too dramatically with the doctrine that "we are good" and "they are evil", the foundation of virtually every state propaganda system.
I suspect that any popular uprising right now would result in a slaughter. On the other hand, the military leaders are aging, and there may be popular forces developing that can erode their power from within.
The rulers have a good thing going for themselves, nothing to gain by yielding power and no major risks in using it violently. So that's what they'll probably do, until the military erodes from within. Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor. Quite often it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, in unexpected ways. But judgments about that would have to be based on intimate knowledge of the society and its various strands.
I think it's appropriate for people to rise up, but it's not for me to tell people to risk mass murder. As for assassinating leaders, the question is very much like asking whether it is appropriate to kill murderers. They should be apprehended by non-violent means, if possible. If they pull a gun and start shooting, it's legitimate to kill them in self-defence, if there is no lesser option.
The US can have and occasionally does have benign influences on many things. Now exactly how to deal with the Burmese junta is a question that has to be raised. Burma has a rotten, horrible government and surely, someone should try to help the Burmese people to free themselves from it, but the question of exactly how to do it is not simple. Sanctions often backfire - you really have to think of the right means of doing it. Sometimes, engagement is more effective. You really have to think this through, you cannot just have formulas.
Malaysia furthers investment in Team Junta
Oil and ethics just don't mix as Petronas, wholly owned by the Malaysian government and the country's biggest single business and contributor to the state budget, demonstrates once more. The company has teamed up with shady Burmese-Singaporean linkup UNOG in search of oil in Burma's Gulf of Martaban. The Burmese contingent is run by sons of Burma's Minister of Industry Aung Thaung, Nay Aung and Pyi Aung, the latter of whom is also son-in-law of junta No.2 Vice Snr-General Maung Aye. All of the above appear on Western sanctions lists.Petronas is already in partnership with France’s Total in the major Yetagun offshore field which supplies Burmese gas to Thailand, and is a major source of income to the ruling junta. Its board of directors attempts to keep its conscience clean with ironic exercises in moral licensing such as this.
The Burmese military junta has earned almost $5bn from a controversial gas pipeline operated by the French oil giant Total and deprived the country of vital income by depositing almost all the money in bank accounts in Singapore (ERI Report)
Land of Smiles
Thailand has had some issues with its hospitality as of late, despite a 'long history of kindness to refugees', according to Blooming Night Zan, KWO Joint Secretary. 3000 Karen refugees have been ordered by Thai authorities to return to their landmine riddled, conflict embroiled domiciles across the border in Karen Province by February 15th.This only a week after 9 Karen job seekers were mowed down near Mae Sot for failing to muster up $33 in bribe money for a group of 'plain clothed gunmen'. A group of Thai police officers are being investigated as suspects.
'Orphans of Burma’s Cyclone' cameraman sentenced
Another work made possible by the heroic undercover legion of cameramen in Burma, the documentary follows the lives of eight rural orphans in the wake of cyclone Nargis. It provides a glimpse into the downtrodden existence of many ordinary Burmese, and the merciless indifference of the generals in light of this.Six months after filming completed, Democratic Voice of Burma cameramen Ngwe Soe Lin, awarded the Rory Peck award for his work on the documentary, was arrested in Rangoon. He was charged and imprisoned for filming without government permission, which carries a minimum jail sentence of 10 years. His trial ended on Thursday; he has been handed a 13 year sentence.
This is an unjust case. I think they would like to give a clear message to other reporters that if they do same, they will be given similar punishment. However, we will expose what’s going on in Burma (Toe Zaw Latt, DVB (Thai) Bureau Chief)
Apparatchik alert: Tay Za
A message from John Pilger, and a note on China
"I am happy to support your society with this endorsement. All power to your commitment.The situation inside Burma commands our attention, and action. The National League for Democracy is the legitimate government, not the military junta that betrayed parliamentary elections and has oppressed the people for too many years. The NLD and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, herself under house arrest, need our support -- to ensure the world never forgets. In recent years we have seen demonstrated amazing courage by ordinary people in Burma; the least we can do is give their cause our time, and thought, and activism.
Pressure on the junta can work; for example, the Chinese government is Burma's principal backer and every Chinese representative ought to be reminded that the world still watches Burma."
John Pilger
Tonight 10 pm: Burma VJ on More4
Kicking off More4's 'troubled nations' season, which will focus on Burma this month and next, Afghanistan in April and Zimbabwe in May, is the UK television premiere of ground-breaking documentary Burma VJ by filmmaker Anders Østergaard, an undercover video journalistic account of the 2007 monks' uprising in the streets of Rangoon.A group of journalists risked life and limb for the footage they then covertly jettisoned out of Burma to be processed in Oslo, Norway, to then be beamed back into Burma via satellite in a bid to deliver the truth of the uprisings to the population, as well as around the world, to keep awareness alive.
Be a part of the Burma Hub, London School of Economics Burma Society
Hello, Zarni here.There’s a group of LSE students who have traveled to Burma, and came back rather shocked to learn the sorry state of ordinary citizens languishing quietly under a horrendously backward military regime. They are in the process of setting up a Burma Society at the LSE. I would urge you to participate in their future web fora, etc. These students are no feel-good, do-gooders looking for a cause to support. They saw with their own eyes a society dying of a thousand cuts (as opposed to a single blow of civil war or foreign invasion).
What they witnessed goes against the current faddish trend among INGOs and certain self-interested local civilian elites of talking up the power of the grassroots and all that.
The entire education and healthcare systems have crumbled, for all intents and purposes. The bureaucracy at all levels lives off bribes. The big generals and their cronies feel they make up the most brilliant specimen of eco-military alliance since the country's independence in 1948, sitting on a massive flow of cash off the sales of natural resources - never mind the ecological disaster(s) that will result from the reckless rape of the country's environment, or that their economic leadership has led to a situation where several million Burmese emigrate or wonder across borders in search of employment.
As very bright students at one of the world's most intellectually vibrant universities, these students understand what many an expert on Burma fails to see: a country with a population of 50 million of which 40% are youths, many of whom are ill-educated or completely uneducated, cannot be said to have any future at all. That's about 20 million people ill-equipped intellectually and with little or no proper schooling, save a tiny number of elite children and students who can afford private tuition or education abroad.
The LSE students wish to draw public attention to the magnitude of the challenges facing Burma. It would be good if you would all lend a helping hand in getting this public hub off the ground.
Lost in translation
Nobel laureate economist and development expert Joseph Stiglitz spoke in Burma last month, offering constructive insight into pragmatic routes towards a better standard of living for Burma's people.The generals thanked him profusely, no sooner waving him goodbye than calling Russia with an order for $570m worth of MiG fighter jets.
Inside Burma: Land Of Fear
John Pilger's undercover documentary from 1996 remains an accurate description of how things stand in Burma today and provides a good introduction to the situation there.
Welcome to the LSE's Burma hub
The London School of Economics presents its first Burma-oriented association, for anyone interested in discussions relating to progress and the pursuit of democracy in the country, and raising awareness of its people's plight.
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