Ashley South has put together an interesting analysis of recent events in Burma. It is available, in full, here. He concludes by noting that:
The international community has done little to support such peace-building: much more could have - and still might be - done to promote community development. The armed ethnic groups should move away from political strategies based on a simplistic mapping of ethnicity and homeland territory, towards a more sophisticated, rights-based approach to self-determination.
These opposition networks have found themselves increasingly marginalised, and out-manoeuvred by the military government. Their strategic and ideological weakness, and general lack of capacity, is among the most worrying aspects of the country’s sad situation.
The cyclone and its consequences have presented opposition elites with a chance to reassess their positions on a range of issues. Even if Burma’s opposition networks do not become more effective, the widely-reviled military regime might yet fall. However, any such development would occur despite - not because of - their activities.
37 responses so far ↓
1 Ed Canell // Jul 1, 2008 at 8:36 am
Most of my ideas about the third world and its nations who have little but their cultural heritage as the material world sees them, are to simplistic to be real. I would ask what it is the people, not the Junta’s and the Despots who run rampant all over the peoples want. What can the rest of the world do for the folks who don’t have the ability to speak for themselves for whatever reasons. Once we find out they could use our military or civil assistance, we should formulate a plan of action to remove the Junta’s and the despots from their towers and bring the people forth into the light of the 21st century. Yet, then it means that all I can think of is the phyiscal and not how to diplomatically respond to the folks in power. If they overthrew legally elected governments, then they deserve the same to happen to them. The one thing that always gets in the way is the collateral damage brought upon the innocents of those places. Yet, when you look at life, there are no innocents just victims, wherein some will have to pay the ultimate price for the rest to breath clean air and freedom once again.
So we say to Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka, Bangaladesh, how can we help you gain your rightful place at the table of free nations of the world???ED
2 Moe Aung // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:21 am
We all saw the response of the international community, read Western here, when the French wanted to invoke R2P and force aid. Many Burmese were very disappointed when they learned that the ships in the Bay of Bengal had withdrawn. They had hoped for Western intervention in sheer desperation - there was a widespread rumour of a US naval ship loaded with arms and greenbacks to assist the popular uprising in 1988 too - but I was surprised these states actually expected the military junta to let them land or their helicopters fly in.
An invasion that inevitably leads to a period of occupation would have been unwise given the strength of Burmese nationalism among the public in general and the military in particular, and given the none too impressive record of the behaviour of invader/occupiers faced with resistance over time.
There was a brief window of opportunity for a one off surgical air strike on Naypyidaw which would have been very welcome by most Burmese including many in the army, when China had her hands full in the wake of the Szichuan quake. It could have set off a much hoped for army rebellion if they got a clear message that an invasion was not going to follow, and would have laid the door wide open for aid. There would have been strong words and condemnation in the UNSC and from ASEAN, but would any of them, China and the rest, retaliate against their major trading partners on Burma’s behalf? Not very likely.
People would still want to look for weapons in preparation for yet another confrontation given the intransigence of and continued repression by the junta. If the long hoped for mutiny in the army fails to materialise altogether, access to arms and munitions becomes an insurmountable problem, and the odds no better than in 1988. Aung San Suu Kyi not only failed to split the army and pull off a Cori Aquino at the time, but managed to split the opposition by refusing to work with U Nu. These mistakes proved fatal and sealed the fate of the uprising.
I couldn’t agree more that the issue of leadership is of paramount importance. Ready or not on the part of the leaders, the country is a tinderbox and can explode again at any time. With shortage of fuel and food in the offing the chances of this scenario recurring are very high. But over and over again, we have witnessed the opposition leadership that came into being riding the wave of a popular uprising overtaken by the events and reduced to reacting and picking up the pieces as best they can under severe restrictions, and completely hamstrung by their total commitment to non-violence, even those driven into exile.
The junta has so far only involved some handpicked minority representatives in order to achieve consensus, just as they have conjured out of the referendum a magical 92.4% approval, for their new constitution. Why some people still expect the generals to do the right and honourable thing after so many times and for so long is beyond me.
The Burmese will in due course find the right leaders to fight their own battles. Premature insurrections and defeats need to be avoided. In the end however armed resistance may yet prove to be the only option left. If ‘to be prepared for the worst’ doesn’t mean that I don’t know what does.
Minorities have gone through a very protracted civil war and so have Burmans themselves against a succession of Socialist and military ruling elites since independence 60 years ago, culminating in a stalemate at best or defeat and annihilation at worst. United fronts come and go but disunity and fragmentation have dogged them all along. Unless a unified struggle by the majority Burman and ethnic nationalities can be forged to include both above and underground oppositon as achieved during the fight for independence, a new dawn for Burma is still a long way off.
3 jonfernquest // Jul 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
“In the end however armed resistance may yet prove to be the only option left….”
…to return to, once again….
…as in U Nu’s Pyi-thu Aung-lan from the 1950s, even made into a Hollywood motion picture, in which everyone in the family seems to be in revolt.
Trouble is, the Pyi-thu never found an Aung-lan.
The full lists of acronyms for political oppposition groups in Burma is pretty much proof that unified armed resistance is unlikely if not impossible.
Interesting reading Ashley South’s paper and your comments Moe Aung, but honestly can anyone guess how this is going to play out?
An alternative counterfactual world is that over the next 20 years the generals just bungle their way into semi-economic development, and we all die before the final act of this drama. Not that I sympathise with the generals, just that I am not afraid to explicitly mention the rather horrible possibility that everyone religiously works around in the language of every comment and analysis of Burma’s political situation, that the generals may have already won, that all they have to do is slowly and systematically consolidate their position.
4 Moe Aung // Jul 3, 2008 at 4:32 am
Jon, you are such a doom merchant, but why state the obvious that the generals have already won and all they are doing is slowly and systematically consolidate their position. They are entrenched for goodness sake. Forty six years not consolidated enough for you? But I agree they never let their guard down and remain determined to hang on to power at all costs. No news whatsoever to the Burmese nation.
You seem to be paraphrasing John Maynard Keynes that in the long run we are all dead. Something to look forward to, eh? Burmese Buddhists don’t need a lecture on the law of impermanence - this of course applies to militray rule like everything else that must rise and fall - or the benefit of good karma to be invested here and now i.e. right effort to strive for the common good. And death, you should know better, hasn’t the same significance to people who believe in Samsara - the cycle of births and rebirths.
So like good liberal parents, do we just let the generals do their own thing, learn from their own mistakes, find themselves at the end of a leisurely soul searching? Give them the benefit of the doubt and they’ll come to their senses and bungle their way in the next 20 years into semi-economic development. Wonderful, you cheered me up no end Jon.
Yes, Burmese politics has always been fractious. The expression ‘all chiefs and no indians’ appears to have been invented for the Burmese. It doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t unite under one organisation for a common goal. They’ve done it before under the umbrella organisation the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) in the fight for independence.
BTW it was ‘Ludu aungthan’ (The People Win Through), the US funded anti-Communist play by the late Socialist prime minister U Nu in the early days of the civil war of Socialists vs Communists & Ethnics. I’ve seen the B&W film with Bo Ba Ko as the lead, read the comic printed in the US, and the prescribed school text taught to my older cousins, with full US blessing.
5 jonfernquest // Jul 3, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Moe Aung: “Jon, you are such a doom merchant, but why state the obvious that the generals have already won and all they are doing is slowly and systematically consolidate their position.”
Because no one treats it as obvious. It’s always, what can we do now to overthrow the generals, regime change, over and over again, something that might well never happen.
I’m only trying to project what the future will be like. I’d say that China and Yunnan will become more important in Burma’s future.
I don’t make any money from prognosticating about Burma’s future, so I’m not a “merchant” and it is only “doom” if the west continues to deal with Burma in the same dysfunctional way it has in the past, and even then it’s probably not “doom” because China is coming into its own as an economic power, and may eventually be able to offer Burma a real alternative to the west.
Moe Aung: “So like good liberal parents, do we just let the generals do their own thing, learn from their own mistakes, find themselves at the end of a leisurely soul searching?”
The generals may catch a ride on Chinese economic development, and eventually become, as a class, a lot more benign than they are now hopefully, through the mellowing effect of an internal middle class. Certainly the west’s unrelenting strategy of isolation will not make them any more benign.
Name a single Asian or Southeast Asian state that hasn’t had its share of human rights violating generals. My standard of comparison is Park Chung Hee who developed South Korea into the 11th largest economy in the world, and an essential part of that was overcoming Korea’s much-warranted aversion to the Japanese, a country that had recently colonised and oppressed Koreans. Having overcome that largely psychological barrier he essentially rode the end of the Japanese product life cycle to prosperity. If you want to see human rights violations right under the nose of the US, with pretty much tacit acquiescence look at the security state of Park Chung Hee the KCIA, and later the Kwangju massacre.
In Burma’s case, the psychological barrier has been moving on from the 1991 election result which the west keeps harping on, does the west still harp on China’s Tiannamen massacre? No. The subject is taboo in China itself, the Chinese have simply moved on to an activity that makes this past event largely irrelevant for most, namely rapid economic development.
Moe Aung: “Burmese Buddhists don’t need a lecture on the law of impermanence… ”
“And death, you should know better, hasn’t the same significance to people who believe in Samsara - the cycle of births and rebirths. ”
Who said the remarks were directed towards Burmese Buddhists?
I don’t lecture anyone.
It’s a sobering thought (and tragic) though when you think back over generations and generations of dreams that have never come to fruition.
The depiction of Samsara in Buddhist cultures, whether Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or Burmese, does seem to share a common forlorn sadness and sense of futility in human action.
6 jonfernquest // Jul 3, 2008 at 10:42 pm
The long lists of Chinese investments in Burma in Dr Maung Aung Myoe ’s 2007 paper at national University of Singapore show where Burma’s future is probably heading:
http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/publication_details.asp?pubtypeid=WP&pubid=647
7 Moe Aung // Jul 4, 2008 at 2:05 am
Jon, I do share your sense of tragedy and frustration. Although the state of being is believed to be suffering punctuated by transient episodes of happiness, karma itself far from being an exercise in futility urges one to engage in right thought and action at the present moment for a good future. One has no control however over what’s past and done. As you sow, so shall you reap. That’s why just to wring one’s hands in despair now and let evolution take its course - something no one controls to a large extent and with an uncertain outcome - is hardly the right action. Passivity and complacency are just as bad as fatalism erroneously attributed to Buddhism. The point is not to dwell on the past but to move forward and shape the future.
Perhaps we’ve been talking at cross purposes, you addressing mainly what the West can do and me concentrating on the Burmese inside the country. Yes, China and Yunnan have always been important to Burma, now more than ever I agree. China is also best placed to help the people of Burma, I don’t mean the generals, provided there exists the political will. But a one-party state on a capitalist agenda which China is today is hardly conducive to such a humanitarian programme within or without her borders.
Should Burma emulate China for its rapid economic progress, or South Korea for that matter? Even if economic prosperity mitigates human rights abuses, a pragmatic attitude to Third World countries more or less consistently adopted by the dominant Western economies as people they can do business with, the generals have shown neither the competence to run anything besides a repressive state apparatus nor the inclination to share any of the prosperity with the people they rule over. Unfortunately for the Burmese we see no sign of a benevolent despot on the horizon.
The consensus view today, it seems, is to nurture a middle class and civil society for a gradual evolutionionary march towards a Western style liberal democracy. Whether that’s what’s really happening in South Korea or Singapore, even in Japan well ahead of the game , is rather a moot point. Definitely not in China for all those impressive growth rates.
China, India, ASEAN states, they’ve all been doing what the West, were it not for the high moral ground albeit with some major loopholes that they have seized, would ideally love to do - grab market share and resources, not least cheap labour. Western powers will probably never do the right thing i.e. put people before profits, since that’s not what they do within their own borders either. So it is rather a forlorn hope and a depressing future if you put all your eggs in that particular basket.
Of course it’s not like they have not intervened either covertly or overtly in the Third World. Quite on the contrary. But as you yourself have implied a few times, the principle behind it , though undeclared, is ‘what’s in it for me?’ And these days they make a profit from both destroying a country and rebuilding it afterwards. Can there possibly be a better plan? Even the Burmes regime has cottoned on to it. It’s planning to replace the peasants and fishermen of the delta with industrial scale farming and tourism. Fancy getting into the game of widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It’s the only game in town after all.
So that’s my bit being the prophet of doom and gloom, Jon.
8 Stephen // Jul 4, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Is fascism in success inherently contradictory? That seems to be the suggestion here; with the political/economic elite, through their ostensibly nationalist-justified crony capitalism eventually succumbing to an inevitable middle class which, in turn, mellows the violent authoritarianism of the elite.
While I think there are some strong points with this argument, I’m inclined towards thinking that this suggestion misses much of the class-based character of conflict in Burma and the efforts made to ensure that the ruling political and economic elite remain on top. For example, what factors influence the extent to which the ruling class mellows? Is it solely economic prosperity without regard to ‘everyday resistance’ or organised opposition challenging the consolidation of power around the elite? This seems in line with typical elite arguments about the lower classes benefiting from elite prosperity; something like Reaganomics and the presumed ‘trickle-down’ benefits of elite economic prosperity. It does seem that seeing the conflict in (and debate about) Burma as one of authoritarian-driven prosperity vs. democratically-driven liberalism misses this class-based character of the conflict.
9 Moe Aung // Jul 4, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Stephen, I couldn’t agree more that that’s exactly the problem with post-modern end-of-history thinking prevalent today. It comes from the unquestioning acceptance of the primary role of ‘wealth creators and job givers’ plus ‘trickle-down’ theory and ‘we are all working class because we all work for a living, and we are all middle class because we are all comfortable, thank you very much’ mantra under Reagan and Thatcher. It goes with the recurring claim of abolishing the boom bust cycle and the class based society.
You only have to look at India, the world’s largest democracy, with its unparalled poverty seen everyday cheek by jowl with astonishing personal wealth. China today too, the most successful totalitarian state, witnessing immense prosperity but most of it in the hands of the ruling class, the CCP and its cronies. Trickle-down? Not in amillion years at this rate.
10 jonfernquest // Jul 4, 2008 at 7:14 pm
“‘trickle-down’ benefits of elite economic prosperity.”
In punishing the leader of the country through economic sanctions,
the west has also punished the people of the country. Why?
Because the leaders largely control the economy of the country,
so economic opportunity for those below depends on economic
opportunity for those above.
I take it you have never worked in the private sector before.
I work in and am a small part of a large company owned by one of the leading business families of Thailand. If they fail, I fail. This is the sort of economic reality that neither university students supported by the state nor activists that can fail over and over again to achieve their objective, without consequence, obviously cannot understand.
What is really needed are specific case studies, as in the recent Pasuk and Baker Thai Capital book, rather than flashy words like fascism and Reaganomics, that are essentially meaningless.
11 Stephen // Jul 4, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Here are some suggestions all of which come from Myanmar – The State, Community and the Environment:
“Environmental governance in the SPDC’s Myanmar,” Tun Myint
“Environmental governance of mining in Burma,” Matthew Smith
“Spaces of extraction: Governance along the riverine networks of Nyaunglebin District,” Ken MacLean
And a final case, China in Burma: The increasing investment of Chinese multinational corporations in Burma’s hydropower, oil &gas, and mining sectors.
But to clarify, I am not suggesting that exploitive governance in Burma means there must be sanctions in order to punish the leaders of the country. That was not the issue I raised. Rather, we can’t assume that just any economic investment will necessarily be beneficial to the people nor that just any economic opportunity for those above will necessarily lead to economic opportunity for those below. I think it’s rather limiting to suggest that the only two possibilities are exploitive, unregulated industry and absolute isolation.
12 Moe Aung // Jul 4, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Jon, I’m sure you don’t believe the leaders of Burma are writhing with pain under the punishment meted out by the West. You of all people know they are surrounded by friendly nations more than happy to do business with them, thank you very much. Burma is not South Africa with major trading links to the West. Although you are absolutely right in concluding that sanctions only hurt the people the most, at the risk of repeating myself yet again, it’s the lack of political will to lift the living standards of their own people that’s the problem, the sheer neglect to even trickle down, to improve basic infrastructure and public services.
We all live in a world where privatisation, creeping or instant, part or whole, remains the order of the day. Redundancies and lack of job security threaten everyone whenever a recession hits and there’s one looming ahead as you well know. Profits accrue to individuals, but losses are socialised so the system can survive and the bosses get a second chance over and over again.
When they want your vote, politicians talk up the importance of small and middling businesses which they then all too readily sacrifice on the alters of capitalism in times of crisis, so big business - banking and finance in particular - can pull through. Occasionally they might even let one of the big guys go such as the Midland Bank in Britain, Yamaichi in Japan and LTCM in the US just to show that the checks and balances are working.
I’m sure specific case studies are very helpful as part of the bigger picture and to illustrate a point. The masters of the universe, like their good selves, want everyone to take a myopic view of short term gains and profits, and would rather we didn’t see the wood for the trees. They do however have a long term plan for domination of the planet’s resources both human and natural.
Let’s not forget everyone needs to put food on the table, not just businessmen. Everything is interconnected I agree, but see the connection in the struggles of ordinary people all over the planet as well as the connection between individual economies. Globalisation as we know it works mainly for international capital and ruling elites, and the same old bitter medicine - privatisation, abolition of subsidies, cutbacks on public sector expenditure - is on prescription not just whenever things become unstuck but as a panacea for economic development.
13 Don Jameson // Jul 5, 2008 at 3:42 am
Dear Jonfernquest: I sympathize with your point of view. I think it should be clear by now from this discussion and others that most people just do not want to understand Burma or think serioiusly about practical means for dealing with the situation as it exists on the ground there. They prefer to engage in myths and dreams about what might be rather than come to terms with what is. Nothing much is likely to change in Burma anytime soon in any case but this sort of fantacizing is definitely not going to influence conditions there much no matter what happens. And when change does come to Burma (as it eventually must, although not necessarily for the better) few if any outside observers will have any inkling that it is on the horizon because it will depend on the actions of a few key people whose intentions we will never know until they act. In dealing with Burma patience should be the watchword and those who do not want to accept this will always be frustruated with the situation and with those who know enough about the country to see it in this light.
14 Moe Aung // Jul 5, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Messrs Don & Jon, Patience or rather endurance has characterised the Burmese nation and of course you will prescribe more of the same for that’s all you have to offer and no hope though it’s something you can’t deprive people of who have nothing but hope, and no plan B - poverty of thought. So just watch and wait, engage constructively and show the generals their errant way. Great. Very well, may we all live in interesting times.
15 jonfernquest // Jul 6, 2008 at 2:55 am
Moe Aung: “Patience or rather endurance has characterised the Burmese nation and of course you will prescribe more of the same for that’s all you have to offer…”
I have Burmese friends whom I sympathize with and whom I would like the see the situation clear up so that they can lead a fruitful life with their families in their own country, instead of depending on work outside the country. That is what I wish.
I am not a policymaker or even someone who does research on contemporary Burma so I can “prescribe” nothing. I can only express my disgust with a situation that never resolves itself, and at least in recent times, western isolating policy is largely responsible for, lord knows the isolationist tendencies of the Burmese state can be traced far back into the 1950s or even before.
Because there are hardly any business or economic relations between the west and Burma to speak of, the voice of activists, which are only one voice among many in well-rounded neighboring Thailand, dominate. This is regrettable and part of the reason that no solution is forthcoming. China appear to be gradually stepping to fill this gap.
16 jonfernquest // Jul 6, 2008 at 4:36 am
Moe Aung: “…you will prescribe more of the same for that’s all you have to offer”
All I can suggest, Moe Aung, is learn how to read. What was the point above?
1. China, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china….
2. Not more of the same.
3. The Chinese are offering it, not me.
4. The Burmese are taking it, it’s the only option they
have for putting food on the table and getting on
with they’re life.
5. The west? Still waiting for the revolution.
17 Moe Aung // Jul 6, 2008 at 7:06 am
Jon, I truly admire your passion over the issues and the plight of the Burmese people. You have friends you care about. Me? I just want to go home! Just like lots and lots of Burmese displaced in a diaspora whether by choice or not but driven by the circumstances they find themselves in. They may be called the lucky ones if they find a safe haven and a livelihood somewhere. But I am absolutely certain as soon as the situation changes for the better they’d be home like a shot.
Your problem is that you have so much faith in the do-gooding potential of the West which some of us do not share. Not that I’m enamoured by capitalist China rampant in the region. Again it’s all down to the political will, isn’t it? Wanting to share the national pie at all or not, Jon. People don’t mind the lion’s share going to the elite so long as there’s enough to go round, anywhere in the world. That’s what happens in countries where you also see peace and a level of prosperity. Of course some of them would look around near and far and think what’s on my plate is mine and what’s on yours is mine too.
You are so fixated with the isolation by and from the West. You yourself alluded to the propensity of Burmese rulers to isolationism. Japan’s isolation lasted more than 200 years and it took Western gunboat diplomacy to end it. But you wouldn’t recommend it though, would you? Neither would I? I don’t want Rangoon bombarded from sea or from the sky.
No, we don’t make policy, we merely pontificate from the sidelines and from a safe distance. But I dare say your disgust is nothing compared with mine. Although I’m leading a comfortable life in the West, the majority of my own people have as they would say ‘no land to flee, no money to pay’, and I have known the older generation in my family and others living with the hope and dying off one by one. So it is personal, and I’m not getting any younger myself. I would so love to see my country back on her feet and hold her head up once again, and my people fulfil their genetic potential both physically and intellectually. This great nation has been let down so badly by its despotic rulers for so long, to say it’s criminal would be a gross understatement.
18 jonfernquest // Jul 6, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Today, an example of exactly who steps in to fill the gap when the US decides to disengage and isolate Burma: Wa-Chinese drug lords:
The Hong Pang Group
MAXMILIAN WECHSLER
“Wei Hseuh-kang’s Hong Pang Group is the biggest enterprise in the Wa State, with numerous business interests throughout Burma. These include a cement factory, liquor distilleries, petrol stations, department stores, road building, construction, agricultural ventures, electronics, jewelry and gem business, communications, textiles and many others. The company also has thousands of acres of fruit orchards and owns coal and jade mines.
The story began in the late 1980s when Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, the Burmese military intelligence chief at that time, negotiated ceasefire agreements with a number of non-Burmese armed ethnic groups. He offered them many privileges, such as the right to administer their own regions, and granted them business concessions in return for ending their armed struggle against the government….
When a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York on January 24, 2005 indicted eight UWSA members, including Wei Hseuh-kang, the indictment also sought forfeiture of directly traceable assets of the defendants, including all assets of the Hong Pang Group holding company and affiliated businesses operating in Burma, China, Hong Kong, Thailand and other countries…,Yet the Hong Pang Group continues to thrive. ”
Drug lords would not be able to step in to fill the gap, if the US had taken proactive steps to engage Burma, and not choose, because of its strategic irrelevance, as a poster-child for “do-gooding” after 1988, a policy that has furthered the country’s isolation, and as evidenced in recent failures in disaster relief and the rise of drug lord to industrial magnate documented in today’s article, has reduced the influence of the US and the west over the course of events in the country, effectively to zero.
Moe Aung: “Your problem is that you have so much faith in the do-gooding potential of the West which some of us do not share.”
That is the exact opposite of what I am arguing. Chinese investments in the paper by Dr. Maung Aung Moe of Singapore cited above, do not all come from drug lords.
19 Moe Aung // Jul 6, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Jon, you seem to have a blind side where the noble intentions of the West are concerned. Have you forgotten that the CIA used to do a roaring business with the late Khun Sa? I hope you are not just being jealous of the Chinese stepping into the breach in exploiting and wielding influence on Burma, on behalf of the West. There is a Burmese expression that so aptly suits Western duplicity: ‘a flaming torch in one hand and a fire bucket in the other’.
Yes, former and current opium war lords have become leading entrepreneurs with business empires which as one might say have developed in the best tradition of robber barons - that’s evolution for you, Jon, as in the old West, but not as you’d like it when the Chinese happen to be the main players - and when wealth and unchallenged power join hands it leaps forward. It has of course also taken advantage of globalisation even if it’s been a little late in the day, for it really was a godsend at the time when the military badly needed to change tack from ’socialism’ .
You reckon Khin Nyunt would have been enticed by Western capital properly engaging the junta in preference to the Chinese? Perhaps. And perhaps it is the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately for the West they were the more historically recent and worse enemies than the Chinese, and you underestimate Burmese nationalism at your peril.
Don’t forget that until the whole thing got too far in the age of the Internet with the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi incarcerated for so long, not so much the periodic crackdowns and massacres in the past too, the West had been quite comfortable with the late strongman Ne Win so long as he remained staunchly anti-communist, never mind his monopoly on the exploitation and repression - he often rubbed shoulders with the British royalty and went to the races which he had banned in Burma. And the West would have been more than happy to do business with him had he been more accommodating to international capital. Now that was real isolation and not because of but despite the West willing to have their finger in the pie.
Strange you appear to contradict yourself in the final bit. If you are not talking about the comparative benefits of Western vs Chinese influence what are you trying to say? China,China, China ……. West, West, West ……. China bad West good, China bad West good, China bad West good? Is it so black and white, no pun intended? I would probably accept the lesser of two evils argument, to wit democratic vs totalitarian models.
20 Moe Aung // Jul 7, 2008 at 2:31 am
Interesting too, isn’t it, that the Hong Pang Group, leaders of an armed ethnic insurgency arising from such a backwater region as the Wa state, now has so much reach and clout in the national economy investing their ill-gotten gains once they’ve made a deal with the junta, when the people they are supposed to represent, the Wa tribe, have not reaped any of the benefits to any significant extent. For the warlords of the Wa, violence has paid off.
The ruling class, even in tribal society, always believes their own interest is synonymous with the national interest. The Burmese junta, or any other ruling elite for that matter anywhere in the world, is no exception. Trickle-down, if that really happens to a significant degree, seems to be the least they can do for their own people. Alas, many just don’t bother. Globalisation in its present form makes the gap between the haves and the have-nots exponentially wider, given the elite gaining better access to international capital but no change in the political will to better the lives of ordinary people.
So we’ll just wait patiently for evolutionary processes to take their course while the world comes to an agreement to improve the generals by association, hoping that it will rub off on them, by doing business with them, getting a piece of the action for everyone, all snouts together in the trough, and calling it pragmatism. Hooray!
21 Don Jameson // Jul 8, 2008 at 2:23 am
Dear Jon: Burmese leaders have been isolationist for centuries not just since the 1950s. This is part of a deeply introverted tradtion stemming from an inland kingdom with little outside contact until the arrival of the British, whose conquest of Burma further fueled xenophobia and dislike for meddling foreigners. Now a few western educated Burmese seem to think they can just wipe this long heritage off the books and Burma will instantaneously become a well adjusted modern nation. This will not happen. Overcoming the long heritage of isolation will inevitably be a slow process and those poorly informed international groups who wish to isolate the country further are just retarding movement in this direction. That approach betrays a total lack of knowledge about Burmese history and an incredible arrogance which can be described in my view as a new form of imperialism. You may not be a policy maker but I think you understand the incredients of a sound policy toward Burma. Unfortunately the so-called policy makers do not and are so full of themselves that they refuse to listen to anyone who tells them they are on the wrong track. It is understandable that Burmese like Moe Aung want to hope for a positive outcome but in my view hope alone will not do the trick. It will also require serious analysis and knowledge of the underlying historical and cultural factors which have produced the present impasse, and then a policy approach which takes all this into consideration. At this point that does not seem very likely any time soon.
22 Stephen // Jul 8, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Don, I am in full agreement with you that current policy approaches that haven’t moved beyond isolationism need far more historically and culturally informed analysis in order to tangibly contribute to any sort of positive change in Burma. I believe that this was Thant Myint-U’s underlying argument in The River of Lost Footsteps. I also share Jon Fernquest’s frustration (perhaps he wrote this in a different thread) at various US administrations using Burma as a ‘whipping boy’ in an attempt at recouping from the moral deficit of their gross human rights violating policies elsewhere in the world.
However, I don’t think that the failure of isolationism means foreign policy on Burma should swing to the other extreme. The polarisation of the discussions on engagement with the Burma has been extremely limiting. On the on hand we have those who argue that there can be no improvement in the conditions of people presently living in Burma until there is regime change and on the other hand we have those who argue that only unconditional economic investment and ostensibly ‘apolitical’ development programmes can (and necessarily will) lead to an improvement in the situation for those in the country. Actually, I don’t think that many people hold either extreme but occasionally we hear accusations that those leaning towards more engagement are ‘apologists for the regime’ or ‘enemies of the revolution’ while those concerned about the harmful fallout of politically blind economic investment and development programmes in the immediate and long-term are selfish ideologues willing to hold the population of Burma hostage to long term political goals narrowly defined as regime change.
Somewhere in between these two extremes is a form of engagement that is politically aware and supports local structures that challenge the totalising and exploitative efforts of the SPDC. I think that Ashley South’s 2004 article “Political Transition in Burma: A new model for democratisation,” in Contemporary Southeast Asia is a useful step in this direction. I think that a further step would be a deeper understanding of what Benedict Kerkvliet called ‘everyday politics’ and a form of engagement that supports local people’s own efforts to resist exploitative implementation of State policy. This could involve incorporating greater ‘protection’ efforts into existing programmes of humanitarian agencies working in Burma. I think that the International Labour Organisation has done some positive work in this direction. Anyway, I’m also not a policy maker but this middle way seems a possible means of getting beyond the polarised debate on engagement.
23 Moe Aung // Jul 8, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Don, none of us would be here if we are not entitled to an opinion. Most of us presumably have a day job, and are not into policy-making though your esteemed self may have been, given that you appear to be an old Burma hand. I’m sure you’ve actually seen a lot more of the country than I have with my limited means.
I doubt it if Burmese dislike of patronising, proselytising, agressive, greedy and meddling foreigners is likely to be wiped off the books ever. It is as you rightly said a historical product, and Jon’s knowledge of Burma as you may well be aware goes back for centuries, and we shall forever be grateful for his translation of U Kala’s Maha Yazawin-gyi chronicles and his articles on 16th C Burma.
Isolation I agree has been extremely detrimental to the country, and we do need outward looking leaders in future. Then again if I know the Burmese psyche well, a few Western educated Burmese are not likely to have a very significant impact if they shout until their faces go blue. They’ll know how to deal with opinionated busybody expats like yours truly. Policy makers anywhere in the world by nature are full of themselves, and hope alone won’t ever do the trick. Talk about stating the obvious.
Serious analysis based on the knowledge of historical and cultural factors for a sound policy approach sounds good and proper, though taking its own sweet time forever. And I do find it very helpful to find out what a certain cross section of learned opinion or gut feeling is like - the volunteer fighters, some of whom have impressed me and changed my view of them as mere mercenaries, as well as the pair of you. Not that I’ll be shaping any of the country’s policy but as they say comment is free.
24 Don Jameson // Jul 9, 2008 at 1:00 am
Stephan: You are right that a policy somewhere between the extremes is needed. The approaches now being followed both by Burmese activitists and international actors result largely from frustration, which is generally not a good basis for sound policy making. However, this has been going on for so long that it has become an ingrained habit and will be difficult, if not impossible, to change it appears. And in the meantime the Burmese people will continue to suffer, without much prospect of improvement in their situation. Fortunately the Burmese are very experienced at living under these conditions and thus do not even find it that unusual. They hope for the best but expect the worst, and that is what they get most of the time. I do not see any change in sight.
25 Moe Aung // Jul 9, 2008 at 3:07 am
Thank you Stephen for your kind arbitration in a way. You can be detached, I assume, whereas the rest of us are rather emotionally involved to a degree. I too am not optimistic in the short term. What do you do when one side has all the guns? It’s the only factor that’s maintained the status quo. Regime change, I’d rather call a spade a spade, is what the people will achieve when the conditions are ripe.
Outsiders, East or West, can come up with any number of analyses and approaches, and they should in their dealings with Burma. Whether they’ll be listened to by either government or opposition is another question altogether. So I’m afraid you will, more likely than not, continue to be frustrated and even irritated by Burmese illogical behaviour for some time until and unless you come face to face with some illogical and unexpected outcome like the cyclone survivors pulling through against the odds.
26 Don Jameson // Jul 9, 2008 at 3:56 am
Moe Aung: The Burmese are survivors. They have survived bad authoritarian governments for centuries dating back to Pagan and before. They will continue to do this against what westerners might consider impossible odds because this is part of their essential being. I am not sure what Burmese will ever do if life becomes easy for them. No doubt start to engage in frivolous and dysfunctional behavior like many wealthy people in both the third and the first worlds often do. I have great admiriation for the ability of the Burmese people to surmount the obastacles that face them on a daily basis and hope that this does not get lost in the process of change, whenever that does happen. This may be a good advertisement for the adversity theory of development.
27 Moe Aung // Jul 9, 2008 at 9:57 am
Don, thanks for your faith in the national survival instinct. They’ll have loads of pwès, alms giving and temple building as in the days of yore once they are rid of the three classic enemies - rulers, thieves and those full of hatred - rolled into one, out of the five in Burmese tradition, leaving only floods and fire. There’ll be sharing of merit for all sentient beings and for those who have fallen in the long struggle in particular.
Sharing in any of the progress and prosperity will be next as they build a new society where social justice, diversity, freedom of thought, opprtunity and creativity will flourish. Beyond that it’s going to be how they strive to strike a balance - the Middle Way - between tradition and modernity. They will attain their rightful place in the world.
28 Stephen // Jul 9, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Moe Aung, I share your lack of optimism for a massive improvement in the situation during the short term. However, I think that as you pointed out about “the cyclone survivors pulling through against the odds,” there are daily victories in the ‘everyday resistance’ of so many pyithu-ludu which often go unnoticed by outside observers. As Don pointed out, the people of Burma have a persistent ability to surmount the obastacles they face on a daily basis. For those of us who are emotionally involved acknowledging these small successes in people’s resistance to abusive implementation of State policies and and in their evasion of military restrictions can provide some succour to the frustration of seeing a bloated military elite profit from its violent exploitation of the population.
Rumours abound about political uprisings and astrology and I’ve heard many about August 8th, 2008 with the 20th anniversary of 8888, the start of the Beijing Olympics and (I’m not clear on this point) some lunar phenomenon in August which hasn’t happened since August 1988. However, I suspect that the SPDC is likewise aware of the symbolism of this date and so, although I suspect we’ll see some localised protests in August I have my doubts about conditions being sufficiently ‘ripe’ at that time. But I am even less a fortune teller than I am a policy maker so I will follow the news with earnestness.
29 jonfernquest // Jul 9, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Stephen: “…we can’t assume that just any economic investment will necessarily be beneficial to the people nor that just any economic opportunity for those above will necessarily lead to economic opportunity for those below. I think it’s rather limiting to suggest that the only two possibilities are exploitive, unregulated industry and absolute isolation.”
Who is going to regulate Burmese industry? The west? Not likely that they will be given a chance.
NGOs are the least likely source, even Thaksin argued, I believe, that NGOs involve loss of sovereignty.
The best way to create transparent situations without exploitation is engagement and under the gaze of transparency and with suitable public participation things gradually change. Regulation in the Thai economy is like this.
That no one shall travel to or engage in commerce or investment with Burma, as activists have suggested, is the best way not to engage, not to create economic opportunities for Burmese, not to create transparency, not to know what is actually going on, and not to have any means of changing bad things when they happen.
If the west had engaged early on with Burma, there would be other opportunities, now there is not.
Given that the west has effectively economically isolated Burma, the Burmese use what limited opportunities they have. I personally knew business people when I lived in Burma. One textile mill manager, for instance, systematically changed the labels on shirts so they could not be traced to Burma, this mill employed hundreds.
Stephen: “Any economic opportunity for those above will necessarily lead to economic opportunity for those below.”
Capital accumulation from above is a fact of life, acknowledged, for instance in the Pasuk essay on rent seeking in the recent Thai Capital volume.
I suggest that you study 20th economic history in a little bit more depth. Contention between labour and capital is likely an unavoidable part of building a modernised economy with no easy way out. South Korea, for instance, at several crucial economic transition points, clamped down on wages, so labourers were effectively helping to subsidize the cheap exports that drove economic development. (Bruce and Meredith Woo Cumings work on the Korean development is great).
[Furthermore, regarding my comments in general, they reflect the way many of the Burmese I have known and lived with think, but opinions that are usually drowned out by the party line, for example, protest by not travelling to Burma. Why do people not voice opposing opinions? Because they are afraid of being ostracized and labelled. Western scholarship which is supposed to encourage a multiplicity of views and debate, in theory, in practice is quite autocratic and monovocal as far as Burma is concerned. I simply do not care whether I am ostracized or labeled, I will continue to provide an alternative viewpoint to the party line]
30 Moe Aung // Jul 10, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Jon, let me say that trade and commerce at a certain level, the market if you like, is never going to be stopped, however you try to enforce regulation/legislation. Burma has relied on cross border trade from Thailand for so long I can’t imagine how we could have survived without it. The Burmese black market used to be overwhelmingly Thai stuff, as you know, and Chinese goods, though they’ve been around for longer in Upper Burma from ancient times, only beagn to dominate in more recent decades through officially sanctioned trade and China’s booming economy. You are right of course in China stepping in in a big way but trade with Thailand is likely to remain a lifeline for Lower Burma for the foreseeable future.
Big business and international capital getting a lion’s share of the country’s resources and markets is however a different kind of animal. It is the nature of the beast to exploit, and trickle-down is all you can expect. They will be wealth creators and job providers as the orthodox view today would say. Whether the country gains ina meaningful way from this than low paid jobs, shopping malls and high rise buildings is a moot question. Burma has had a share of that just doing business within the East. Infrastucture and technological gains are very much dependent on what sort of priority the country’s leaders put to them. In other words will it just continue to enrich a handful of people as happens in so many parts of the world, as in India and China, with the dirt poor majority co-existing in squalor, or is there real political will to lift the living standards of the majority, not window dressing such as eye-catching shopping malls, stadiums and tower blocks without any improvement in health, education, housing and transport? Will we for that matter see the wealth created mainly in extremely well equipped and powerful security forces?
31 jonfernquest // Jul 10, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Moe Aung: “In other words will it just continue to enrich a handful of people as happens in so many parts of the world, as in India and China, with the dirt poor majority co-existing in squalor, or is there real political will to lift the living standards of the majority”
Well, there’s Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank (providing microcredit to the poor) who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2006, educated in the US.
To build up a pool of such innovation drivers requires a policy of engagement.
Isolation is bad. Engagement is good.
32 Moe Aung // Jul 11, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Good point about Yunus, Jon. That’s exactly my point about political will. Every technological advancement from the wheel onwards, every bit of investment deserves the essential question: whom does it benefit? It’s a double-edged sword depending on who is harnessing it to what end, personal gain and profit at the expense of the many, or for the greater good. It certainly is neither a neutral good nor apolitical in real life where exploitation of the many by the few continues to exist worldwide within and between communities..
33 jonfernquest // Jul 12, 2008 at 4:07 am
Moe Aung: “Every technological advancement from the wheel onwards, every bit of investment deserves the essential question: whom does it benefit? It’s a double-edged sword depending on who is harnessing it to what end, personal gain and profit at the expense of the many, or for the greater good.”
I’ve known management in textile mills as well as workers, all of them Asian, the wages weren’t very good, but better than the government mills, but more hours work. I shudder at having to spend my life at work like that, but for some people it was pure gold and when mills shut down it really hurt them. Both capital and labour benefited from those mills.
For a long time it’s been a “prodigal son” situation policy-wise for the west. If the US had chosen to engage and invest in Burma they would have done immense good in many peoples’ lives. If they made a few elite generals rich in process, the cost would have been worth the benefits. After 40 years of isolation, meaning effectively no “civil society,” you can’t expect much to begin with.
Every year of non-engagement digs a bigger ditch for the Burmese people that they will have to collectively dig themselves out of in the future. It’s not like you can catch up on 40 years of isolation overnight. Hopefully, Asians it will be another Asians help Asians situation soon.
34 Moe Aung // Jul 13, 2008 at 7:16 am
Jon, enlighten us how Western/US capital is different from Asian/Chinese capital. You’ve certainly invoked the imagery of the Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution there when you put yourself in the shoes of those workers, though I’m sure it’s not nearly as bad as in those Victorian mills.
Like many others in the same lobby you would want the US to engage rather than isolate the Burmese regime. Chevron’s continuing to do just that taking advantage of a loophole in the law, and we are not talking peanuts here. Also the isolation is nowhere near as bad as in Ne Win’s time 20 years ago either - you only have to look at the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis how connected to the outside world things are now - although I do agree it is far better for Burmese to be connected far and wide in trade and commerce and not limited to their own region. I’m no fan of the US but I think you are being a little unfair when you lay the blame at her door for Burma’s isolation since we all know that it was self-imposed until the SLORC/SPDC era.
It’s what international capital regardless of its origin can do, it’s potential for both good and bad that you need to see through and have a healthy scepticism of, but you seem to believe in some kind of economic determinism with too rosy a view of US capital. I guess Burma could in time join the ranks of South Korea and Singapore going down that road if, and it’s a big if, the generals have the necessary intelligence, competence and vision, because as you yourself have pointed out often enough they’ll still be around for the foreseeable future. BTW are they not already filthy rich after opening up the country when they chose to?
So how a country’s leadership handles international capital, with its potential not only to do good but to hold a country to ransom and to subject its people to the vagaries of their own new world order by dint of its enormous financial and economic clout, is of paramount importance. As Mrs T would say, once you are in deep enough ‘you can’t buck the market’.
Socio-economic consequences of engagement or the lack of it are essential considerations but a political stand against blatant and relentless human rights abuses by the state had to be made. And yes, making a U turn, despite no sign of any real progress in the plight of a very high profile political prisoner such as Aung San Suu Kyi, is well nigh impossible. Being a hypocrite is one thing, to be exposed as one is quite another, isn’t it?
Like you said, Asians helping Asians may prove beneficial in more ways than one. Aung San sought help for military training and arms to fight the British from the Chinese communists but got it from the invading Japanese instead. He wasn’t too fussy so long as it served the purpose. Just depends how you manage it as a means to an end.
35 Stephen // Jul 13, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I think that Jon’s, examples of the textile mills show very well the potential benefits to the regular folk in Burma of economic investment and the harmfulness of trade sanctions. However, two other cases of western investment are also relevant here to present a more complete picture. These are:
1. The buyout by Chevron (as Moe Aung mentioned above) of UniCal’s share of the Yadana gas pipeline. See the multiple Earthrights International reports including the most recent The Human Cost of Energy.
2. The Monywa Copper Project under a joint venture between Canadian-based Ivanhoe Mines and the Burmese State-run Number One Mining Enterprise. See Environmental Governance of Mining in Burma.
Also relevant are Sean Turnell’s words on the post-cyclone situation and the SPDC’s financial returns from (primarily) extractive industries.
So, it does seem that there is a range of possible outcomes from economic investment from the clearly beneficial (as in the case of the textile mills) to the non-beneficial and outright harmful (in terms of human rights, the environment, and long term economic growth - primarily in extractive industries). So, while isolation is (as Jon has clearly shown) ‘bad’, not just any form of economic investment is necessarily ‘good’. But, as has been pointed out, perhaps I understand too little of 20th economic history, and so as some suggest “The only thing worse than being exploited, is not being exploited.”
36 jonfernquest // Jul 14, 2008 at 10:47 pm
The abuses of the Burmese military have no doubt arisen slowly since independence in 1948, in an atmosphere of isolation. The US using Chinese nationalist troops on Burma’s northern border to launch attacks into China after World War II didn’t help matters (See Chomsky interview today in Bangkok Post).
http://www.bangkokpost.com/140708_Outlook/14Jul2008_out47.php
Burma’s isolation was not entirely self-imposed. Thailand’s military forces which have worked closely with the west since World War II have much higher standards. Why? A policy of engagement.
Isolation over long periods of time produces reprehensible practices that do not conform to international norms. With no helicopters in military financial aid and no joint operations with the west, reprehensible practices such as the use of porters can slip in.
I believe if you trace the sources in Mary Callahan’s “Making Enemies” and one other paper on Australian-Burma relations, you will see that Burma actually wanted to send officers for education overseas but was not able to do so. This is tragic, since relations between two countries officers corps form a sort of cross-border international loyalties in a sense. Coup Prime Minister General Surayud received part of his military education in the US, for instance. The coup leaders that ousted Marcos back in the 1980s were also US educated. This is engagement as opposed to the isolation offered Burma. Basing some decisions on educational aid and not always placing wars at the top of the agenda helps to engage, the myopic focus on Vietnam during the post-World War II period contributed to Burma’s isolation.
Economic sanctions against Burma apply to every kind of investment. Were Burmese soldiers torturing people at Pepsi plants too? Is that why Pepsi and other American companies had to pull out?
“Jon, enlighten us how Western/US capital is different from Asian/Chinese capital. You’ve certainly invoked the imagery of the Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution there when you put yourself in the shoes of those workers, though I’m sure it’s not nearly as bad as in those Victorian mills. ”
I was praising Asian capital, not US capital.
In an article not so long ago, a human rights advocate accused other Asian countries of exploiting Burma as predators, when they did not choose to impose economic sanctions on Burma. I think this is ridiculous. Asian companies doing business in Burma are actually helping. Both sides can benefit from business. However Asian business people doing business in Burma have faced a lot of problems too and frustrated by the generals have given up in despair in many cases. I know of some.
I think the comparison with China is always instructive. China will just not put up with some western criticisms, because it is powerful. Burma with no power, becomes the whipping boy.
How is Asian capital different? Often it offers more appropriate technology. For example, most of the buses and taxis in Yangon were purchased second hand from Korea not so many years ago. Not to mention the home appliances from Thailand are a lot more appropriate, smaller, and cheaper than the US. Asian capital often seems to be on a smaller scale and less intellectual property intensive. Asian capital is also not harried by protesters at every more, for example, Pepsi’s forced withdrawal. I also met Korean Chaebol people who were sent by their company to live in the country and study it to find business opportunies. This is active engagement looking for opportunities for mutually beneficial business projects rather than the usual total lack of interest that the US has expressed.
37 Moe Aung // Jul 17, 2008 at 7:22 am
Thanks for clearing that up about US vs Chinese capital, Jon, but capital is still capital and not a neutral good so its judicious handling remains very important for policy makers with a long term view of the country’s socio-economic goals. And true, for their own reasons, the Burmese generals don’t go out of their way to make life easier for investors even to operate for the short term let alone make viable long term plans. Burmese people themselves have learnt to just live one day at a time.
Yes, Burma became the whipping boy because bullies are by nature cowards. Getting nukes for yourself is a sure fire protection plan against such bullying. It makes sense for more countries to seek nukes not less. Even the generals have cottoned on to that and Russia seems keen to help.
Rather worrying about your references to the military sending officers overseas for their ‘education’ too. In your selection of specific cases, Thailand and the Philippines, you seem to have forgotten the School of the Americas and its alumni Noriega and Galtieri. Also the Berkeley Mafia of Indonesia in the 60s - Suharto’s favourite economists - and their counterparts in the military, the Berkeley Boys, all US trained and instrumental in installing Suharto and the subsequent massacres. There are hundreds of Burmese officers in Russia today, Fritz Werner of Germany was the main armaments supplier, and Israel has trained Burmese intelligence officers. Neutral good? Constructive engagement or what?
Leave a Comment
Please note: New Mandala encourages vigorous debate but we reserve the right to reject or edit comments that contain material that is offensive, irrelevant, overly repetitious or involves personal attack rather than a discussion of the issues. And please avoid long quotes from other online sources - just provide the link!