Page 2 of 2 AN ATOL INVESTIGATION A hard reign continues in Myanmar
By Rajeshree Sisodia
Profits from natural gas, Myanmar's biggest export, have also fallen due to the
worldwide financial slowdown. Economists predict Myanmar will this year earn
around $1 billion from gas exports, almost all of which is exported to
Thailand, down from $2 billion last year. Money from sales of beans and pulses,
mostly to India, has also fallen. Not that this lost revenue would have been
used to help improve the lives of its people; most of it ends up as bribes,
lines the generals' pockets, is spent on the military or sits in the coffers of
the junta and its allies' off-shore bank accounts or in the state-owned Myanmar
Foreign Trade Bank.
The 1988 uprising and the 2007 demonstrations were largely fueled by a demand
for economic, as well as political, changes, after spiraling inflation meant
ordinary Burmese people could no
longer afford to make ends meet. The link between politics and human rights is
the dismal state of the country's economy. Similarly, the international
community, including the United States, the European Union, the United Nations,
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China and India, have to
accept that economic and diplomatic pressure must underpin any influence they
exert over the SPDC to reform.
The recent increase in political repression in Myanmar and Suu Kyi's trial
illustrate two factors: the SPDC is not willing to relent and that
international policy in pushing the regime to change, with a few exceptions,
has so far largely failed. The paths traditionally taken to try to coax, cajole
and threaten Myanmar have been a policy of engagement by Asian countries and
the West's hardball approach of isolation and sanctions. Neither has worked.
China - and to a lesser extent - India and Russia are the key players and the
only governments that can initiate concrete progress. Beijing is Myanmar's
biggest military, political and economic ally. China is the largest supplier of
weapons to the regime. It has reportedly sold millions of dollars in arms,
including tanks, armored personal carriers, military aircraft and anti-tank and
anti-aircraft guns to Myanmar. India, Russia, Serbia and the Ukraine also sell
weapons to the junta.
China's economic footprint in Myanmar is growing. In the past several years,
Beijing has invested billions of dollars in huge natural gas, oil, hydropower
and mining projects in resource-rich Myanmar by signing up to more than 90
lucrative deals with the SPDC. China is also the biggest exporter of consumer
goods into Myanmar.
It's no surprise then that Beijing and Moscow continue to protect Myanmar in
the international political arena. China and Russia vetoed a draft UN Security
Council resolution put forward by the US and Great Britain in 2007 that would
have called on the junta to ease political repression and the persecution of
ethnic minorities. The UN Security Council earlier on May 22 issued a
watered-down statement expressing its concern the impact Suu Kyi's continued
detention and trial may have on stability in the region. The statement fell
short of openly condemning Myanmar after China and Russia protested.
At this stage, Beijing has no desire to push the SPDC to implement change and
has been selective in its use of influence over Myanmar in recent years. China
is not a democracy so is fearful of any possibility the junta will be forced to
loosen its grip or be overthrown. Democracy in Myanmar would be a disaster for
Beijing, particularly as parts of restive western China border Myanmar.
Beijing has found itself with a sensitive balancing act; too much repression in
Myanmar could lead to greater economic hardship, further mass protests,
instability and internal conflict. This is the last thing China wants as it
moves to protect its lucrative investments, establish a stable market dependent
on Chinese imports and to protect a growing ethnic Chinese population in
Myanmar.
China's main rival and neighbor, India, is also courting the SPDC as it vies
for Myanmar's huge reserves of gas and oil. But while the US and EU have
recently extended sanctions against the regime and ASEAN and the UN Security
Council have also taken the unusual step of publicly condemning the junta, so
far the EU, US and UN have done little to corner China and India.
According to Benjamin Zawacki, Myanmar researcher at Amnesty International:
Until
and unless they release all the political prisoners, nothing said by the regime
can be trusted - that's when we will see whether or not the increased pressure
has had any effect. The lynch pin in that is China. The Indians could also
apply pressure [but] India has shown itself to be patently unhelpful. It never
tires of saying that it is the world's largest democracy, yet its democratic
and human rights credentials with regards to Burma are shameful. Individual
Indian MPs have spoken up on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi [but] India has
remained completely silent over the last few weeks.
Nyo Ohn
Myint, spokesman for the NLD-in-exile in Thailand, urged the West to push China
and India to pressure the SPDC, but also called for the NLD to engage in
dialogue with the regime's generals.
"Myanmar is a failed state. We have no negotiators inside Myanmar who are
willing to talk to the generals and the regime is very tight; none of the
generals wanted to talk with the NLD. Members of the NLD inside Burma [Myanmar]
should be more flexible, to engage in dialogue. We need trust-building on every
level between the two camps," Nyo Ohn Myint said.
Sources have confirmed senior Chinese officials have visited Myanmar in recent
days to try to coax the regime to improve on human rights. It is also known
that the NLD has held unofficial talks with ASEAN members and officials from
Beijing to try to break the deadlock. So far, there has been no progress.
While Beijing and New Delhi compete to woo Myanmar's generals and the
international community drags its feet, the resulting political impasse
suggests that Myanmar's future, in line with its recent history, will be
pockmarked with tragedy and bloodshed.
A hard rain
A world away from the seats of power in Washington, Brussels and Beijing, at Um
Phien refugee camp - one of Thailand's nine holding camps for official Burmese
refugees - former political prisoner Thiha Aung sits cross-legged on the floor
of the two-room hut where he has lived since fleeing Myanmar in December 2006.
His blue and white longyi only party covers the scars on his legs, daily
reminders of the beatings he suffered almost two decades ago when Myanmar's MI
discovered he was campaigning for the ABFSU and was a member of the NLD. Thiha
Aung, 45, was arrested seven times between 1987 and 1996, spending almost nine
years in police and military intelligence custody or in Insein prison.
"I wanted to change the government, I wanted to sacrifice my life for the
people," he said. "But Burma will never change. The military government doesn't
want to change so I think Myanmar's political situation will never change. If I
go back to Myanmar now, they will arrest me for sure and it will be a big
sentence. I can never go back." reign Um Phien, a two-hour bus journey north
from Mae Sot, is a ramshackle collection of wooden huts perched on a
mountainside barely 30 kilometers from the Myanmar border. It is home to around
20,000 Myanmar refugees. The monsoon season had just begun and the rain from
the day before had made the air sultry.
Many of Um Phien's refugees eke out a livelihood by collecting and selling
firewood or as daily wage laborers on nearby farms. They rely on food rations
from non-governmental organizations. In some ways, the camp seems a
self-contained rural community with shops and schools. But the camp authority
office and the barbed wire that guard it shatter any veneer of normality.
Families are not allowed to leave the camp without permission from camp
officials and the Thai authorities.
Thiha Aung has built a new life as a refugee in Thailand. He teaches the camp's
children English and he recently remarried. His new wife Mange, 38, sits beside
him as he cradles their newborn son in his arms and stares outside the one
glassless window in his home. Outside, storm clouds hang low, threatening
another downpour.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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Rajeshree Sisodia is a British freelance reporter and photographer
specializing in human rights and social issues. She was based in New Delhi for
four years until the end of December 2008 - during which time she covered South
Asia and Southeast Asia - including reporting from India, Afghanistan and
Myanmar - for various publications and websites including the South China
Morning Post, the New Statesman and al-jazeera's English-language website. She
continues to work as a freelancer based in London.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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