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Another blow for
Yangon
By Nelson Rand
BANGKOK
- With its economy in tatters and its human-rights
record one of the worst in the world, Myanmar's ruling
military junta was slapped with extended sanctions by
the European Union (EU) this week - a decision applauded
by the country's two largest ethnic minority groups.
Sai Wansai, general secretary of the Shan
Democratic Union (SDU), and the European representative
of the Karen National Union (KNU), Saw Sarky, have been
lobbying the EU to push for harder sanctions and to
ensure that the country's ethnic minority groups are
involved in any future reconciliation talks in Myanmar.
Germany-based Sai Wansai said he welcomed the
EU's decision to extend sanctions on Myanmar, saying the
move is "crucial in projecting non-Burman ethnic
nationalities' political position" in Myanmar.
EU ministers on Monday decided to extend
economic sanctions and its list of Myanmar government
officials who are subject to a visa blacklist and asset
freezing, as well as to strengthen an arms embargo
against the country.
They also confirmed plans
for a trip by the so-called EU "troika" to visit Myanmar
in the next two to three months if they can meet with
the appropriate leadership of the country. They will
assess then whether to implement further sanctions or
not.
"Sanctions are definitely working," Wansai
told the Spanish deputy director general for Asia and
Oceania, Jorge Montealegre Buire, this month, "but now
we need sanctions with teeth that bite."
Myanmar, formerly know as Burma, has been under
EU and US sanctions since 1996 for its poor human-rights
record and the military's refusal to honor 1990 national
elections in which opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi won a landslide victory.
The SDU and KNU -
whose military factions have each been waging
decades-long insurgencies for autonomy in their ethnic
areas - are pushing for trilateral talks in any future
reconciliation plan for the country.
Last week
in the Netherlands, Wansai and Sarky met with the Dutch
Foreign Ministry on the possibility of producing a
prototype roadmap for Myanmar's democratization process.
Margarita Bot, the Dutch deputy director for Asia and
Oceania, suggested "[we] draw up a tentative roadmap for
the UN to consider, for without a time frame and
roadmap, this could drag on forever".
In
political terms, it already has dragged on forever. The
Karen have been at war with Yangon since 1949 in one of
the longest and least-known unresolved conflicts in the
world. The first Shan armed opposition group was formed
in 1958 and began fighting shortly after, about the same
time the Vietnam War was starting to kick off.
The military junta, known as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), has so far ruled out any
talks with the armed ethnic factions until they
surrender their arms. It has, however, started
reconciliation with Aung San Suu Kyi to try and break
the country's political deadlock, but there has been no
significant progress since these so-called talks began
in October 2000 except for the release of Suu Kyi from
house arrest and of a few hundred political prisoners.
In one of the most conciliatory statements since
the SPDC released Suu Kyi from house arrest last May,
the junta hinted on Tuesday that it was willing to start
political talks with her. "The government has complete
trust in Aung San Suu Kyi's commitment to ensuring the
smooth and stable development of Myanmar," the junta
said in a statement reported by Reuters new agency.
Even if serious talks did get under way between
the junta and Suu Kyi, it seems no deal could be
successful without the participation of the ethnic
minority groups - especially the armed factions of the
Shan and the Karen, which the junta refuses to talk to
until they lay down their arms.
"We [ethnic
groups of Myanmar] own 57 percent of the landmass in the
now-defunct Union of Burma and have a population, by
conservative estimates, of 40 percent," said Wansai.
"Any political settlement excluding us will never
function and we will see to it that no deal could ever
be made without us."
In the past month, Wansai
and the KNU's European representative and Central
Committee member Saw Sarky met with foreign ministry
officials from Greece, Spain, Portugal and the
Netherlands. Wansai said they were satisfied with the
outcome of their trip, and that they were assured the EU
would continue to push for tripartite dialogue in which
the three issues of military dictatorship, democracy and
state rights of the ethnic groups would be discussed
between the three parties: the junta, the democratic
opposition and the ethnic nationalities.
"The EU
is [also] looking into engaging ASEAN [Association of
Southeast Asian Nations] countries to get involved by
putting pressure on the SPDC," Spain's Montealegre Buire
told Wansai. "This will amount to taking away the
cushion intended for the junta's fallback position
provided by ASEAN [countries]."
The objectives
of the sanctions, said Sarky, "are to bring the SPDC to
the negotiation table with the non-Burman ethnic
nationalities and to promote the so called 'tripartite
dialogue'."
"Until then," he added, "the KNU and
the non-ceasefire [factions of] ethnic nationalities
will intensify our diplomatic offensives, our political
internal resistance and our armed struggle, as we feel
that the SPDC army is no less than the occupying force
of a colonial power."
(©2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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