US's
lost moral compass in
Myanmar By Tim Heinemann
Americans have fought at home and on many
a distant shore with resolve in truths that they
hold to be self-evident, "that all men are created
equal". Under the Barack Obama administration,
America appears to have abandoned this principle
through its recent engagement policy with until
recently military-run Myanmar.
To be sure,
Myanmar matters. The country has emerged as
China's main gateway to the Indian Ocean, with
massive natural resource wealth at home and
important international markets beyond. Myanmar
has thus emerged as a key state in the US's
"pivot" policy towards Asia.
The flaws in
the US approach are threefold, including: (1)
failing to understand the unambiguous, enduring
power of ethnic
populations; (2) failing
to engage them fully as equal stakeholders in the
country's future; and (3) forgetting that many
have been faithful American allies going all the
way back to World War II.
US national
elections and uprisings in the Middle East have
masked the dangerous precedents the Obama
administration is quietly establishing for
arguably Southeast Asia's most strategically
important nation.
Most Americans have
little idea what is really happening in Myanmar,
nor grasp the implications of Obama's and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's moves and
initiatives, including the relaxation of economic
sanctions.
This is because American
policymakers have not had an open debate with full
disclosure on how to best engage Myanmar. As a
result, the US is now arguably making some of the
same mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan. These
have come at an incredible cost in lives lost and
others tragically altered, in a staggering
national debt and in a loss of US credibility
after decades of high stature around the world.
The Obama administration has decided, in
the face of valid protest, to embrace Myanmar's
reformist government led by President Thein Sein,
who served as prime minister under the previous
abusive military junta. The US has effectively
shifted course and given favor to a strong central
government and army dominated by urban ethnic
Burmans.
The US has a history of latching
onto high-profile personalities and then pushing
for the establishment of strong central
governments and national armies around those
personages. The US pushed this centralized
approach to nation-building in both Iraq and
Afghanistan. In doing so, it has generally failed
to understand the very core nature of these
multi-ethnic societies, where power has
historically been diffuse and decentralized.
Ethnic minorities total up to half of
Myanmar's populace, comprise seven of its 14
states with ancestral lands that dominate most of
the country's borders and international trade
routes, and occupy lands that account for the
majority of the country's natural resources.
In spite of this, ethnics have to date
been sidelined and largely left out of the US's
engagement initiatives. The major pan-ethnic
alliance representing 11 of the major armed ethnic
groups has been virtually ignored by the Obama
administration.
The US State Department
asserts generally that it has "spoken" with
ethnics, but conversations this writer had with
ethnic alliance leaders reveals they feel they
have been relegated to the sidelines of US
engagement initiatives. They say it would be
impolite to point fingers on the world stage about
their marginalization in the process, even though
they represent up to half of Myanmar's total
population.
Ethnic resistance armies have
thwarted the Myanmar army for decades because of a
superior motivation to protect their lands and
people. This gives their political leaders a
credible voice of authority, one that must be
engaged to achieve enduring peace and stability.
Given all that has happened in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where ethnic power brokers have
played crucial roles, the US is taking a
considerable risk in ignoring Myanmar's ethnic
leaders.
Limited
limelight President Thein Sein and
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, both ethnic
Burmans, are elite personae who have dominated the
limelight of Myanmar's opening. After tours to the
US and Europe, they have both become darlings of
the West. Yet despite laudable reform gestures and
rhetoric, Thein Sein still lacks civilian control
over the army's generals, both active and retired.
His army is now mercilessly attacking
ethnic Kachin villages in the country's northern
region, leading to new allegations of systematic
rights abuses. This is primarily because Kachin
ancestral lands occupy areas that China wants for
hydro-power development and natural resource
exploitation, including supposed rich deposits of
uranium.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi,
meanwhile, has deliberately avoided drawing
attention to the Kachin situation, apparently
because she feels it detracts from the big picture
move to democracy from military rule.
This
may, however, reflect a deep-rooted urban Burman
elitist attitude toward non-Burman ethnics. Burman
chauvinism against minority ethnic groups came to
the fore during the recent crisis in Rakhine
State, where ethnic minority Rohingya have been
castigated as illegal settlers by Burman officials
and activists alike.
It is an awkward
point to raise given the good prospects unfolding
in Myanmar. But it should be a legitimate concern
for US policymakers, no matter how inconvenient it
may be for those in the Obama administration who
want to turn the page on past poor relations and
strengthen ties for wider strategic
considerations.
Historically, many of
Myanmar's ethnic minorities, including the Chin,
Kachin, Karen, Karenni and Shan, were America's
and Great Britain's faithful allies during World
War II. Their families were murdered by the
thousands by the ethnic Burman majority, who had
sided with the Japanese but then conveniently
jumped ship at the war's end.
After the
end of the war, Burmans took charge of the
government as colonial Britain pulled out.
Burman-led regimes have ever since tried to
dominate ethnic minorities and their territories
through campaigns of repression, coercion, and
murder, as international human rights
organizations have revealed in their
investigations and reports.
At the same
time, ethnic minority armies have historically
provided muscle for the pro-democracy movement,
keeping military-led governments bogged down in
conflict. Though systematically impoverished and
oppressed, they have held the line trying to
protect their families, villages, ancestral lands
and cultures in the face of a scorched earth
campaign by the Myanmar military. (In Myanmar's
new "democracy", the military is given gratis 25%
of the seats in parliament.)
"Live Free or
Die" is the motto at the entrance to one ethnic
resistance force encampment in the remote jungle
mountains of eastern Myanmar, words that resonate
deeply in the US. They are words that Myanmar's
ethnics have affirmed at a bloody cost of
thousands of torched villages, over 400,000
internally displaced persons and over 800,000
forced laborers in eastern Myanmar alone,
according to independent rights groups. Nobody has
yet been held to account for those crimes. Ongoing
attacks against Kachin villages are consistent
with this record of violence and impunity.
These acts have been perpetuated by the
same Burman-dominated military that the Obama
administration is now keenly engaging, including
through proposed military-to-military relations.
Any military engagement that excludes ethnics,
however, will likely aggravate the conflict. The
US ignores this fact at some peril given the
ethnic conflicts that continue to rage in Iraq and
Afghanistan after pouring in hundreds of billions
of dollars, if not more, over the last decade.
The Obama administration's intent to lift
economic sanctions, promote public aid and private
investment and engage the Myanmar military are of
a questionable morality to all Americans,
regardless of their political party affiliations.
How America's engagement gambit treats the plight
of Myanmar's ethnic minorities will be key to the
policy's ultimate failure or success.
This
is particularly so since many of Myanmar's ethnic
groups have consistently carried pro-democracy
banners in their fight against a succession of
abusive military-led regimes. Many have done this
with the idea that America and its Western allies
were champions of their cause.
America's
global stature and legitimacy are ultimately at
stake. After the interventions in Iraq and
Afghanistan, although not military in nature, the
US needs to get its Myanmar policy right to
restore confidence in its global diplomacy and
intentions. America's "pivot" is already being
tested in Myanmar, and in many important ways it's
already on the wrong track.
Tim
Heinemann is a retired US Army officer and
strategist who does volunteer assistance work in
support of ethnic pro-democracy groups in
Myanmar.
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