COMMENT Obama and checkmate on
Myanmar By Roland Watson
President Barack Obama is going to
Rangoon. This is a hugely significant visit. The
question is, for who?
The US has a
controversial past with Myanmar. Following Ne
Win's coup in 1962, Washington secretly offered
support, including with training and arms, as part
of its policy to contain communism - in this case
Chinese communism. (There is even suspicion of CIA
involvement in the coup itself.) This means the US
was an ally of the dictator in his military
offensives against resistance groups, and his
overall suppression of the public. Myanmar was
just one more example of the many countries where
America backed dictators, sacrificing its supposed
championship of freedom, democracy, and human
rights.
This changed following the 1988
massacre. In the face of
thousands of casualties,
the US had to withdraw its support. But, it did
not do an about face and start to work to help
free the people. The first US sanctions were not
passed until nine years later (and then only
because of great activist pressure). Instead,
Washington decided to sit on the fence, and see
how the situation developed.
It didn't
present its policy this way, of course. Rather,
the US, under one administration after another,
trumpeted its promotion of democracy, all the
while doing nothing material to bring it about.
Specifically, Washington backed pacifist Aung San
Suu Kyi, including calling for her release during
her periods of house arrest. However, unlike the
situation with East Turkestan leader Rebiya Kadeer
and China, the US did not use its political
leverage to actually secure her release. (One
wonders why.)
Furthermore, the US
studiously ignored the ethnic dimension in
Myanmar, failing completely to condemn, much less
counter, Ne Win's massive human- rights abuses
against the country's ethnic minorities.
Even though many people from Myanmar
refused to believe it, it was obvious that all the
pro-democracy talk out of DC was only for show. I
and many others lobbied for years, both the State
Department and Congress, for real support for the
pro-democracy movement. It was never forthcoming.
I also made the case that if America was not
willing to help Myanmar on the basis of freedom,
democracy, and human rights, it should at least do
it to further its own strategic interests.
In dozens of meetings with State
Department officials I pointed out that by helping
Myanmar achieve real freedom, America would create
a new ally in the region, which together with its
neighbor Thailand, already a major ally, would
constitute a substantial southwest flank against
Chinese expansionism. Moreover, if the US would
reposition itself relative to India (the world's
largest democracy), and drop its unwavering
support of Pakistani military dictator Pervez
Musharraf (under whose watch al-Qaeda, the
Taliban, and Pakistan's Inter-Services
intelligence formed their own front through which
the American homeland was attacked on 9/11), the
US would establish a huge regional block of
support. The Asian pivot could not only have been
launched, but accomplished, a decade ago.
(Note: The US alliance with Pakistan was a
legacy of the Cold War, through which many of the
country's relationships with dictators were
established. The Soviet Union allied with India,
and America with Pakistan. Also, it is clear that
for Myanmar the lobbying efforts of Unocal, now
Chevron, and other American businesses overpowered
the initiatives of the pro-democracy movement.)
President Obama apparently agrees with
what I have been saying: China is a growing threat
and the US needs to have as many friends in Asia
as possible. This is the reason behind the
administration's policy reversal and its decision
to engage with Naypyidaw. Unfortunately, though,
it also means that unlike with Libya (and one
suspects in coming months Syria), the US will not
take strong steps to help the people of Myanmar
escape their tyranny. Instead, Obama has decided
that this goal, freedom for the people, can be
sacrificed. America can renew its alliance with
Myanmar's dictatorship, in its new civilian
disguise, against China. This is yet another
deceptive, and pathetic, abandonment of American
principles.
To give Obama his due, there
may be other reasons for the policy shift, and his
upcoming visit. Prior to becoming president, he
had minimal foreign policy experience. He was a
community organizer and law fellow in Chicago and
then a state senator and US senator. He may have
believed Thein Sein's story and that engagement -
negotiation - would be sufficient to encourage the
military regime to allow democracy. In the face of
world history, this view is naive, but it is not
without proponents, including from business
lobbyists, who prefer the operating conditions
inside political dictatorships, and also
Democrats, who do not seem to have the requisite
courage to confront despots.
On the other
hand, Obama may have just tried engagement as an
experiment. Now, he has heard so much good news
from Hillary Clinton and Derek Mitchell, not to
mention Chevron, Pepsi, General Electric and
Goldman Sachs, he wants to see it with his own
eyes. I can understand this. If I were
implementing a policy that had life and death
consequences, I would want to evaluate it
personally as well.
The problem here is
the symbolic element of the trip. He is not just
on a fact-checking mission. To the world, the
visit will be viewed as an affirmation of the
regime, and not only its economic reform. As with
Suu Kyi, if Obama doesn't speak out against the
human-rights abuses in Myanmar, including the
ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and the
civil war against the Kachin (as in 1988, there
are thousands of casualties), he too will be
giving tacit acceptance to these atrocities.
The best option, which many people have
noted, is not to go. His visit is in no way
justifiable, given the crimes that are still
underway. But, if he is determined to go, the trip
must be balanced. He has to meet not only Thein
Sein and Suu Kyi, but also ethnic leaders. If he
doubts this, he should understand that Suu Kyi
does not represent all the people of Myanmar.
Electorally, she is only an MP for a
Rangoon township (Kawhmu). For her own symbolism,
she is the leader of the Myanmar people. Her
support among the ethnic minorities, who in total
may well comprise half the population, is falling,
and in any case they have their own leaders.
Moreover, it is essential that he meet the
real ethnic leaders, not the regime lapdogs who
accepted the pro-military 2008 constitution and
participated in the fraudulent 2010 election. He
needs to hear about the ethnic cleansing, and war,
and detentions, and rape, and chemical weapons,
and forced labor, and extortion, and land thefts,
not to mention (from Thein Sein) the nuclear
program and the regime's relationship with North
Korea.
The basic divide in Myanmar is
between the people who accept the 2008
constitution, including Suu Kyi and these
individuals, and the faithful opposition, who will
never accept it and who are therefore effectively
barred from politics. The real ethnic leaders are
in Thailand and in the conflict zones in Kachin,
Shan, Karen, and other states. Obama needs to meet
at least one of them, and if he can't go to the
States he should do it in Thailand. Ideally, he
should meet representatives from the ethnic
alliance, the UNFC, as well as Rohingya leaders.
If President Obama does not meet such
individuals, he is favoring the Myanmar. If he
only meets people who have sworn allegiance to the
constitution, then his trip is a proclamation that
both freedom and the abuses committed against the
minorities are not important. The president will
have extended America's "only for show"
pro-democracy policy, and in the worst way
possible. He will be encouraging the people to
accept dictatorship.
If this happens, and
just as I termed Suu Kyi The Worst Person in
Myanmar, for not using her prestige to pressure
the dictatorship to halt its crimes, it would not
be too much to say that the United States is The
Leading Enemy of Myanmar, and that the people are
merely pawns in a geopolitical game and that their
sufferings are irrelevant. With Than Shwe, Thein
Sein and Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw, and ringed in by
China, Thailand, the US, and also Europe, the
freedom and democracy aspirations of the people
will be well and truly destroyed.
Used
with permission of Dictator Watch.
Roland
Watson can be reached by e-mail at
roland@dictatorwatch.org.
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