Asia Times: That sorry Myanmar sideshow


	September 12, 2000	atimes.com

Editorials

That sorry Myanmar sideshow

In the last line of his speech to the UN Millennium Summit - for effect or as an afterthought? - British Prime Minister Tony Blair protested the treatment meted out to Myanmar (Burma) opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by the country's ruling military junta: "Finally, I do not wish to leave the UN without saying this: the treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi by the Burmese regime is a disgrace. I call upon the Burmese government to let her go free and I call on fellow world leaders to back that call." US President Bill Clinton came up with a similar formulation in his own address to the assembly, managing somehow to compare the situation in Myanmar to those in Iraq and Serbia.

Noble sentiments, no doubt, but to what end? Their expression before the UN body had been prompted, much the same as two years ago, by an attempt by Suu Kyi to travel by car from her home at University Road in Yangon (Rangoon) to do National League for Democracy (NLD) party organizational work outside the city. Her convoy was stopped, predictably, by the military authorities who detained her and a group of her followers at the edge of a swamp for nine days. Then, on September 2, she was forcibly returned to her home, gates guarded and padlocked. The NLD exercise, said the military junta, was "tailored to coincide with the UN Millennium Summit." It was, of course, and the story played out as planned.

But again, to what end? Just passed is the tenth anniversary of Myanmar elections in which the NLD garnered an 80 percent majority of seats for parliament and the constitutional assembly. Soon to come is the twelfth anniversary of the brutal military crackdown on democracy demonstrators against the Ne Win regime that killed thousands, then led to a government reorganization, and forced the elections. But a decade later, little has changed in Myanmar. The military has refused to ratify the results of the 1990 polls and the new constitution has still not been fully written, let alone promulgated. So, other than high-minded (but cheap) talk, what are Tony Blair and Bill Clinton going to do about that?

Precious little, we suspect. The Myanmar government has faced an international campaign by human rights groups to block foreign investment. The campaign, which is supported by the NLD, has had some noticeable successes, particularly with consumer products companies. In 1996, Danish brewer Carlsberg withdrew its plans for a US$30 million bottling plant. Pepsi was forced to withdraw in 1997 after a well coordinated consumer boycott organized in the US by church and student groups, which involved picketing the company's Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. But major infrastructure projects have carried on. Off-shore gas fields have big potential and investors have not been deterred by protests. The largest foreign project is the US$1.2 billion development of a massive offshore gas field - a joint development of the French oil company Total and the US energy company Unocal. The Yadana field is located near the Andaman islands 70 kilometers off the Myanmar coast. The field will send the gas along a 649km pipeline to Thailand to generate electricity for the Bangkok area. Another nearby gas field, Yetagun, being developed by Texaco, was sold to the UK's Premier Oil last year. Other major investments include a US$90 million copper mine being developed by Indochina Goldfields, a Canadian mining company which specializes in the emerging markets.

In May 1997 the Clinton administration banned new investment in Myanmar. The US government has also stopped its own foreign aid and blocked economic assistance to Myanmar through international organizations. It has also been urging other governments to take the same course of action. But in fact the US and the UK remain among the top five investors in Myanmar, along with Singapore, France, and Thailand. Are Blair and Clinton hypocrites calling on the world community to support Aung San Suu Kyi when they quite clearly are neither willing nor able to rein in their own nations' firms when it comes to making money in Myanmar? - Your call.

To our mind, the Blair/Clinton tactics quite obviously ARE hypocritical. Moreover, they are bound to fail. Not for their hypocrisy: all's fair in love and war - and certainly in politics. But Myanmar is a very poor country, still largely agrarian, and its very backwardness makes it less vulnerable to economic pressure even if seriously pursued. Similarly, international diplomatic pressure means little to a country and regime already cast in the role of outlaw.

While widely derided in the West, we believe the policy of "constructive engagement" formulated by the Asean countries who have admitted Myanmar to their association is the only feasible one and the only one with any chance of success in helping effect change in the nation of 45 million people. As for the US and the UK, if they can speak to North Korea and hold out hopes for dialogue with Kim Jong-il, it's rather difficult to see why such an approach might not be tried with the junta in Yangon. Or perhaps it's the fact that North Korea has long-range missiles while Myanmar doesn't, that makes dialogue with Pyongyang a more compelling proposition.

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