Living Silence in Burma (49 page)

The European Union has adopted a common position on Burma, which includes an arms embargo, a visa ban on senior military officers, their families and business people who work closely with them, and a ban on European companies investing in Burmese state-owned companies. The common position does not allow any bilateral assistance to Burma except for humanitarian and social development programmes, with the money for such programmes preferably channelled through local organizations. The EU also provides funding for humanitarian assistance for Burmese refugees. Some EU members have also funded democracy promotion, media and capacity-building programmes, primarily for Burmese organizations in exile. After the 2007 crackdown, the EU banned the import of logs, minerals and gems from Burma and prohibited European investment in Burmese companies engaged in these businesses.

The British government feels a particular responsibility to Burma, having colonized the country in the 1800s, and because Aung San Suu Kyi lived in England for many years with her British husband, Michael Aris. Along with the Burma Campaign UK, the British government encouraged Premier Oil to withdraw from Burma, which it did in 2002.
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When making policy towards Burma, Australia and New Zealand have tried to balance their position as Western-style liberal democracies and as geographically Asian countries. They have spoken out in support of the democracy movement and do not sell weapons to Burma, but they have been reluctant to impose economic sanctions. Over time, however, the Australian and New Zealand governments have all imposed more restrictions on Burma. Following the 2007 demonstrations, Australia refused to accept a general as the Burmese ambassador to Australia.

Since the mid-1990s, Western embassy officials, particularly American and British, have maintained regular contact with top NLD leaders and sent representatives to NLD functions. The staff of most Asian embassies, on the other hand, have generally refrained from attending NLD events, not wanting to irritate the regime.

The sanctions debate

While sanctions have been an effective tool in helping bring about change in some countries, they have not led to change in others. In the case of Burma there has been a heated debate about their value, even among people who desperately want to see change in the country.

There have been two main arguments against sanctions. The first is that they haven’t worked, since many countries are not following them but are investing heavily in Burma instead. As a result, the countries that impose sanctions also lose their leverage over the regime. The second argument is that blanket sanctions, such as import bans, hurt ordinary people more than the regime. When ordinary people lose their jobs in export factories, they may not have other jobs to turn to. The families of the top authorities, on the other hand, have plenty of other sources of income.

In addition, banning Western companies from entering Burma has been criticized as mistaken on the grounds that Western companies are more likely to treat their employees well and that a Western business presence will help stimulate good business practices in Burma. By also banning Burmese companies from exporting to certain countries, it is more difficult for a middle class to develop in Burma.

Others have argued that the regime responds only to pressure, and that the sanctions have had some impact on the regime. If the regime didn’t care about the sanctions, why do the top generals repeatedly talk about how they want them lifted? Moreover, the NLD leadership has called for such measures, and it is important to respect their policy recommendations, since they were elected by the people. In any negotiations with the regime, the sanctions serve as a significant bargaining chip for the NLD, which could ask the international community to remove them in return for concessions from the regime. Furthermore, the sanctions indicate to the Burmese people that people in other countries will not condone the regime’s use of violence against its citizens. Supporters of sanctions also argue that it is the regime’s gross economic mismanagement which is preventing the development of a middle class far more than the sanctions. Some also question whether Western corporations would really do
a better job of respecting Burmese workers’ rights, given that Unocal and Total did nothing to stop the
tatmadaw
’s use of forced labour in relation to the construction of the Yadana gas pipeline.
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Increasingly there is agreement among those who support sanctions that targeted sanctions are likely to be more effective and less punitive to the society as a whole. As a result, several Western countries have adopted sanctions that are directed only at the military government’s top officials, their families and the business people who have close relations with the regime.

Nevertheless, it is increasingly clear that sanctions alone will not bring about a change in Burma, both because the regime has other supporters and because the regime is determined to maintain its hold on power.

Attempting to persuade the generals while working with them has also proven ineffective when delinked from any forms of pressure. The regime responds only when the international community adopts a coordinated approach that combines pressure and persuasion. The top generals need to feel that they have no other choice, but also that following the policy prescription will not lead to the regime’s demise. For instance, the regime has been pressured into allowing UN envoys to enter the country and even agreed to appoint a liaison minister to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, but no genuine dialogue ever took place. Without strong and sustained pressure, it seems likely that any concessions the regime makes to the international community will be minimal and often reversible.

The UN and Burma

Various UN bodies and agencies have attempted a variety of approaches in dealing with the regime, depending on their mandates.

In order to stop or at least reduce human rights abuses, the Human Rights Council has appointed a series of special rapporteurs to document human rights abuses in Burma, with the intention of shaming the regime into better behaviour. The regime often bars special rapporteurs from entry for months or even years at a time, however. The Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have passed annual resolutions condemning the regime’s policies of repression and urging it to begin a dialogue with all stakeholders, but their calls have gone unheeded.

UN secretary-generals have tried to use their good offices to bring about political reform. In 1998, the United Nations’ Secretariat sent a high-level representative to Burma to float the idea of providing $1 billion worth of World Bank aid to Burma if the regime would enter into a dialogue with the NLD, but the generals said no.
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The UN secretary-generals appointed two special envoys, first Razali Ismail, a Malaysian diplomat, and then Ibrahim Gambari, a former foreign minister of Nigeria, to make regular trips to Burma to meet with the SPDC leadership and Aung San Suu Kyi to try to facilitate a dialogue process. Over time, both found the regime unwilling to work seriously with them or to negotiate with the opposition.

Within the Security Council, there has been an ongoing debate over whether the crisis in Burma falls within the UN Security Council’s mandate, which is to consider threats to international peace. The debate has been shaped by differing understandings of the mandate as well as the particular interests of some of the Security Council’s permanent members. In 2005, two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel, commissioned a report called
Threat to the Peace
. The report argued that the Security Council should consider the case of Burma because other countries with similar problems had been addressed by the Council in the past. China and Russia have repeatedly insisted, however, that Burma’s problems are its internal affairs and shouldn’t be considered by the Security Council.

In January 2007, the USA proposed a Security Council resolution on Burma calling for the military regime to release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, stop attacks on ethnic groups, and speed up the transition to democracy. The resolution did not pass, as it was veteod by China and Russia. After the 2007 crackdown on the monks, the Security Council issued two presidential statements on Burma, which are not binding. The statements called for the release of political prisoners and the relaxing of Aung San Suu Kyi’s conditions of detention. On 1 May 2008, the Security Council issued another Presidential Statement calling on the regime to make the 2008 referendum and the 2010 election process inclusive and credible. In other words, Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD and other opposition political parties should be able to participate and the campaigning, voting and vote-counting should be undertaken in a legitimate way. Nevertheless, the regime went ahead with the referendum later that month with widespread complaints about voter intimidation and vote-rigging.

Because it wants to be seen as a responsible actor on the global scene, China has in some cases urged the regime to take certain actions behind the scenes.
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The generals have responded in instances when they are worried that the Security Council or other international actors might take harsher actions if it does not make some concessions.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), which is a member of
the UN family and consists of labour and business representatives as well as government representatives, has tried to use a combination of pressure and persuasion with the regime. By threatening Burma with sanctions from its members, while also explaining to the regime how bad it looked to be using forced labour in the twenty-first century, the ILO was able to convince the regime to issue orders banning the practice. The use of forced labour has been greatly reduced in central Burma, although as of 2008 it is still widely used in parts of the ethnic states, particularly in conflict areas.

Several UN agencies work in Burma to address humanitarian problems and carry out development work to the extent that they can. For instance, UNICEF has supplied vaccines and helped expand immunization coverage to the remote areas. The World Food Programme has provided food to Rohingya families in Arakan State and to Cyclone Nargis survivors. And UNDP has introduced poverty-alleviation programmes which have had some benefits for rural communities. The UN agencies have been eager to expand their work, which they see as making a real difference in people’s lives. As a result, they seek to create a good working relationship with the authorities. This has consisted of trying to persuade ministry officials and local authorities of the value of their programmes as well as generally keeping quiet in public about the regime’s abuses. Some UN agency personnel have tried to push the boundaries, while others have felt that they must largely comply with the regime’s demands and restrictions in order to maintain access.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is linked to the UN but operates independently, pulled out of Burma in 1995 because the regime would not allow ICRC representatives to visit political detainees, but returned to the country in 1999 after negotiating a new agreement. The ICRC was able to visit prisons freely until 2005, when the regime said its personnel would have to be accompanied by USDA members, a condition the ICRC could not accept. In 2006, the regime stopped the ICRC from providing humanitarian assistance in Burma’s eastern ethnic states.

The media and international campaigns

The regime’s primary method of dealing with foreign journalists is to deny them visas. If the international community doesn’t know what’s going on in Burma, it will not take an interest and the regime will be free to act as it pleases. The regime tends to let journalists in only for specific regime-organized events, with visas valid only for a few days. A number
of journalists have managed to get into Burma on tourist visas, however, and have been able to meet a wide range of people.

In 1997 and 1998, representatives of the military regime worked with two US consulting firms, Jefferson Waterman International and Bain and Associates, to improve their image abroad. The firms sought to get stories favourable to the regime placed in the press and helped organize journalists’ visits to Burma to see the regime’s achievements.
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The focus was on repealing sanctions and repudiating the regime’s image as a ‘narco-state’.

The authorities have made great efforts to cut off Aung San Suu Kyi’s access to the media. When she was first released from house arrest in 1995, the regime allowed foreign journalists to interview her, but they soon regretted it because, through the media, she became far better known internationally. When possible, Aung San Suu Kyi has tried to maintain contact with the international community by producing written statements and videotaped addresses which have been secretly taken out of Burma and presented at conferences and events abroad. During periods of house arrest, her phone line has been cut and she hasn’t been able to send out statements. A notable exception was when UN Special Envoy Gambari met with her in November 2007 and took out her statement calling for the regime to begin a genuine dialogue with her about political reform.

Foreign news agencies and the Burmese exile media have increasingly relied on local Burmese stringers to write about events in Burma. At great risk to themselves, stringers have covered stories relating to the 2007 demonstrations, the problems that emerged during the cyclone relief and reconstruction, and various abuses by local authorities. Some Burmese bloggers inside and outside the country have also taken it upon themselves to report on what is going on in Burma, as did many ordinary citizens during the 2007 demonstrations and crackdown.

As discussed in
Chapter 10
, the exile media have done a great deal to bring news to people inside Burma. Some exile media organizations have also sought to reach an international audience by producing their news in English.
The Irrawaddy
, for instance, produces a monthly magazine in English as well as daily articles online in English and Burmese. The low cost of producing news online has also allowed smaller ethnic minority media groups to get out news about events in their areas of Burma.