The reconciliation process in Burma has generated more international anticipation of political change than any other event since the elections of May 1990, whose results were ignored by the military government. The process began this past May with the freeing of the Nobel peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy that won the 1990 elections in a landslide.
The optimism that greeted Suu Kyi's release from house arrest was more apparent outside Burma than inside, where more cautious assessments prevail. Still, there are promising signs. Temperate statements by all parties have been encouraging. The release of more political prisoners is a necessary precondition for rapprochement. Releases are proceeding, but slowly.
The military government and the league have agreed that some appropriate forms of humanitarian assistance are needed. The details have yet to be negotiated, and there are bound to be points of tension in any definition involving government and opposition and even among donor organizations. But acceptance by both sides in Burma of the need to address basic human needs is a step forward.
A previous military government in 1962 began the systematic destruction of most elements of civil society - those autonomous local or national organizations that banded people together to deal with common interests or problems. These were replaced by controlled or monitored associations that served the political or economic interests of the central state administration. Civil society effectively ceased to exist, except at the village Buddhist monastery.
At one point the military-led Burma Socialist Programme Party, the only legal party, was a major element of indoctrination and control. Since the early 1990s the military has relied on a Union Solidarity and Development Association, with some 16 million members, and other mass organizations.
When international nongovernmental organizations provide assistance in a country like Burma, they most often must work with fledgling or improvised local organizations. The immediate effect is the delivery of better goods and services to impoverished people. The longer-term impact is the rebuilding of civil society at local levels. This widens the space between the state and society, giving people greater freedom from government control. Such pluralism is an important base on which more responsive and responsible governments can be built.
The internal humanitarian needs in Burma are enormous. Last year the UN specialized agencies in Burma indicated that a crisis had developed that was not being met, and called for more aid. Official foreign funding, through indigenous and international NGOs, could begin directly to assist people within Burma without providing financial support to the state.
Although both government and opposition have agreed to the need for more humanitarian aid, the capacity of the Burmese administration and the local NGOs to administer and monitor expanded programs is marginal. Building these technical capacities through training is a basic requirement that is not yet being met.
U.S. and other donors should consider how best to provide modest support to selected and legitimate indigenous NGOs and their foreign counterparts. This is an effective means to deal with crises and begin the process of rebuilding civil society. Such aid would be one further indicator of responsiveness to humanitarian needs in Burma and to the process of reconciliation that is so badly needed. The writer is director of Asian studies at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in Washington. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.