Is Burma Overcoming Its Political Stalemate?
Dialogue between the Junta and Aung San Suu Kyi
Urs Morf
18 April 2001 / Neue Zürcher Zeitung
A recent visit to Burma by a UN human rights reporter is the latest link in a chain of events which seems to indicate some political movement within the country's military dictatorship. The ruling junta and opposition leader Suu Kyi have resumed a dialogue, though no one can say whether it will ultimately lead to the generals' relinquishing power.
Last week, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN's human rights reporter for Burma, was allowed a three-day visit to that country, which has been ruled by a military dictatorship since 1962 and remains largely isolated from the rest of the world. After the visit, Pinheiro reported on his exploratory tour to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. He noted that he had been treated correctly and with distinct courtesy by the junta, which now calls itself the "State Peace and Development Council" (SPDC). His hosts permitted him to conduct whatever talks he wished, both with members of the ruling elite and with representatives of the opposition camp. The UN emissary also met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the charismatic opposition leader who, since her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, has spent more time under government-ordered house arrest than she has in freedom. To this day, Burma's ruling generals still refuse to permit her and her party to form a government and to hand over power to it. Without going into detail about his talks, Pinheiro stated that representatives of both sides had expressed "cautious optimism" that the 11-year-old political stalemate may soon be broken.
The Junta Shifts Course
Actually, the mere fact that the Burmese junta permitted the Brazilian political science professor to enter the country was noteworthy in itself. Pinheiro was named UN human rights reporter last December. His predecessor, Rajsoomer Lallah, a former high judge from Mauritius, had not been allowed into Burma even once during his entire tenure, which ran from 1996 until his resignation last autumn. Consequently, in composing his reports on the human rights situation in Burma, Lallah had had to rely entirely on information from exiled dissidents and from Burmese refugees living in neighboring Thailand. Among the things he regularly listed as the most widespread human rights violations in Burma were: systematic extortion, rape, torture, exploitation, and summary execution of family members, especially of Burma's numerous ethnic minorities. Just as regularly, Burma's junta rejected the reports as lies and anti-Burmese propaganda, with no bearing on the reality of life in that country.
Perhaps the regime has finally taken note of the fact that its denials were given far less credibility by world opinion than were the Lallah Reports, which seriously damaged Burma's prestige abroad. In any event, Pinheiro's visit is the latest link in a whole chain of events indicating that there has been some movement in Burma lately. At the least, there has been some slight softening in the junta's previously very tough stance toward the opposition and toward foreign critics.
In part, that softening goes back to a clever move on the part of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. A year ago, Annan appointed Razali Ismail, a Malaysian career diplomat, to be the UN's special emissary for Burma. Malaysia is the country which, in 1997, pushed hardest for Burma's acceptance as a member of the Association of South-East Asian Nations. Aside from commercial considerations, what admittedly prompted Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir to take that stand was largely his traditional anti-Western attitude. He wanted to prove that an "Asian" and "non-confrontational" approach would do more for the economic and political reintegration of a long-isolated Burma than the sanctions policy of "western neocolonialists and preachers of democracy."
Initial Success of the "Asian" Approach
Developments in recent months appear to prove Mahathir right, at least so far. Special UN Emissary Razali has not only been officially received on three visits to Burma's capital of Rangoon, he has achieved at least one major breakthrough: thanks to his mediation, there has been a resumption of the direct dialogue between the ruling generals and opposition leader Suu Kyi, which had been broken off in 1995. Suu Kyi's partner in the talks is General Khin Nyunt, the number-three man in Burma's power hierarchy, who is seen as the head of the junta's "enlightened" faction which is working toward a modernization of the country and a gradual easing of the regime. The first round of talks mediated by Razali came last October, only one month after the opposition leader's attempts to leave the capital by car and train in order to visit her supporters in the provinces had so infuriated the generals that they again placed her under house arrest and jailed numerous NLD members.
Suu Kyi's first talks with General Khin apparently initiated a kind of thaw. In January, the junta received an official EU delegation for the first time in years, and at the same time the Burmese media suddenly halted their almost daily, personally insulting polemics against Suu Kyi. In late January, 85 members of the NLD were released from prison. In February, General Khin received the head of the U.S. State Department's East Asia desk and allowed that gentleman to also meet with the opposition leader. In late March, in honor of Army Day, which more or less serves as Burma's national holiday, another 16 NLD members were set free. Above all, talks between Suu Kyi and the generals have continued; according to people close to her, she has already had six visits from General Khin.
What keeps foreign diplomats in Rangoon and Burma specialists in Thailand wondering is the still-unanswered question of what those talks have been about, as well as why the generals have been so willing to resume the dialogue. After all, despite the years of Western economic sanctions, they still appear to be firmly in the saddle, and thanks to the ruthless exploitation of their privileges and the country's natural resources, at least some of them enjoy a conspicuously luxurious standard of living - even as the majority of Burma's people are increasingly impoverished by economic mismanagement.
No Western Aid without Dialogue
Some observers believe that at least a few of the junta members want to continue modernizing the country and have reached the conclusion that its enormous backwardness cannot be overcome on its own or just with the aid of neighboring Asian countries. A bit of cynicism may be involved as well: The holdings of the individual generals would probably yield still greater profits under the influence of a wave of Western aid money and direct investments, and the regime has to hold a dialogue with Suu Kyi in order to get rid of American and European sanctions.
Prior to the resumption of talks, a better understanding of the objective situation was obviously needed on the other side as well. According to observers, opposition leader Suu Kyi has also taken a marked turn away from her previous strategy. That strategy consisted mainly of keeping up the pressure on the generals through actions aimed at appealing primarily to public sympathy abroad - well-deserved sympathy, be it noted - in the belief that the junta would thus be forced to its knees sooner or later. More recently, however, Suu Kyi seems to have realized that her first task, in order to achieve her long-term goal, is to overcome her growing domestic political isolation. At present, she is obviously deliberately refraining from anything which the junta could interpret as provocation. According to those close to her, on a number of occasions she has even asked foreign emissaries not to visit her any more while she is under house arrest. Moreover, from all foreign visitors she has requested absolute discretion regarding the contents of her talks with the generals, in order not to endanger their continuation.
Retreat or Another Freeze?
This policy of secrecy has been successful so far. Considering the circumstances, it may also be justified. But it makes it virtually impossible for outsiders to gauge the content of the dialogue or the chances that Burma may one day evolve into a democracy. At any rate, despite several months of continuing thaw, most observers still consider it inconceivable that, after years of tenaciously clinging to power and privilege, the generals could suddenly be persuaded to relinquish them purely through dialogue. Nor can it be ruled out that the current thaw will be followed by another freeze in the event that the upper hand is again won by the junta's hardline faction, for whom the thoroughly comfortable status quo is much to be preferred over any experimentation with the "good will" of the West and the domestic opposition.