Foreign Policy In Focus

Officially, the junta known as the SPLDC (State Peace and Development Council) no longer rules Burma. It was dissolved for the 2010 elections, in which Thein Sein was "elected" president and a veneer of democracy was applied to the country. But the military still rules. In Asia Times Online, Bertil Lintner writes about the expansion of Burma's arms manufacturing.

Myanmar has embarked on a massive expansion of its military and military capabilities since the country was shaken by a nationwide pro-democracy uprising that almost toppled the regime in 1988. … Recent defectors from the Myanmar military say that the number of infantry battalions and other military units have been increased dramatically since 1988, but most of these are understaffed and the foot soldiers are often forcibly recruited, poorly paid and badly motivated [and] the troops, and even most of the officers, lack combat experience.

… Myanmar's newly recruited infantry may lack combat experience, and the quality of the weapons produced in its defense industries may be of poor quality. … But it is clear that the Myanmar regime is in no hurry to change its priorities, as defense spending still accounts for as much as 50% of the central government's budget. 

In particular, those priorities are

… creating a loyal officer corps that the regime can depend on for its survival rather than building a professional fighting force. Regime survival has always been the main prerogative of Myanmar's generals and thus a loyal and well-supplied officer corps is still of utmost importance, regardless of their weakness on the battlefield. 

Obviously when a populace is as disempowered as Burma's, the junta doesn't need a strong army.

As a concession to demands for reform, the generals of Myanmar's ruling junta permitted elections in 2010. Rigged, though, they resulted in a victory for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. While long-time junta chief Than Shwe stepped aside, the new president is his former adjutant Thin Sein. In other words, a junta by any other name.

But, at least the brutal Than Shwe was sidelined, right? Turns out, operating in the shadows only gives him more leeway to get into even more mischief.

At Dictator Watch, Roland Watson writes that Than Shwe is "continuing his quest for nuclear arms, as the May interdiction by the U.S. of a North Korean ship bound for Burma illustrates. … The WMD program is in no way sidelined."

While that's a distant threat, more to the point, "Setting up a puppet government has freed him to focus on the war" against Myanmar's ethnic minorities. But, "the Burma Army is becoming stretched, and suffering large-scale casualties. Further, these casualties are more frequently extending into the officer ranks. Than Shwe doesn’t give a damn about rank and file soldiers, but he relies on mid and upper level officers for his support." However, "An important issue with the Civil War is how much Than Shwe’s orders are being followed. … As they are increasingly targeted by the resistance, and die, the survivors will become less likely to follow his orders." In fact

The Tatmadaw [Myanmar government army] is already having a hard time with the Karen, Shan and Kachin [ethnic minorities, as are those listed next]. Will its commanders agree to open even more fronts, against the Wa, Mongla and Mon, especially since the morale of the rank and file, already low, must be plunging even further?

Strike while the iron is hot? Watson again.

Some people are calling for the hostilities throughout all of Burma to cease. This too is a mistake. The Tatmadaw is [an] invading army, a colonizing force, in the ethnic areas. It should be treated as such, and fought against tooth and nail. The goal should be to inflict as many casualties as possible. Then, not only is there a good chance that the commanders will ignore Than Shwe’s orders; the coherence of the Tatmadaw itself may crack, leading to its downfall.

As for Aung San Suu Kyi

Is she a pacifist true-believe … or is her position more pragmatic, to avoid conflict if at all possible? … With the Civil War escalating, the pro-democracy movement’s commitment to nonviolence is being reexamined. … Her recent remarks in the BBC’s Reith Lectures have clarified her position. From the first lecture, in response to a question:

It’s possible because I have said in the lectures that I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons, but for practical and political reasons, because I think it’s best for the country. And even Ghandiji, who is supposed to be the father of non-violence, said that between cowardice and violence, he’d choose violence any time.”

Finally, writes Watson

Simply put … the Tatmadaw cannot win the Civil War in Burma. Given the terrain, and their tenacity, the ethnic resistance armies can never be summarily defeated. [In fact] the expanding conflict in Burma is a good thing. It can be the “short burst of violence” that Daw Suu finds acceptable. If the ethnic armies can continue to wear down the Tatmadaw, and the people find a way to renew their protests … Than Shwe can be expelled.

The respective rebellions of Burma's (or Myanmar, as its government prefers it be called) three largest ethnic minorities are, for once, all aflame at the same time. At Asia Times Online, Brian McCartan writes: "Myanmar moved closer to civil war in recent weeks after fighting broke out in Kachin State," thus breaking its ceasefire with Burma's ruling junta. "Myanmar's newly elected government now faces ethnic insurgencies on three separate fronts," thus putting at risk "Myanmar's development and international confidence in its supposed democratic transition."

"In the southeast," meanwhile, a revolt by "the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) on November 7, 2010, election day, resulted in the temporary seizure of two important border towns." What's significant about this is that, despite the noble sentiments suggested by its name, the DKBA had been allied with the government.

McCartan again: "Although the government was able to retake the towns, fighting continued in the area and the [DKBA] allied itself with the Karen [ethnic group] National Liberation Army." He adds: "The operations of [the] DKBA commander Major General Lah Pweh . . . have added new energy to the Karen insurgency through stepped up ambushes and attacks on army camps both in rural areas and in towns and villages."

Meanwhile, about Shan State, the third large minority, McCartan writes that "increasing government pressure against the 1st Brigade of the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N)," with which the government also had a ceasefire, "resulted in open conflict in early March." The government had been trying to "incorporate the military units of the ethnic ceasefire armies into the Myanmar armed forces ahead of the 2010 elections," but the 1st Brigade, as well as other SSA-N brigades, had refused to join. McCartan again.

Indications are that if the government chooses to continue pushing these conflicts fighting could continue for years. Myanmar army casualties, if insurgent and exile media reports are accurate, have been high while insurgent casualties remain low. . . . Many Myanmar Army units have not seen combat in many years. . . . Low morale is a major problem among government troops. . . . Units are hugely under resourced and desertion is rife. 

But

To continue operating, the insurgent groups will require safe havens and access to supplies and ammunition either through the direct or tacit approval of neighboring governments and militaries in China and Thailand. Thailand has increasingly turned its back on the ethnic groups along its border as it has emerged as Myanmar's top trading partner. [Its] relationship [with China], too, may be changing as China's investments in Myanmar expand, including strategically important energy projects such as the Shwe gas project and a vital oil and gas pipeline scheduled to run from the Indian Ocean to China's southern Yunnan province across Myanmar.

Still

A new alliance of 15 insurgent and former ceasefire groups, including the KNU, KIA and the SSA, offers new hope. [But it] remains to be seen whether. . . . the so-called United Nationalities Federal. . . . can coordinate operations on the battlefield or maneuver politically with internal ethnic political parties or internationally.

McCartan concludes that, unless the junta, in its present form as an ostensibly elected government, "can come to a sincere agreement with ethnic insurgents, the country seems poised to spiral into the type of widespread civil war not seen in its ethnic territories for over two decades."

(Pictured: Karen refugee camp in Mae Sot, Thailand.)

Recently Foreign Policy in Focus excerpted a new book titled Nowhere to be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime (McSweeney’s Voice of Witness series), edited by Maggie Lemere and Zoë West. Meanwhile, Michael Busch interviewed Mac McClelland, author of another new book on Burma, For Us Sur­ren­der is Out of the Ques­tion (Soft Skull Press) for an article that originally appeared in the CUNY Graduate Center Advocate.

Nearly fifty years after Burma's last democratically-elected gov­ern­ment was over­thrown by a military-led coup, the South­east Asian coun­try has suf­fered some of the world's most egre­gious human rights abuses. For activists, Burma has become syn­ony­mous with insti­tu­tion­al­ized rape, tor­ture, forced labor, and eth­nic cleans­ing. In the pop­u­lar imag­i­na­tion, how­ever, the enor­mity of Burma's cri­sis remains obscured by indif­fer­ence and the over­shad­ow­ing pres­ence of dis­as­ters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur. 

In 2006, Mother Jones edi­tor and human rights reporter Mac McClel­land vol­un­teered as an Eng­lish lan­guage teacher with a Burmese refugee orga­ni­za­tion in Mae Sot, Thai­land, a small fron­tier town hug­ging the bor­der with Burma. There, she lived, worked, and par­tied with a small band of hard-drinking refugees who risk their lives to doc­u­ment the slowly grind­ing geno­cide con­sum­ing eth­nic minori­ties in Burma. McClel­land col­lects their sto­ries of strug­gle and sur­vival under a mur­der­ous regime in a wide-ranging, metic­u­lously reported, and vividly recounted new mem­oir, For Us Sur­ren­der is Out of the Ques­tion. 

McClel­land sat down recently with the CUNY Advo­cate to dis­cuss her new book, the rea­son the world con­tin­ues to ignore the geno­cide in Burma, and why there still may be hope for vic­tims of the world's longest-running war. 

I hoped we could begin by set­ting the stage a bit. Can you dis­cuss how it is that you came to work with Burmese refugees in Thailand?

It really was as lame as I describe it in the book. I was dick­ing around on the inter­net, saw some­thing about these Burmese refugee camps near the bor­der in Thai­land, but I couldn't find any infor­ma­tion about why they were there. I saw that there were 100,000 Burmese refugees in Thai­land, and I was like, “Huh? Really?”  I had never heard that before. Of course, you know some­where in the back of your mind that Burma sucks, that it's not exactly a place you would want to live, not exactly a bas­tion of democ­racy, but I hadn't heard that there was a refugee cri­sis, that there are hun­dreds of thou­sands of refugees leav­ing the coun­try. I couldn't find any eas­ily acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion about what the hell the story was, so when I fin­ished grad­u­ate school I was like, “I'm just gonna go and check it out.” 

Did you travel there with the inten­tion of writ­ing a book?

No. I really just wanted to go and see what was going on. 

What was the most sur­pris­ing thing that you expe­ri­enced while you were there?

Well, the geno­cide. The geno­cide that I had never heard of, that most peo­ple have never heard of because peo­ple are afraid to label it a geno­cide. It's too com­pli­cated, too polit­i­cally charged. To real­ize that some­thing of that scope, at that level of hor­ror, was hap­pen­ing and that it's not widely reported — despite the fact that it has been doc­u­mented to death — was stun­ning to me. I mean, to every sin­gle thing that came out of the mouths of these guys that I was work­ing with my response would be, “Really?!?” They would show me videos, and pic­tures, and I would get inter­views, just end­less stacks of shit, and with all of it, in every case, my response was, “No, that's news to me. No, that story doesn't exist in my media. No, I don't know what you are talk­ing about.” In ret­ro­spect, I guess it was stu­pid to have had faith in think­ing that I would have known about this. But it is so big! You would think that some­body would have been doing some­thing about it. 

So, why haven't they? Is it sim­ply that Burma is home to the world's longest run­ning war, and so doesn't con­sti­tute news? Is news fatigue a fac­tor? Or is there some­thing else going on that we should consider?

Yeah, well, it seems to me that the fact that it is so old could pos­si­bly have some­thing to do with it, but at the same time the story is so juicy, it is so shock­ing, that it seems to me like some­thing that could totally move papers. But it's also that peo­ple in this coun­try — this is not as true in the UK — don't really know what Burma is, where Burma is, don't nec­es­sar­ily know what con­ti­nent Burma is on, so I think that news orga­ni­za­tions assume that the story will be a hard sell, and they're prob­a­bly right. If I were more of a con­spir­acy the­o­rist I would say that the geno­cide in Burma is being under­re­ported because our gov­ern­ment doesn't want the peo­ple to know about it because then they would have to do some­thing about it. And they don't want to do some­thing about it because then China would get mad. But really, I think it's just a hard-to-sell story. Of course, it could also be fatigue: peo­ple def­i­nitely had Haiti fatigue, just as they had New Orleans fatigue before that. The thing with Burma, though, is it seems like it hasn't reached that point. I just think we don't know what to do with it. Instead, we talk about the same thing over and over again, which is that there's a polit­i­cal pris­oner [Aung San Suu Kyi] there. Couldn't we use that as a news peg to say “Oh, and by the way, there's also a geno­cide going on”?

Let's talk about your approach to report­ing on the cri­sis in Burma. There's a won­der­ful ten­sion in the book between the rig­or­ous his­tor­i­cal research that con­tex­tu­al­izes the story — which feels almost aca­d­e­mic in nature — and the vig­or­ously infor­mal tone you adopt that frames the nar­ra­tive. First, did this mix­ture result from hav­ing a par­tic­u­lar audi­ence in mind while writ­ing? And sec­ond, can you dis­cuss the chal­lenges of nego­ti­at­ing the slip­pery slope between these two ele­ments of your style?

I def­i­nitely did not have a par­tic­u­lar audi­ence in mind. To me, the num­ber one thing was that I had the sto­ries of these refugees which were fuck­ing crazy. I really wanted to tell them. Period. As for the way the nar­ra­tive came about, that was more the result of per­son­al­ity than any­thing else. First of all, I am a huge nerd: I love research and fact-checking and col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion. At the same time, I write the way that I speak. When we were shop­ping the book pro­posal, a lot of peo­ple were not huge fans of that. They would be like, “Yes, this is an impor­tant sub­ject and peo­ple should write more books about Burma. But we can never abide by the scathing, the obnox­ious tone of this narrator!” 

Since the excerpt from the book came out in the new Mother Jones, some pretty impor­tant orga­ni­za­tions — I won't name any names — have writ­ten let­ters to the edi­tor say­ing “What the fuck were you think­ing, fram­ing this in this way. It's totally inap­pro­pri­ate for a human rights story.” So I guess I know, now, who is not my audi­ence! They thought that I was under­min­ing the impor­tance of the sit­u­a­tion by not being dryer in talk­ing about it. But for me, that's exactly the prob­lem with all this infor­ma­tion! It's pre­sented in a way that no one would ever want to look at it. Even the videos you see have these dire voiceovers — almost always done by British peo­ple — and there's always this slow and sad piano music in the back­ground. The moment you cue it up you say to your­self “I'm not going to watch this. It's going to be bor­ing and/or sad.” 

I've read a thou­sand books about Burma and even the mod­ern ones, they still read like reports, like aca­d­e­mic tracts. They're long, there's no nar­ra­tive, and there are no char­ac­ters. Because there are no char­ac­ters, I think that makes it hard for peo­ple to read, to engage with this con­flict. So, I was basi­cally writ­ing the book I needed when I was try­ing to find out what was going on. This was the book I was look­ing for, and couldn't find.

Given the jaw-dropping vio­lence and atroc­i­ties being per­pe­trated in Burma and the world's seem­ingly indif­fer­ent response thus far, do you still hold any faith that the United Nations or other mem­bers of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity will inter­vene on behalf of vic­tims there at any point in the fore­see­able future?

I have some. We have peace­keep­ers on the ground in Dar­fur, after all, so we know we can do it. It's not like the mech­a­nisms aren't there, that money isn't there. They are. It's just that peo­ple aren't employ­ing them. Thank God I can point to Sudan, though, because oth­er­wise I would prob­a­bly answer no, I don't have much faith. In Burma, those vil­lagers would be so happy to see some­thing like that. Even just the atten­tion would be impor­tant. They would be so happy that peo­ple knew what was hap­pen­ing. It would make a huge dif­fer­ence in their lives. So yes, I do have some faith. I rec­og­nize that it might be stu­pid, but if more peo­ple were talk­ing about Burma, then the United Nations would be forced to address it.  

Let's talk about United States for­eign pol­icy for a moment. Given the nec­es­sary polit­i­cal will to act on the sit­u­a­tion in Burma, what options, if any, could the Barack Obama admin­is­tra­tion rea­son­ably pur­sue to have a pos­i­tive impact there?

First of all, our gov­ern­ment could lead the charge for a com­mis­sion of inquiry into crimes against human­ity in Burma. Every­one knows that the United States is in charge, in many ways, of the United Nations, and cer­tainly of the Secu­rity Coun­cil. So, if we made a big deal of Burma, showed that this is a cause that we are behind and are will­ing to fight for, that would make a huge dif­fer­ence in com­par­i­son to what we are doing now, which is noth­ing. If a com­mis­sion of inquiry were to be put into place then all this doc­u­men­ta­tion sit­ting around would have to be looked at. I can't imag­ine that peo­ple would see all that and then decide that this is not a prob­lem. The Obama admin­is­tra­tion actu­ally wouldn't even have to do all that much work: it wouldn't cost any­thing; peo­ple wouldn't have to be moved around. The pres­i­dent would sim­ply just have to say, “We need to do this thing, right now.”

You make the point in the book's clos­ing chap­ter that when it comes to US-China rela­tions, eco­nomic con­cerns trump human rights com­plaints that Wash­ing­ton might oth­er­wise press with respect to Burma. Yet in the case of Dar­fur, we saw some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent play out. Why? What are the key deter­mi­nants that dis­tin­guish these two sit­u­a­tions from one another?

I think civil soci­ety plays a huge part. First of all, it's about aware­ness: the pub­lic doesn't know about Burma, and if the pub­lic doesn't know about Burma then they aren't putting pres­sure on politi­cians to talk about it. And so they won't, because it's eas­ier to ignore it. The “g” word also plays a big part in this. Right now, we just have this vague idea about Burma — that there's a dic­ta­tor­ship or some­thing there, that they sound really mean, and that there's a lot of cen­sor­ship. This is not enough for peo­ple to get behind, to pres­sure the United States to stand up to China and fight them on the issue. But imag­ine if some­one threw it out there, called it what it was, and said, “This is a geno­cide! These are the pic­tures. Here is the evi­dence.” This is what hap­pened in the case of Dar­fur. The exact same thing could hap­pen in South­east Asia. There's no rea­son why it couldn't. 

A host of pos­si­ble actions, peace­ful and coer­cive, have been artic­u­lated to pres­sure the Burmese junta to respect basic human rights and pre­pare the way for civil­ian rule. At the end of the day, other options hav­ing been con­sid­ered, what do you think about pos­si­bil­i­ties for mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Burma? Is this going too far?

I don't think it's going too far. In my opin­ion, peace­keep­ers are the answer. At least, they're as close to the answer as we're likely to get. The ideal solu­tion, of course, would be that the coun­try even­tu­ally evolves away from dic­ta­tor­ship and builds the nec­es­sary insti­tu­tions for a demo­c­ra­tic soci­ety and blah blah blah. In the mean­time, some­one needs to pro­tect these fuck­ing vil­lagers in the east of Burma. It's absurd what's hap­pen­ing. I read exile news­pa­pers. Every sin­gle day, there are reports of five-year-old girls being gang-raped, four thou­sand new refugees pour­ing over the bor­der into south­ern China, this sort of thing. It is so urgent. Per­haps not to you, per­haps not to me, but it is for the peo­ple who have to deal with it. The fact that this has been going on for so long, and that so few peo­ple know about it, is ridiculous. 

(Pictured: Burma's 2007 Saffron Revolution.)

Note: An earlier version of this post mistakenly attributed Roland Watson's quotes to David Tharckabaw.

At Dictator Watch, Roland Watson asks, "Why Are There No Protests in Burma?"    

Thus far Burma's military dictatorship has been immune to the uprisings to which the world has been witness to -- or engaged in -- elsewhere. Perhaps that's because Burma comes in a close second to North Korea as the most merciless administration in the world. You think Bahrain and Libya have been barbaric in their responses to protests? One shudders to think how North Korea (where, actually, an opposition movement is unimaginable) and Burma's ruling junta would react. Watson, though, sees a ray of hope.

He begins by citing all the nations where mass protests have been mounted and criticizing the United States both for supporting rulers such as Mubarak and failing to switch their support to the protesters in timely fashion. He then writes that

. . the generals of the SPDC military junta . . . are among the most repressive in the world [including] ethnic cleansing . . . committed against minority groups. The theft of Burma's natural resources by the junta, its cronies, and their international partners, is also so severe that it is in the first tier, financially, of worldwide corruption. It is therefore a surprise that there have not been any demonstrations in the country.

. . . As a long-time Burma analyst and activist, I personally do not understand the popular inaction. Obviously, there is fear and a multitude of other factors. But still, one would expect some sort of response.

At first glance, sounds suicidal. Watson explains.

The crackdown on the Saffron [monks] Uprising in 2007 only occurred after the junta was able to bring troops from border areas to Rangoon. The local commanders did not want to fire on the protestors. It has also been revealed that some leading generals opposed the crackdown.

There is significant dissent and factionalism within the junta. Really, everyone is positioning for power in advance of the demise of the top general . . . Than Shwe.

In fact

There is good reason to believe that the regime's response to renewed demonstrations would be muted, particularly in light of the precedent set by the Egyptian military.

Bear in mind that Watson wrote that before Gaddafi's brutal suppression in Libya. He presents another reason, though, that the junta's reaction to new protests might not be as harsh as we've come to expect from it.

In addition, a new crackdown would end the hesitancy to launch war crimes prosecution against the SPDC.

Perhaps more to the point, Watson suggests that a crackdown by the junta could meet with an armed resistance that was absent in previous protests.

Right now, the resistance groups in Burma are working to establish a federal army. The generals have already exhibited an inability to move against them singly. As a coordinated front, [the resistance groups] will become much more powerful.

As for specific tactics, he recommends that this time

. . . the Burmese should avoid marches. As the protestors in Egypt illustrated, it is better to choose a central location, with many access points and surrounded by buildings for video documentation to rally. In Rangoon, one such area is Bandoola Park/Square.

The generals can hide in Naypyidaw [the new capital], but their rule will be a sham once the people of Burma control Rangoon [the old capital]. There will then be a coup against Than Shwe, or he and his family will flee to China or Singapore. The people of Burma will be through with the likes of [them]! . . . Democracy has a cost as the adage says "No Pain, no Gain". The secret is to know when to spend it. That time is now.

For her part, Aung San Suu Kyi has offered cautious support for the Egypt protests, while telling the Toronto Globe and Mail that she'd like to link up with pro-democracy activists via Facebook and Twitter. "I think we need to -- what do you call it -- raise the megabyte?"

Meanwhile in a piece for Irrawaddy, The Dictator's Survival Guide, the Burmese exile publication's managing editor Kya Zwa Moe ponders why the junta has lasted for almost 50 years.

What are some of the secrets to a dictator's survival? Here are some that Than Shwe and the Burmese generals have practiced: 

— Crush all protests as soon as possible
— Consolidate all security forces, especially the military, under one command
— Apply divide and rule techniques among dissidents and the public   
— Show no sympathy toward any dissent (as Tunisian leader Ben Ali did for the street vendor.)
— Never negotiate with opponents
— Pay no attention to pressure or suggestions from the international community

Than Shwe has applied these techniques since taking power and they are still working well for him. His recent formation of a "civilian government,"  following the convening of a "civilian parliament," appears to be his attempt to plant his seed of power in Burma and watch it grow even from beyond the grave.

If you think that Burma sounds like a horror movie, you're right. Perhaps, though, should mass protests re-occur there, the urge to keep from jeopardizing its developmental and commercial deals with China and India would be enough to keep the junta from responding to mass protests with killings, torture, and imprisonment as it has in the past.