As part of a new strategic dialogue, Foreign Policy In Focus asked Kyi May Kaung and David Steinberg the following questions: "Which is the best way to effect change in Burma/Myanmar -- through sanctions against the government, by engaging the leadership, or some combination of the two? Or, to put it another way, which case is more applicable to Burma: South Africa and regime change or China and gradual change?" Here is Kyi May Kaung’s response:
These questions leave out a lot – for example, the system type and the top-down system of control in Burma -- and attempt to focus only on sanctions as a way to effect change in Burma. The question is of course wider than that.
First off, I would like to continue to call the country Burma. The name was changed to Myanmar after the clampdown on the pro-democracy movement that started in 1988 and was accompanied by a change in the names of the government, towns and cities, and organizations. Many pro-democracy activists including me, see this as an attempt to hoodwink the international community with a name change. But it has not worked. So unless I wish to say something derogatory about the present regime, I will stick to the better-known name Burma. The National League for Democracy (NLD), elected by a majority vote in 1990, uses the name Burma.
Given that the framing questions leave out system type and regime type, the best way to try and effect change in Burma is through a combination of sanctions and very limited engagement, not necessarily with the generals, with whom I think engagement or any kind of liaison or negotiation is well nigh impossible. They have a different mind set, a different worldview, and even if outsiders and western nations are willing, it will be difficult to talk to them.
Since the first coup of 1962 by Gen. Ne Win that established the military regime, which still remains in power as the absolute power holder, each successive military regime – The Burma Socialist Program Party, the SLORC or State Law and Order Restoration Council, and the present SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) -- has become more repressive and oppressive than the previous. One could well argue that since the supposedly moderate Gen Khin Nyunt was deposed in 2004, and after the move of the state capital to Pyinmana in 2005, the regime has reached an apogee of oppression. Pyinmana has been renamed “Naypyidaw” – “The King’s Royal City” -- and everything I hear attests to the fact that the current supreme leader, Gen. Than Shwe, entertains dynastic pretensions. The leaked video of his daughter’s wedding was redolent of the Sun King’s Versailles, and reportedly the first family uses royal language at home. Footage of the most recent parades in Naypyidaw reminds one of North Korea.
Question #2 does not really put question #1 in a different way. The whole problem of the sanctions debate indeed is that it presents the world, or policy, as an “either-or” decision: sanctions or no sanctions, and nothing else in between in the policy mix. In fact many other factors can and have effected change in South Africa and China, as well as Russia, which, as the former Soviet Union, was more like Burma in system type. The BSPP and the central planning system in Burma were designed by Ne Win, and his chief ideologue at the time U Ba Nyein, to be almost exact copies of Soviet central planning -- with the exception of collective farms in agriculture, which exist now under the SPDC. In Russia, a system change came about in large part because of Gorbachev and glasnost and perestroika. Change in China is due to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, which started in 1978 and now have made the Chinese economy so strong. U.S. policy towards China has been influenced by trade with China, which is much in China’s favor, and by the World Trade Organization. South Africa changed as much because De Klerk was willing to sit in the same room with Mandela and negotiate with the ANC, as because of the effectiveness of sanctions.
It’s not that Burma “never reforms.” Nor, at least in the BSPP days, was Burma unaware of changes in the other socialist countries. But the “reforms” were always very minimal, such as allowing street side vendors or small traders to transport rice within Burma. And Burma, at least up to 1988, was always sending study missions overseas. But civilians have always been allowed little input into the military government’s decision making. We should look at 1962-1988 as one period and then post-1988 as another, when more trade and more private ownership were allowed. Unfortunately, these post-1988 changes were all connected to the military power holders, their families, and their holding companies. The private banks have been pretty much money laundries and Ponzi schemes, as the crash in February 2003 demonstrated.
After 1988, with more “legalized” activity, such as Burma-China cross-border trade, it can be argued that the scale of the economy has grown larger. But so much of it is unreported, or under-reported, that it is hard to tell. Direct control from the center, not just in economic matters, increased continuously over time, with a corresponding increase in human rights abuses.
Burma now is second only to North Korea as a rogue regime, to use the phrase first used by Noam Chomsky. With North Korea, I have heard Wendy Sherman of the Albright Group argue for more engagement, and with respect to North Korea, I agree with her. But North Korea is much more a hermit kingdom than Burma is, and we know much less about it. And so there can be an argument for the United States “engaging” with North Korea just to know what is going on and to have some leverage.
In the Burmese case, however, the outside world knows a great deal already, more than enough. The United States has very little trade with Burma. As one Burmese dissident from the 1988 generation pointed out at a seminar in Washington D.C. last fall, “we don’t need to go to Burma to find out about Burma. There are thousands of refugees in Thailand and elsewhere, and we can find out everything we need to know from them.” Chiang Mai in northern Thailand is fast becoming the base for many foreign non-profits, Western and Australian expatriates, Burmese refugees, and Burma watchers. In the eye of the storm, in Rangoon itself, there is often a false calm due to the news blackout. A senior broadcaster who once worked at the Voice of America called this “Rangoonitis.” It often affects even western diplomats who unconsciously start to echo the junta’s statements. So, in terms of a token engagement in order to find out more about the system and how it operates, there is very much less of an argument in the Burmese case.
Sanctions and Burma have been an academic and policy issue for Burma watchers and foreign policy makers since at least 2001. At that time, the international sanctions movement picked up steam, with great success in divestment achieved by organizations such as The Free Burma Coalition (up to 2003) and Burma Campaign UK. Since then, the junta has sent overseas a steady stream of apologists to argue that sanctions hurt Burma. But their arguments have not been convincing at all. David Steinberg, considered to be the primary academic arguing for a removal of sanctions, often makes erroneous statements such as “18 years of sanctions have not worked in Burma.”
As a matter of fact, sanctions have not been in place against Burma until after the Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. He also makes off-the-wall statements such as “Aung San Suu Kyi makes United States policy.” This is not true, how could she? After the Burmese junta clamped down on the Burmese pro-democracy movement in September of 1988, it initiated a wholesale sell-off of Burma’s natural resources. Both the clampdown and the sell-off continue to today. The money from the exports, particularly to China, has somewhat mitigated the effect of sanctions on the junta. So what the anti sanctions crowd was previously reacting to was to the effectiveness of the sanctions movement overseas, not to the sanctions themselves, which weren’t in place yet.
Alfred Oehlers has argued convincingly that sanctions in Burma are not scattershot but finely focused and have minimal “collateral damage.” There is no ban on travel to Burma or on exports, including food and medicines.
To my mind, sanctions in the case of Burma are meant to send a message, to hurt but not to totally bring down a regime. When a tourism ban to Burma was first discussed in the early 1990s by one of the very first Burmese activist groups, the Canadian Friends of Burma, I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the junta will understand nothing except what hurts their pocket book; on the other, total isolation might not be the best idea. Burma-born economist Ronald Findlay, who is an international trade theorist, told me at the time that “sanctions are for an ethical or moral reason.” Later, at an Open Society Institute event in 2004, he said, “Collapse is not an economic term.” By this I think he meant that a nation can go on for decades without a regime change, hanging on at the survival level.
A recent International Herald Tribune op-ed by Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and Burma-born Amartya Sen does not even mention economic sanctions but lays great stress on systemic factors and the regime’s oppression. This is entirely in line with Sen’s contributions in the field of development and welfare economics, where he showed that the famous “Pareto Optimum” in economics is not “value-free.” In other words, we can’t make “just economic” decisions without also thinking ethically.
So the policies that the outside world can adopt with respect to Burma are not just “sanctions and no sanctions or a combination of the two” but a vast array of finely calibrated policy options. For instance, according to Dr. Thaung Htun of the democratic government-in-exile, detailed benchmarks have been proposed at least since the “carrots and sticks” conference at Chilston Park in Kent, UK in 1998. But because of the recalcitrance of the Burmese military regime, these finely calibrated options remain nothing but an academic exercise, which most people have forgotten. The first Chilston Park idea fell flat because it lacked a very big stick (a la Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick”) and because the Burmese military has as much as stated that it does not need the “carrots” of the West since it can rely on Chinese support.
In the congressional debate over the sanctions bill in 2003, mention was made of “the brutal attack by the regime’s henchmen on Daw Suu (the democracy leader’s) traveling party.” The international media renamed this attack -- I met two of the survivors -- the Depayin Massacre or Black Friday of May 30, 2003. According to the congressional record, James Leach (R-IA) said that he realized that economic sanctions “are seldom successful” but believed that the Rangoon regime’s “long train of abuses” left the United States, and other nations concerned with Burma’s plight, with no other ethical choice. A key element in successfully pressuring Burma also involves enlisting the help of China and India. In informal discussions with movers and shakers in the Burmese process, I have brought up the idea of pressuring Burma through these countries, especially through China.
The National League for Democracy, which was elected by a majority vote in 1990 and which represents the Burmese people, has supported sanctions along with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel, Desmond Tutu, Tom Lantos, Dana Rohrabacher, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi. The NLD, which has been severely repressed by the junta, is struggling to survive. Should it be abandoned in favor of those who wish to tango with the junta?
I want to end by warning the general reader that the junta is not as naïve in public relations and international relations as one might think. Since about 2000, when the international sanctions movement started to pick up steam, a group of scholars consisting of David Steinberg, Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Morton Pedersen, Tin Maung Maung Than, and Robert Taylor have to my mind attempted to produce “stacked panels” arguing for the removal of sanctions from Burma. They are also known to have traveled or lived in Burma and accepted the hospitality of the SPDC on trips there. The two Burma-born ones openly boast that they still hold Burmese passports.
The organizations that support them are pro-trade and anti-sanctions. There is a long paper trail regarding this, the most recent being two articles by Human Rights Watch consultant David Mathieson in The Irrawaddy. The military regime at one time hired the same PR consultancy firm that worked for Saddam Hussein, and around 1997-98 a Washington DC-based PR firm named Bain and Co. was on SLORC/SPDC’s payroll.
The anti-sanctions faction argues for removing sanctions and visa bans against officials and families of the Burmese military regime. But it is impossible to ignore the fact that human rights abuses not only still exist in Myanmar, they are growing more numerous, more widespread, and also more blatant. Consider the case of Thet Naing Oo, who died as a result of steel balls shot at him from catapults by regime thugs on a street in Rangoon in full view of many passersby.
Should we listen to the testimony of one million internally displaced persons inside Burma, thousands of political prisoners, and thousands of refugees outside the country? Or should we be taken in by the “arguments” of a few individuals who support engaging with the Burmese generals. Should the free world appear to “reward” such a horrible regime?
FPIF contributor Kyi May Kaung is a Burmese dissident, artist, poet, and political analyst living in exile. She holds a doctorate in political economy from the University of Pennsylvania. Her 1994 dissertation argued for true democratic reforms in Burma and against the top-down system of control.
