Terms Of Engagement

Myanmar’s ruling junta isn’t likely to change its ways

At a meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Singapore in mid-November, US president Barack Obama urged Myanmar to release the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and begin a dialogue with her. And he delivered the message directly to the country’s prime minister, General Thein Sein. In early November, Kurt Campbell, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, became the highest ranking American diplomat to visit Myanmar in 14 years. He met leaders of the country’s military regime as well as Suu Kyi — all in line with the new US policy of engaging rather than isolating repressive regimes, including the reclusive government in Naypyidaw.
But is it going to make a difference? And are democracy and human rights the only items on America’s new Myanmar agenda? More importantly, does the US fully understand the mindset of Myanmar’s ruling generals?
Westerners who believe they can “engage” Myanmar’s generals to “nudge” them towards democracy are just naive, or, as a longtime Myanmarwatcher put it to me: “The number of ‘imminent breakthroughs’ is being rivalled by the progeny of ‘Myanmar experts’ multiplying inside the (Washington) beltway.” Members of Myanmar’s military elite don’t receive western visitors because they are interested in learning anything from them. They talk to such outsiders because they can use them to get critics off their backs and remain in power. Westerners, whether they advocate “engagement” or sanctions, have always overestimated their own importance.
For one of the most important principles of Myanmar’s foreign policy since the first military takeover in 1962 has been to divide the world into three circles. The first and most important consists of the country’s immediate neighbours: China, India, Thailand and, to some extent, Bangladesh. Those relationships concern national security and are considered vital for stability and regime survival. Myanmar has faced ethnic rebellions on the Thai border. China gave massive support to the insurgent Communist Party of Burma from 1968 to the 1980s. Various ethnic insurgencies have also been active on the Indian border, and, in the late-1980s, the then government of Rajiv Gandhi quite openly supported Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. On two occasions, 1978 and 1992, hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees streamed across the border into Bangladesh, causing major international crises.
The second circle includes other countries
in the region, with which Myanmar wants to maintain cordial relations basically to keep them at bay and refrain from supporting opposition movements. The third circle consists of the rest of the world – including the US, the European Union, Russia and others. These are only important insofar as they are able to influence circle two and especially circle one and, directly or indirectly, movements inside the country. Therefore, they have to be neutralised, but these distant powers are not going to lecture the generals on how to rule their country.
So what does the US want from Myanmar? Senator James Webb, whose visit to Myanmar prior to Campbell’s paved the way for the new policy, wrote sometime ago that western sanctions had “allowed China to dramatically increase its economic and political influence in Myanmar…if Chinese influence in Myanmar continues to grow, a military presence could easily follow”. Clearly, there are also important strategic and economic reasons behind America’s “new” Myanmar policy.
Equally worrisome has been Myanmar’s newfound friendship with North Korea, which could create an Asian alliance of “rogue states” hostile to the US. Myanmar has also been flirting with Iran. In August last year – India’s aviation authorities withdrew their prior permission for a North Korean plane to overfly Indian airspace on its way to Iran – just before it was about to take off from a stopover in Mandalay in northern Myanmar. At the time, the Indian media reported that the plane was on “non-scheduled operations, possibly a government charter”. It is not known what the plane was carrying, but it wasn’t passengers. The plane, which had flown over China to Myanmar, then took off back into Chinese airspace and on towards an unknown destination.
Washington’s concerns are understandable but, in the end, the US may lose out on all accounts. Myanmar’s generals are not going to change their repressive ways because of some sweet-talking foreigners. Nor are they going to negotiate their own demise with anybody, let alone Suu Kyi. When the smoke has cleared, there will be business as usual in Myanmar. Nothing is likely to change as long as the officers, and the rank and file of the armed forces, remain united behind their leaders.
On the other hand, Myanmar may use the US to play off its neighbours against each other, perhaps to lessen its heavy dependence on China, with which not all army officers may feel unequivocally comfortable. But, the US is never going to be as important as neighbouring countries. So in a sense, it’s Myanmar’s generals who are engaging western envoys and diplomats rather than vice versa


Copyrights TimesofIndia Newspaper 15-12-2009