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OBSERVER EDITORIAL ON BURMA



OBSERVER: BURMA, OUR NEXT SOUTH AFRICA?
(First editorial in the British Sunday newspaper "The Observer")
Published 14th July 1996

   Nelson Mandela is a world figure - Aung San Suu Kyi, in many respects his
Asian counterpart, is beginning to reach that status.  The struggle she is
mounting in Burma and the circumstances in which she finds herself have eerie
parallels with his.  As the British great and good jostled with the London
crowds last week to fete Mandela and make amends for past misdeeds, there is the
opportunity not to make the same mistakes again.  We traduced Mandela when he
needed us; we should not do the same with Suu Kyi.

   She is the democrat opposition leader facing house arrest at the behest of a
military regime which not only denies basic human rights but has organised an
economy where child, forced and slave labour is commonplace.  Last week the
Norwegian government said its honorary consul in Rangoon had been tortured
before he died under arrest.  New depths of barbarism and incivility are reached
almost daily.  But, as we report today, Britain is behaving towards Burma with
much the same cynicism, short-sighted greed and disregard for moral principle
that so long and so shamefully marked our behaviour towards apartheid South
Africa.

   We are selling arms to a regime that suppresses dissent and prevents the will
of the majority deciding who should govern the country; we acknowledge the
existence of "a new tide of repression", yet seek to block European trade
sanctions; leading British companies continue to invest in Burma, encouraged by
a recent DTI-sponsored trade mission, on the grounds that Burmese workers would
be harmed if we pulled out.

   Fact by tawdry tact, the story repeats the saga of British trade and
diplomatic missions to Pretoria, Cape Town and Johannesburg in the Fifties,
Sixties and Seventies.  Then, too, Britain deplored repression but resisted all
practical measures to bring it to an end.  Then, too, we put profit before
morality, and pretended hypocritically to have the welfare of repressed workers
as our main concern.  In London this week even right-wing politicians conceded
they had made a mistake - but it is all, painfully, happening again.

   When President Mandela left London on Friday, he bequeathed an agenda for
British action to help the new South Africa.  Such was the popular accolade for
Mandela that the Government would be well advised to give all the help it can.
But if the true lesson of last week's momentous visit is to be learnt, then we
should ensure not only that short-term commercial calculations do not tempt us
into underwriting repression but also accept the other lesson from South Africa
- that ultimately sanctions, especially those that ban inward investment, do
work.  We can support Suu Kyi if we choose.

   Tomorrow Denmark will propose European trade sanctions against Burma as part
of the gathering international effort.  Britain should back them unequivocally -
otherwise we should recognise ourselves for what we have become.  Hypocrites.