Article in Indian Paper

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Is Burma's Heroine Bad News for her Nation? 
By Justin Marozzi
The Asian Age
15 February 1998
 
Is Aung San Suu Kyi, beautiful pro-democracy and human rights activist,
bad news for Burma? It is the question the West has preferred not to ask.
It is time it did so. The 50th anniversary of the country's independence,
celebrated in hollow fashion last month, provides an opportune moment for
reflection. 
 
Burma has suffered under the military junta that seized power in the coup
of 1988; of that there can be little doubt. The economy is in the
shambles, the Kyat fluctuates widely up and down against the dollar, and
political freedom is as distant a prospect as ever. Those brave enough to
express opposition to the regime are likely to be handed seven-year prison
sentences for their pains. In the face of this thuggish, incompetent and
hopelessly corrupt regime, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi has emerged as the tireless
and charismatic head of the democracy movement. Since 1990, she has been
separated from her husband and two sons, has been subjected to continual
harassment and persecution and has shown remarkable courage throughout.
That much is controversial. But Burma is also suffering from a striking
absence of debate on the methods she is using to improve this dreadful
situation. In particular, her call for the international community not to
invest in Burma and her discouragement of foreign aid are having
profoundly damaging effects on her country. Critically, they are having no
discernible effects on the regime beyond increasing its intransigence.
 
Over lunch in her guarded compound in Rangoon, I asked Ms Aung San Suu Kyi
why she was so resolutely opposed to foreign investment with the regime.
In her recently published 'Letters from Burma,' She described businessmen
investing in the country as "passers-by in an orchard roughly stripping
off blossoms for their fragile beauty, blind to the ugliness of despoiled
branches, oblivious of the fact that by their action they are imperilling
future fruitfulness and committing an injustice against the rightful
owners of the tree." It is a fine picture, but it is one painted by a
poetical visionary. Aid is desperately needed for roads, bridges,
telecommunications, civil aviation, health and education, but promoted
both by the regime's incompetence and Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the United
States continues to block World Bank and IMF lending to Burma.
 
The problem, she said, was that ' the economic changes that the Slorc (the
ruling body), brought about were not building up a middle class. It just
meant that some people got terribly wealthy, and the great majority got
poorer'. Economic development is never that simple. In neighboring
Indonesia, one of the world's most obvious kleptocracies, growth has
helped create a middle class is a more appropriate ingredient in the
recipe than a poor peasantry. What, I asked Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, had her
movement achieved in the decade since she returned from England to Burma?
"We have had our ups and downs, but certainly our democracy movement is
far better known and supported throughout the world now than it was in
1988," she replied. In other words, Burma has successfully been
established as a pariah state consigned to economic ruin. As one observer
in Rangoon remarked, "I find it astonishing that anyone can think that by
keeping a country poor you advance the cause of democracy. All you do is
keep the peasant knee-deep in mud when the country is crying out for
industrialization, modernization, a manufacturing base and a middle class
with economic leverage that will stand up to the government." The
unpalatable truth about sanctions, particularly hard to digest for those
adhering to the isolationist approach, is that they offer no magic fix.
The example of South Africa, so beloved by those who call for sanctions in
Burma, is not conclusive. Sanction against Iraq have certainly damaged the
regime's ability to wage war, but they have also devastated an entire
population without in any way weakening the position of the murderous
Saddam Hussein. In Cuba, four decades of the US embargo have merely
reinforced the position of Fidel Castro. The bearded revolutionary
routinely blames the country's economic morass on his imperialist
neighbor.
 
But with Iraq, a dangerous and recalcitrant regime that the International
Community collectively agreed to punish, there is at least a debate on
whether sanctions are correct approach. The Burmese people are owed a
similar debate on whether the methods of one opposition leader and western
governments to prevent foreign aid and investment are either appropriate
or helpful.  But for western politicians, who prefer certainties to
potentially intractable problems, showing off on the human rights and
democracy platform is easier than acknowledging their limited ability to
bring about desired political change oversea.
 
Quite simply, Burma offers them cheap political capital. The country is of
no strategic interest and, having strangled itself by almost three decades
of economic isolation, it has few large western business interests to
contend with. The limited US sanctions enacted last April, were driven by
domestic politics. By ensuring they prohibited only new investments, the
ban safeguarded Unocal, the only significant investor in Burma.
 
Branding the Burmese government as a deeply repugnant regime is the easy
part. More challenging is to identify a way forward. It is unclear whether
discouraging investment will work. Burma may, as many hope, prove to be
another South Africa. It is equally debatable whether foreign investment
will in time fuel the emergence of a more politically assertive middle
class to replace the military junta. There is nothing wrong with such
uncertainties, they are part of the political debate. The point, of
course, is that there should be one. The jury on Ms Aung San Suu Kyi
should still be out.
 
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