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Non-violent struggle best chance fo



Subject: Non-violent struggle best chance for Burma

NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE BEST CHANCE FOR BURMA
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Edmonton Journal
December 6, 1998

There's always a sense of unreality when you talk to emissaries from a
troubled corner of the Earth.

The snow lies on the ground outside, the reassuring comforts of Canada
surround the conversation, and the talk itself is, most often,
restrained and logical, as if the challenge at hand were, say tinkering
with a health care system, and not restoring democracy and human rights
to a population of millions.

Perhaps this is because the emissaries themselves find problems less
real when then they are so far from them in miles, environment and
culture.

More likely, they automatically mute their pitch to keep it within the
credibility range of an audience with a different personal experience of
"serious problems".

Perhaps, also, they know that whatever human beings may say, they
instinctivelybehave as though possession was nine-tenths of the law when
it comes to government, and that titles and power, however ill-gotten,
confer legitimacy that mere justice does not.

So it is for the dreadful Augusto Pinochet of Chile, whose frailty and
self awarded rank of elder statesmen somehow entitle him to the concern
that was never accorded those whose lives he expended imposing his
agenda on Chile.

And so it was, in the opposite sense, in an Edmonton living room last
Wednesday.  The day before they were to be received by Alberta MLAs, the
prime minister and a foreign minister of the provincial government of
Burma chatted about their struggle to mobilize support to unseat the
usurpers running the government in Rangoon.

Dr. Sein Win, the prime minister, is a cousin of the Burmese democratic
leader and Nobel peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

He was elected in the 1990 parliament that the Burmese military quashed;
he was one of 20 MPs that established a provincial government in
rebellious Karen state; he has lived in Washington since 1993.

And yet here he is, reduced by fate to live thousands of miles from the
daughter he has never seen, serving as goad to the world's easily
distracted and easily calmed conscience.

In almost every way except the one that counts, these are hard times for
the Burmese junta.

Dr. Win says the Asian crisis has squeezed several ways first by drying
up investment from the region, second by the undermining the idea of
"Asian values" by which rulers justified curtailing individual and
democratic rights, and third by bouncing Indonesia's sympathetic
Suharto.

In addition, crucial neighbours such as China and Thailand have
increasing reason to be unhappy about Burma.  Thailand, especially is
frustrated with drug, refugee and AIDS problems coming over the border.

As a result, Dr. Win says the Thais have now switched to a philosophy of
"constructive intervention," a more aggressive formula for encouraging
change he'd like to see the UN and member countries take to Burma.

Bo Hla-Tint, minister for South and North American Affairs for the
provincial government, says that ought to mean, in addition to sanctions
and condemnation of human rights violations, more active support for
democratic forces like Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

The two men were in Edmonton on their way home from Victoria, where they
were welcomed by the B.C. legislature on the invitation of NDP Premier
Glen Clark.

Bo says part of the idea was to discuss the connection between Burma's
problems and the drugs on Vancouver's streets; obviously the junta's
direct and indirect encouragement of the drug trade makes it more than
the distant philosophical
enemy it sometimes appears.

But such contacts are also part of Suu Kyi's philosophy of building
support for the Burmese cause through people-to-people connections,
rather than relying on a top-down approach with occasional statements of
good intention from national
governments and the UN.

"People connections." "Active support."  "Condemnation of human rights
violations."
Such concepts are not the hard edged stuff of a plan of action.

Indeed, it is probably the language of non-violence (however admirable
and refreshing) that is most responsible for the low profile of those
who have right but not might on their side.  There is irony in this, to
say the least considering the disapproval (but vastly greater
attention), we give to violent advocates of change in places like the
Middle East.

Win says Suu Kyi's movement eschews the violent part because it fears
replacing one government deriving power from the gun with another.

This is the wisdom of South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not that
of Ireland's Gerry Adams.  It is a wisdom that will eventually give
Burma the sort of government it elected in 1990, and that it deserves.

In the mean time, however, it relies on fortune-- the blunders of the
military government, possible action by aggrieved neighbours, steadfast
foreign friends-- and especially on the Burmese people, who must reject
government arguments that democrats are to blame for their plight.

It requires patience, principles and a higher tolerance for pain and
frustration than most of us would have.  It is a wisdom that deserves
our respect, and more of our attention.

David Evans is a member of The Journal's editorial board.  He may be
reached at 429-5207, or by email at davide@xxxxxxxxxxxxx




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