The Nation - Negotiating for change

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Subject: The Nation - Negotiating for change in Burma

The Nation - June 23, 1999.
Editorial & Opinion

POLITIC VIEW: Negotiating for change in Burma

AFTER several failed attempts to bring the Burmese junta to the dialogue
table, the world is still waiting to see what will happen next. Josef
Silverstein examines past efforts to find a solution to the country's
political and civil problems in the first of a two-part series.

THE skies over Burma are slowly filling with trial balloons about
negotiating political change in the country.

The first balloon was sent aloft last year by Human Rights Watch (Aug 6,
1998) when it called for three things:

-Understanding of the nature of the three key actors in Burmese politics --
the millitary, the NLD and the ethnic minorities.

-New dialogue between the industrialised nations and Burma's millitary
rulers.

-The construction of a road map of specific improvements in human rights in
Burma and ''incremental restoration of normal economic and diplomatic
relations with the international community''.

In October, a second balloon was floated by the UN and several of the
leading industrialised nations. They offered technical and financial
assistance for political dialogue in Burma between the military and the
National League for Democracy (NLD).

The first proposal went nowhere, even though several writers and journalists
picked it up and gave it their backing.

The second effort alarmed supporters of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD
because of rumours that the military rulers were being offered US$1 billion
as an inducement to accept negotiations. But the loud outcry against
''bribing'' the country's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
to hold meetings with the civilian opposition, together with the military
junta's rejection of the plan, appeared to have buried it.

But six months' later, in late May 1999, US Deputy Secretary of State for
Asian and Pacific Affairs Ralph Boyce, on a visit to Asia, was reported to
have said that the October UN initiative was ''the only game in town'' and
still worth pursuing.

A few weeks later, the press reported yet another balloon which suggested
that the UN was prepared to send an envoy to Rangoon to discuss exchanging
aid for a political dialogue.


The new element in this report was that Burma's neighbours, who previously
were silent as they pursued the Asean policy of constructive engagement,
were now encouraging Burma's military rulers to accept the mission and start
talks with NLD leader Suu Kyi.

As the world waits to see what will happen next, it is worth examining the
past activities of the key players in order to put the future into
perspective.

It should be remembered that Suu Kyi has long been on record as saying that
she and her party were ready for dialogue and willing to discuss anything
with the view of starting a process of restoring democracy in Burma. Suu
Kyi's position has not changed since she made this statement to the then US
Congressman Bill Richardson while under house arrest in 1994.

Opposition to dialogue between Suu Kyi, other leaders of the NDL and
minority leaders is also part of the military's policy of ''divide and
rule''. They have blocked all her efforts both to travel to areas inhabited
by the minorities and hold talks. They also have put dialogue restraints on
the minority groups. As a condition of the ceasefire agreements with them,
the military rulers have demanded that those who signed should not
communicate with those who did not.

By keeping all political groups apart, SPDC hopes that the people will see
and accept the military as the only leaders in the country and gather behind
it. But no matter what they say or do, Suu Kyi and her party have the
backing of both the Burmese in the country's heartland and the minorities in
the frontier areas.

Burma's military rulers have fooled no one with their shifting explanations
about the goals of the 1990 election and their own efforts to write a new
constitution which will keep them permanently in power.

They say that until the constitution is written and in place they cannot
discuss the issues which matter most to the people -- whether Burma will be
federal or unitary, whether or not it will be a democracy and whether or not
the people will be given all the rights set forth in the UN Declaration of
Human Rights.

Thus, if internal dialogue is the goal of the Human Rights Watch, the US
government and the UN, they are right to focus on the military rulers
because it is they and not the NLD who refuse to come to the table and talk.
If the dialogue is to proceed, then the participants must come as equals,
each with the right to choose its own leaders.

But is it necessary to pay a giant bribe to get talks underway and why
should anyone trust the military rulers to keep their word?

Governments and people, the world over, know that the military rulers showed
no respect for the election law and the results of the voting. They continue
to show no respect for the laws they have promulgated and the promises they
have made. The world community also knows that SPDC shows no respect for
international law and binding treaties.

Tomorrow: The forced labour equation.