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Myanmar motives shrouded in doubt w



Subject: Myanmar motives shrouded in doubt with World Bank offer 

Myanmar motives shrouded in doubt with World Bank offer 

Stephen Collinson 

 AFP, Bangkok, 16 November 1999  Myanmar's motives in inviting a World Bank
team to discuss its limping economy were shrouded in doubt  Tuesday, as
analysts debated if the move was merely a ploy to ease foreign pressure on the
junta.


While genuine dialogue with the World Bank would indicate a new spirit of
openness, its validity would hinge on the generals' willingness to act on World
Bank recommendations, observers said. 

The invitation was made public after a highly critical World Bank report leaked
to a newspaper warned that Myanmar's economy was on the verge  of collapse,
submerged in debt, choked by inflation and starved of foreign investment. 

Extracts reported by the International Herald Tribune said the military must
promote political reform to stave off a systemic banking crisis. 

Myanmar expert Mohan Malik of Australia's School of International Defence
Studies gave a measured reaction to the junta's invitation, warning it had a
history of adopting apparently conciliatory stances while retreating behind
entrenched positions. 

"From time to time, the regime gives out encouraging signs, but it is often a
device to ease Western pressure and then they carry on doing what they have
been doing," he said. 

Only genuine action could demonstrate the junta's sincerity," he said. 

"Political reform -- that is the bottom line, if they do not do it then
everything else is secondary." 

Potential points of contention between Myanmar and the World Bank appear on to
centre on the causes of the economic malaise. 

Myanmar ministers, who could not be reached Tuesday, say their problems lie in
an investment drought and Western trade restrictions imposed to punish alleged
human rights abuses. 

The World Bank report puts the blame squarely on the military dominated state
apparatus and tightly controlled economy. 

Myanmar analyst Sunai Pasak, from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University sees
little hope the junta will admit mistakes. 

"There will be no genuine response from the Burmese junta -- there will be just
a ploy to engage with the World Bank," he said. 

They might introduce some kind of 'structure of reform' but it is very
problematic how far they would go." 

Sunai said Myanmar had failed in an attempt to emulate China, one of the few
states with close links to Yangon, by giving economic development priority over
political reform. 

"It does not have the fundamentals to use as a stimulus for economic growth as
China did," he said. 

World Bank sources have told AFP that any new initiative in Myanmar would first
aim to build confidence similar to the bank's efforts in North Korea. There is
little prospect of substantial aid being granted early in the process. 

Observers in Yangon detect no sign the junta is ready to embrace a purported
aid for reform payoff mooted by diplomats as a "carrot and stick" drive for
reform last year. 

"I think there is a sense in which none of the leaders here think they have
done a bad job with the economy," said one political observer. 

Ministers told AFP recently that Myanmar looked towards the outside world for
help but was prepared to go it alone and hinted it could endure a subsistance
level of existence. 

Copies of the scathing World Bank report were delivered secretly to Yangon's
top generals and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi by a World Bank envoy
accompanying a special representative of
United Nations chief Kofi Annan last month. 

The study was based on an examination of Myanmar's economy that had reportedly
received "unusual cooperation" from the junta. 

A Myanmar spokesman told AFP Monday the government had "invited the World Bank
representatives for further discussions." 

"For the time being there is no comment to give on the World Bank's findings,"
he added. 




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