Burma's masses languish under a leftist regime protected by Beijing
UNITED NATIONS — Long forgotten and some would say forsaken in the swirl of Southeast Asia’s prosperity, Burma has been relegated to a media black hole seldom seen or considered by all but a few intrepid travelers, NGO’s, or human rights advocates. Now the UN has renewed pressure on Rangoon’s left-wing military rulers to allow political openness and stop its hostilities against ethnic minorities.
A recent visit by Under Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari called on the Burmese government to open the political process by releasing political prisoners, especially pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to take “concrete steps” to cease hostilities against ethnic minorities. Refugees from the Karen group continue to flee Burma and at least 160,000 are camped on the border inside neighboring Thailand. There are at least one million refugees from Burma.
Officially known as Myanmar, rather than Burma, this resource-rich South east Asian land of fifty-five million people has been tuned into a pitiful socialist basket case by a military regime who touts high-octane nationalism, crony corruption, and collectivism at the expense of ethnic rights and individual freedoms. As is so classically the case in such places, living standards have been in gradual decline. A narcotics opium cultivation culture has become one of the dominant businesses according to many observers while a trade in timber, teakwood and gems brings high profits in the informal sector.
Significantly during the 2005 drug certification process, the U.S. government determined that Burma was one of only two countries in the world (along with Venezuela) that had "failed demonstrably" to meet international counter-narcotics obligations.
Human rights initiatives have maintained some momentum as witnessed by a recent UN resolution on the human rights situation in Burma. The document passed with 79 in favor including the USA, Canada, European Union and most of Latin America and 28 against predictably including China, Cuba, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.
Though the U.S. and Britain were also able to get the Burma case on the UN Security Council agenda, the momentum to take the initiative to the next level towards a resolution has been blocked by Beijing who has been a historic comrade of the Rangoon regime. The People’s Republic of China boasts longtime commercial and natural gas energy prospecting rights in Burma, and is not going to sacrifice its business edge to annoying foreign concerns over political and civil rights. Moreover Beijing is the prime weapons supplier to the Burmese military. PRC influence thus flanks India’s eastern frontier and also gives the Chinese navy a port on the Bay of Bengal.
In recent years Myanmar has gained membership in the Association of South East Asian States (ASEAN) giving the once isolated rulers more international standing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the longtime human rights advocate and Nobel laureate remains under house arrest for over eleven years with still bleak chances for release. Her National League for Democracy, despite having won elections in the 1990’s has been prevented from gaining power by the military who have stifled political opposition.
Given the near glacial pace of reforms under the military junta which has ruled since 1962, it does not appear that either economic nor political freedoms are on the near horizon. Though the U.S. Congress has slapped sanctions on the Rangoon military, through the Burma Freedom and Democracy act, the embargo is largely ineffective.
During WWII the Burma Road signified the back door Allied supply route to beleaguered Nationalist China fighting the Japanese; today the Burma Road signifies sustained initiatives by the international community to bring democracy to this fabled if forsaken land of Myanmar. It’s time the international community put serious pressures on the Rangoon rulers and reminded them that the outside world is watching them carefully.
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