BURMA-POLITICS: Democrats and Junta on a Collision Course

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Ron Corben

BANGKOK, May 23 1996 (IPS) - For several months now, Burma’s pro- democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been testing the limits of patience of the military junta by holding weekly public gatherings outside her Rangoon home.

The army kept a close watch on the meetings, but did not intervene, fearing an international backlash that would once again isolate a nation desperately in need of foreign investment to boost its tattered economy.

In the meantime, Suu Kyi and pro-democracy movements outside of Burma (also known as Myanmar) grew increasingly outspoken about the slow pace of democratic reforms in the country.

International human rights groups also kept up the pressure on the military regime by urging governments and business to take distance from ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and its attempts to lure foreign investment and tourists to the cash-strapped nation.

But all the while, Suu Kyi, aware that the military would swiftly crack down on any organised protest movement to oust the regime, continued to stress “dialogue” as a means to a peaceful end to the stand-off.

It was a call repeatedly ignored by an SLORC regime whose patience snapped this week when it learned that Suu Kyi’s National Democratic League for Democracy (NLD) had called a major party meeting to be held in the Burmese capital, starting Sunday.

Over the past few days, more than 80 party supporters and officials, including NLD spokesman Win Htein, have been arrested by the military in a sweeping campaign to prevent the planned three-day meeting from taking place. Between 300 and 400 pro- supporters were expected to attend the rally.

The arrests “add to the political tensions” already evident in recent months, said a western diplomatic source in a telephone interview from the Burmese capital.

“The latest moves have ratcheted up the pressure a bit,” the source said. The outlook, he added, “was not promising at the moment. It is certainly not encouraging”.

Suu Kyi, who only last July regained her freedom after six years of house arrest, said earlier this week she was determined to press ahead with the meeting which is planned to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the 1990 elections in which the NLD won 82 per cent of the seats but was denied power by the military.

Her defiant stand puts the junta in a dilemma.

To re-arrest her would further show up the military regime to be undemocratic and uncompromising — and would almost certainly see the international community again totally isolate Burma. Foreign investors too would come under even more pressure to pull-out.

In effect, all the efforts of the military junta to clean-up its image, starting with the release of the Nobel Peace Prize winner ten months ago, would be undermined.

At the same time the regime is worried that to allow the meeting to take place may in the present circumstances, the junta may be seen to be weakening in the public’s eye and this could ultimately lead to a popular revolt.

The junta’s carefully laid out plans of further cementing its rule are under serious threat of unraveling, says a Rangoon based diplomat. “The junta has up to now been merely pushing obstacles aside as they reach them, and steamrolling their way on.”

In recent months, the junta had been trying to legitimise its rule through a new constitutional charter supposedly drafted by a cross-section of Burmese society, but in reality closely supervised by the junta.

Suu Kyi and the NLD walked out of the constitutional charter talks, describing them as a farce. Opposition groups outside of Burma have also said it was a blatant attempt by the junta to ensure it would win any future elections by sidelining minority ethnic communities.

Here in neighbouring Thailand, the Bangkok Bank Plc warned in a recent report that the new constitution would if anything, further destabilise the situation.

Thailand’s largest private commercial bank said the document “ensured too much power for the military, while the people seriously question whether fair elections are feasible”.

Thus, the report said, questions arise as to “how the opposition will handle the current situation and whether the government will be ostracised by the world community. These concerns could have a negative effect on foreign assistance projects and on the confidence of investors”.

Since the junta came to power in 1988, the range of economic liberalisation measures has led to more than 150 projects worth 3.05 billion dollars coming into place.

“Burma is rich in resources, and has inexpensive labour. However, its undemocratic political system and poor human rights record have left the country with few friends,” the bank said.

U.S. companies are already facing rising pressure from human rights groups to quit their investments. Several U.S. states and local governments have passed legislation barring contracts with companies dealing with the junta.

PepsiCola Co said last month it was moving to renegotiate its operations in Burma to that of a franchise arrangement. Under this deal PepsiCo would have no assets and no employees in Burma.

Pepsi earned eight million dollars in Burmese sales last year, compared with overall international sales totalling to three billion dollars.

Among the major U.S. firms to have withdrawn from Burma include garment retailers Eddie Bauer, Liz Clairborne and Federated Department Stores.

But still with a major presence in the energy sector are such multinationals as Unocal, Total and Texaco. Unocal is in a joint venture with the French Total Group in a natural gas joint venture, with supplies to power a gas fired power station in Thailand.

In another joint venture, Premier Inc, Texaco and Nippon Oil are drilling for oil and gas, to supply the local market.

The stakes of this latest stand-off are therefore high since they also put a cloud over the junta’s much publicised ‘Visit Myanmar Year’ with a planned take-off in October which aims to lure hundreds of thousands of tourists to Burma.

The U.S. and Japanese governments under pressure from exiled opposition figures and human rights activists to slap sanctions on Rangoon, are trying to head off potential political violence.

In Washington Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the Bill Clinton administration had “consistently urged the Burmese government to enter into a dialogue about the political future of Burma with Aung San Suu Kyi and the leaders of the ethnic minorities”.

And on Wednesday, U.S. senators warned that they would pass a bill barring U.S. investment and foreign aid to Burma if the junta did not end its crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

“Swift action on my bill will assure Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy that the U.S. Congress stands with them in democracy’s hour of need,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Ambassador to Burma, Yoichi Yamaguchi, was reported by the Japanese news agency “Kyodo” as trying to attempt to open a dialogue between Suu Kyi and the junta.

An embassy source in Rangoon told Kyodo that Japan was eager to resume suspended official development aid to the cash-strapped nation, but only if the issue can be resolved through dialogue.

But time and patience are running out with no visible signs yet of a compromise ahead of Sunday’s scheduled start of the NLD meeting.

Events of the past week would suggest the regime is willing to risk international scorn to preserve its firm grip on power, while Suu Kyi seems prepared to risk being re-arrested rather than have democracy further trampled on.