POLITICS: Burmese Junta in World’s Doghouse

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 27 2005 (IPS) - Being compelled to relinquish its turn at chairing the regional grouping ASEAN in 2006 may have hurt Burma’s military rulers less than the sanctions waved at them by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.

Indeed it may be just as well that the generals will not chair the 10- nation ASEAN – that includes Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – because its leaders, starting with Senior General Than Shwe, now run the risk of international travel restrictions.

The regime itself could be subjected to sanctions on military assistance and financial dealings as part of punitive measures approved by the Security Council against 54 governments and insurgent groups that recruit child soldiers into their armies.

The Burmese regime was among the leaders of this notorious pack that came under fire as the 15-member Council took its most decisive step yet to halt the use of child soldiers and protect children in conflict areas.

The pressure that Rangoon will face if it continues to violate children’s rights is reflected in the number of children forced to become soldiers in that South-east Asian nation. According to human rights groups, there are as many as 70,000 child soldiers in the country’s 415,000-strong armed forces.

Critics of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta calls itself officially, see the U.N. body’s message as more damaging to Rangoon than being compelled to give up chairmanship of ASEAN.

”The Security Council’s decision is very comprehensive, because it is the strongest pressure by it on the SPDC so far,” Sann Aung, a ranking member of the democratically elected Burmese government in exile, told IPS. ”It will apply new pressure on the SPDC, even making it difficult for its leaders to travel abroad.”

This body blow to an oppressive regime comes barely a month after another U.N. agency, the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO), threw its weight behind a move to subject Burma to economic sanctions for failing to end the harsh practice of forced labour.

Punitive measures that ILO’s 178 members could enforce range from limits on foreign investment, termination of existing foreign investments and boycott by international trade unions.

By contrast, Rangoon’s decision to cave into international and regional pressure and give up the ASEAN chairmanship is seen by Burmese political exiles as being more of a symbolic loss, due to the humiliation that stems from it.

”There is little reason to celebrate because there are no guarantees from Tuesday’s decision that the military regime did so to improve the political climate inside Burma,” says Aung Zaw, editor of ‘The Irrawaddy,’ a news magazine published by Burmese political exiles in Thailand. ”It has only been a loss of face”.

The immediate reactions within Burma, which the junta renamed Myanmar, have also been anything but joyful, he revealed during an interview.

”Many politically engaged people inside Burma remain very cynical. Some even worry that the junta may make things worse”.

Such caution is understandable, given not only the iron grip with which the military continues to rule Burma since a 1962 coup but the SPDC’s reluctance to concede to ASEAN’s request for Rangoon to show clear proof that it is committed towards political reform.

Among such appeals is the call to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since May 2003, which is the most recent of such arrests since the junta began imprisoning her in 1989.

On Tuesday, when Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win announced at an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Laos that Burma was giving up the regional bloc’s chairmanship next year due to political events in 2006, there was little mention of freedom for Suu Kyi.

Nor was there mention of a recognised role for the National League for Democracy, the political party she heads.

The question of Burma chairing ASEAN – whose other members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam û had dominated the debate ahead of the six-day meeting which began in the Laotian capital, Vientiane, on Monday.

ASEAN members such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia had shown signs of worry over the fate of the bloc after the U.S. government and the European Union threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings if the junta heads the group in 2006 while continuing to repress its own people.

At the same time, in keeping with its principle of ”non-interference,” ASEAN members deliberately played own the chairmanship issue.

For its part, Burma showed little signs of willingness to help ASEAN out of an embarrassing political spot until the eleventh-hour announcement made this week by Nyan Win.

”This showed that concerted pressure from all sides does work,” Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst, told IPS. ”The military government could not ignore the message coming from the ASEAN countries, in particular”.

According to some calculations, this week’s reversal, the first time that the junta was forced to act against its will, may have greater repercussions among sections of the Burmese army than the public.

”This can undermine the morale of the troops, who are made to believe that the current military rulers are a force of good in Burma,” says Sann Aung the Burmese parliamentarian in exile.

”The SPDC has tried to build its legitimacy through propaganda, saying it is respected by the international community, and the ASEAN chairmanship was seen as one example,” he said.

It may explain why on Wednesday there was neither a public announcement in Rangoon nor were there reports in the state-run Burmese media about the SPDC giving up a high-profile position on the international stage.

The most prominent reference to ASEAN in Wednesday’s edition of ”The New Light of Myanmar,” a mouthpiece of the junta, was a meeting held in Burma for senior officials from the ministries of agriculture from the ASEAN region.