Losing Patience With Burma

By Zaid Ibrahim
January 12, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Original Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113701577817844080.html

The military government in Burma has finally lost the plot and is rapidly turning its few remaining allies into critics. Faced with moves by the United States and other countries to place Burma on the agenda of the United Nations' Security Council, the military government that calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has responded by digging itself into an even deeper hole.
The regime's rejection of U.N. statements and resolutions over the years was worsened by its defiant boycott of U.N. Special Envoy Tan Sri Razali Ismail. Mr. Razali has now resigned from his post after not even being allowed to visit the country since March 2004. Such treatment of Mr. Razali, a distinguished Malaysian diplomat and former president of the U.N. General Assembly, is a grave insult to both the U.N and Asean.
Mr. Razali, who made 12 trips to Burma between June 2000 and March 2004, was credited with arranging the secret talks between Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the regime, which resulted in her release from detention in May 2002. A year later, a regime-sponsored mob attacked Ms. Suu Kyi's entourage in Depayin in northern Burma and she was detained once again, this time under even stricter conditions.
In Oct. 2004, SPDC leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe caused widespread consternation by purging Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt. Last November, he made matters worse by moving Burma's capital from Rangoon to the remote jungle city of Pyinmana without bothering to inform neighboring nations in advance, let alone his own civil servants.
More recently, the SPDC has refused to receive Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, also Asean's special envoy on Burma. This is the latest insult to Asean members who have defended the regime at great cost to their credibility without getting much in return.
For more than seven years, Asean weathered scorn and contempt before finally coming to its senses by issuing a call for moves toward democracy and the release of Ms. Suu Kyi at last month's Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur. At that summit, Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win also agreed to receive Mr. Syed Hamid, who is charged with checking on progress toward democracy. But the regime rejected a suggestion that Mr. Syed Hamid's visit should coincide with Burma's Independence Day on January 4, and continues to stonewall on setting a date.
The SPDC's delaying tactics are turning Asean's already eroded goodwill into frustration and exasperation. On Tuesday, Mr. Syed Hamid warned that the patience of the international community is wearing thin, and that the delaying of his visit was seen as a deliberate effort to frustrate Asean's efforts to promote dialogue.
Meanwhile, Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won more than 80% of parliamentary seats in Burma's last election in 1990, has extended another olive branch to the military. Last week, on Burma's Independence Day, the NLD proposed a new supreme leading body that would bring together the military rulers, political parties and ethnic groups as a prelude to democracy.
Ms. Suu Kyi and her fellow pro-democracy leaders have consistently declared their willingness to work with the military authorities. Ms. Suu Kyi has previously declared she would not rule out a power-sharing arrangement with the military. Despite serious persecution, the NLD has stood by its commitment to a principled process of dialogue.
On the other hand, the military's lopsided version of dialogue has seen handpicked representatives shepherded into isolated accommodation and only allowed to utter pre-approved speeches within a dictated agenda. The current conduct of the illegitimate and unrepresentative National Convention to draft a new constitution is proof that the SPDC needs some serious re-education over what constitutes dialogue.
Mr. Razali's warning on Monday that the SPDC would find itself on a collision course with the U.N. Security Council is unsurprising. The regime has annoyed its traditional domestic and international allies, and further antagonized its critics. Gen. Than Shwe has shot himself in the foot so many times it is astonishing he has any toes left.
The Burmese generals' increasingly irrational behavior is a sign that it is losing control of the situation. The business community that nominally supported military rule are now starved of profits, as the few remaining business opportunities are given only to Gen. Than Shwe's favorites. Civil servants were given just 48 hours' notice to move (without their families) to incomplete facilities in the new capital and will be treated as army deserters and enemies of the state if they try to resign or flee. Diplomats and foreign experts who previously advocated appeasement have found their access to the leadership relegated to functionaries lower down the hierarchy.
Even the premature move to Pyinmana is a symptom of the SPDC's growing insecurity. Gen. Than Shwe reportedly made the decision on the advice of his astrologer. That Burma's top leader would rather endure the administrative chaos resulting from incomplete buildings, lack of utilities and grossly inadequate communications than ignore his fortune teller is an omen of his state of mind. Clearly, Gen. Than Shwe is on the defensive-that's why he snubbed Asean and the U.N. without thinking through the consequences.
It is time for a unified approach to put Burma on the agenda of the Security Council without delay. Such a move would embolden moderates within the SPDC to take a stand in favor of genuine dialogue and a negotiated political settlement. Without this, Burma will only degenerate further into chaos that will drag down its neighbors with it.
Mr Zaid Ibrahim is a member of the Malaysian parliament and president of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Democracy in Myanmar.