Strategic Outlook of 2010 and the Role of Moderates in Burma Conflict
by Min Zaw Oo
Thursday, 29 January 2009 11:29
Key Points
1. The west-driven support to Burma’s pro-democracy movement has reached its limit.
2. The regime has maintained its intuitional apparatus to crackdown domestic oppositions after the monk-led protest and the Cyclone Nargis.
3. The military is facing dilemma to proceed to the transition in 2010 because of the distrust of the oppositions and the lack of civilian partnership.
4. Factional mobilizations can lead to instabilities after 2010.
5. Conflict prevention based on reconciliation and nation-building should be priority after the coming election.
6. The emergence of moderate political forces is critical to promote reconciliation after 2010.
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The Burmese regime has claimed to hold a new election in 2010 to facilitate a formation of a civil-military government in accordance with the military-orchestrated constitution which was approved in a widely slated referendum held last year. The prospect of the new election is a moral and strategic dilemma to the oppositions, especially the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its supporters who are entrenched in their upholding of the NLD’s victory in the eighteen-year-old election.
Any proponent of the new election will undoubtedly find it hard to make a moral advocacy without risking an inadvertent endorsement of the reprobated constitution. However, the participation of moderate pro-democracy forces in the 2010 election is strategically sound and practically necessary to avoid instability and foster much-needed reconciliation for Burma’s political and ethnic crises. This essay addresses why the 2010 election is important, and how the moderates can nurture reconciliation after 2010.
The State of the Opposition Movement
Before we think of the future, we should honestly assess our pro-democracy opposition movement, especially its west-driven support.
The attack on Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade in Depayin and the crackdown on the NLD in 2003 marked a turning point in the conflict. The Depayin incident was also an enlightening moment for some opposition members to re-evaluate their strategies in Burma’s protracted conflict.
The Depayin clampdown invigorated ferocity and anguish among the Burmese opposition communities. The emotional instinct called for escalation of the conflict to punish the military’s onslaught on the NLD. Furious responses from the international community, including the abrasive condemnations coming from the US senior official, appeared to convince Burmese oppositions that their supporters in the west were ready to boost up Burma’s opposition movement beyond rhetoric and miniscule financial supports.
Nevertheless, Burma’s pro-democracy movement was merely a moral case for the west. Moral concern is usually inferior to strategic needs in international relations.
Even the Bill Clinton’s administration approved about $ 100 million to support the Iraqi oppositions in 1998.1 Compared to this amount, less than $10 million of US funding, including the money to assist refugees and humanitarian programs, was a drop in an ocean of need to boost up an opposition movement.
The Depayin crackdown revealed the reality of the international support to the pro-democracy movement. A few exiles had reached a conclusion on the international front—the west-driven support to Burma’s pro-democracy movement has exhausted its capacity in the international system.
On the political front, the NLD explicitly called for the intervention of the United Nations Security Council. The actual reason behind the NLD’s SOS signal was its leadership’s realization that the government had effectively clamped down the party’s capacity to mobilize inside the country. While Aung San Suu Kyi and her able colleagues were under detention, the junta’s restrictions had potently demolished the party’s grassroots foundation.
The Burmese oppositions and their supporters in exile well heeded the NLD’s distress call. Some activist lawyers in Washington prepared a lengthy and controversial appeal, commissioned by Former Czech President Vacláv Havel and noble laureate Desmond M. Tutu. The document argued that Burma under the military junta was a threat to regional stability although all neighboring countries refused to endorse this claim. Burma’s threat to peace allegation came neither from the Pentagon nor the US intelligence community. It was a pure agenda from the activists using it as leverage to elevate pressure over the regime.
Despite the understanding in advance that such appeal at the UNSC would not survive, the US Congress and the Bush administration rode the flow of the activists’ agenda. In contrast, the Clinton administration chose not to pursue the similar agenda at the UNSC after US ambassador to UN Madeleine Albright met Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 1995 because of the same reason of an eventual failure. The result is the history.
Both the free Burma movement and the free Tibet campaign share the same fate. Both movements have been remarkably successful in awareness campaigns. However, awareness is only the first step to mobilize international support in transnational causes. The actual policy making depends on the willingness and capability of the international powers. Both free Burma and Tibet movements grind to a halt when their fates fall into the hands of the international system.
In the domestic front, the junta faced two major crises almost simultaneously within 8 months. The monk-led uprising brought thousands of people to the streets for the first time in eighteen years. Cyclone Nargis virtually destroyed the rice bowl of Burma in the delta region and killed over 130,000 people, marking it the worst natural disaster in Burma history. Nevertheless, the regime survived both crises.
The military proved its institutional capacity to shoot, arrest and torture even monks who are regarded one of the three most revered in Burmese society. The Cyclone deepened poverty and forced people to prioritize their economic survival over political dissatisfaction. The regime has successfully preserved its capacity to quash political challenges after two major crises.
The Limitations of the Military Junta
The major difference between Gen. Ne Win’s military coup in 1962 and the current junta is the former’s ability to consolidate its power by institutionalizing a one-party state 12 years after the military takeover. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) successively claimed it was a coup d’état government. The nature of the current junta is transitional. Unlike Ne Win’s coup, the current junta is not capable of institutionalizing its rule into a formal political system.
In addition, the regime is under constant pressures domestically and internationally although the junta is capable of withstanding them from pushing it to collapse or concede the oppositions’ demands. The Depayin incident accelerated the regime’s eventual end game, 7-step Road Map to a political transition.
The transition plan is based on the regime’s orchestrated constitution which the junta forced through in a rigged referendum amidst the cyclone crisis in May 2008. According to the Road Map, the regime will hold a new election in 2010 and form a new government. The military will have 25 percent of seats in the Parliament, and the military’s interests will be protected. continue
http://www.mizzima.com/news/election-2010.html
