As a former racist who grew up thinking that those deemed to pose a threat to Burma’s sovereignty and Buddhist identity should be ‘gassed’, I feel a deep chill thinking about what Burmese society is evolving into.
While it is likely the more shocking acts of violence will gradually cease in the coming weeks, the conflict will leave a deep legacy on this region of Burma and can easily restart at anytime.
Suu Kyi’s chief challenge may be to avoid the temptation to turn vindication into vindictiveness. If she panders to her Western supporters at the expense of her partners at home, it would be a bad sign.
The existence of ethnic minority insurgencies will not bring about the collapse of the government. Nor will they have a decisive impact on other aspects of Burma’s reforms or on the decisions of outsiders to work with a reformed Burmese government.
The recent establishment of parliaments in Burma, following the passing of a new constitution in 2008 and elections that were held late last year, mark a change in the approach taken by the country’s military rulers – despite being conducted under dubious conditions.
One year ago Cyclone Nargis struck southern Burma. This ‘natural’ disaster brought about the death of at least 140,000 people, made homeless 800,000 more, and caused severe hardship for the inhabitants of much of the Irrawaddy Delta. The land of the Delta is Burma’s (and once the world’s) ‘rice bowl’, and so the destruction wrought here a year ago has been greatly damaging to food security amongst the poor throughout the country.
Burma is ruled by one of the world’s most brutal military regimes, guilty of every possible human rights violation. Known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and led by Senior General Than Shwe, Burma’s junta is not only brutal, but illegitimate. Elections held in 1990 were overwhelmingly won by the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The world has an undoubted responsibility to protect the Burmese people from their leaders.
Paranoid and mistrustful of the outside world, Burma’s generals were criminally tardy in permitting emergency humanitarian supplies and personnel to come into the country after a devastating cyclone in early May. Yet attempts to invoke R2P were ill advised.
There has been considerable agitation among the many critics of the Myanmar military that China has been less than insistent on Burmese reforms as it continues to provide funding and support to the military junta. Whatever pressures China has brought on Myanmar -and they may have been considerable- have been relatively quiet and discreet in contrast to the U.S. and EU public demands for change. Yet reform in Burma is in the long-term interests of the Chinese Government.
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