NEWS - New Burma Policy Needed Afte

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New Burma Policy Needed After Decade of No Results - HRW

(August 6, 1998) -- Ten years after a Burma became a pariah state by
crushing a pro-democracy uprising, engagement and isolation
strategies to promote human rights have both failed, Human Rights Watch
said today. A decade after the August 8, 1988 crackdown, the
military still has a stranglehold on power, human rights abuses are
rampant, and the economy is in a tailspin. Human Rights Watch is calling
for
a new, multilateral policy that would include the following elements: 

    recognition that the three key actors that will determine Burma's
future are the army (Tatmadaw); the democratic
    opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi; and the ethnic minority
organizations, some of which are armed, along
    Burma's borders with Thailand, China, India, and Bangladesh. A new
policy would have to involve communication
    with all three. Communication with the army, however, should not be
seen as in any way legitimating its role. 

    recognition that coordination and establishment of common ground is
necessary among Western donors, Japan,
    the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and China.
President Clinton and EU leaders in particular
    could make good use of improved relations with China to actively
engage China in finding a solution to the Burma
    impasse. 

    development of a road map by which specific steps toward verifiable
human rights improvements on all fronts would gradually lead to
    incremental restoration of normal economic and diplomatic relations
with the international community. 

It is not difficult to show the failure of current policies. There are
today an estimated 1,300 political prisoners in Burma's jails; over 1
million
internally displaced persons, mainly in ethnic minority areas; some
200,000 refugees in neighboring countries, including Thailand,
Bangladesh,
India, and China; and at least 800,000 illegal migrant workers in
Thailand alone, with several thousand more in Japan, Malaysia,
Indonesia, and
Singapore. The public health and education sectors have all but
collapsed, with the average per capita spending on health in 1996 a mere
$0.50 per annum, while universities, closed for over three years from
June 1988 to May 1991, then again from December 1991 to May 1992,
were closed again after student demonstrations in December 1996 and have
still not reopened. 

The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, has been
decimated by arrests and intimidation. A series of draconian
regulations and laws has made it legally impossible for any form of
civil society to emerge. The use of forced labor, one of the most widely
condemned practices of the Burmese government, has not abated but
appears to have increased with the collapse of the economy and of
neighboring Asian economies that drew Burmese migrant workers abroad.
Like forced labor, a program of forced relocation of ethnic minority
villages for purposes of "internal security" has helped fuel the exodus
of refugees to Thailand and Bangladesh. State promotion of Buddhism
has played on existing communal tensions between ethnic Burmans, who are
largely Buddhists, and minorities, who are mostly either Muslim or
Christian. 

The only real achievement of the government known until November 1997 as
the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and since
then as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has been the
conclusion of cease-fire agreements with various ethnic insurgencies
along Burma's borders. These agreements, which have lowered the level of
actual fighting, have yet to develop into lasting political solutions,
however, and they have come at an enormous price. In Shan State
especially, they have been followed by an explosion of heroin
production, as
the government appears to have offered to turn a blind eye to the
rebels' narcotics trade in exchange for a cease-fire. In other areas,
the
agreements have been preceded by major military offensives that have
caused untold suffering to the civilian population and resulted in
massive refugee outflows. 

These developments have benefited no one, neither ASEAN with its
policies of engagement nor Europe and the U.S. with their policies of
sanctions. China may have benefited the most by taking advantage of the
situation to become Burma's major arms supplier and one of its
largest trading partners, but even China has been hurt by the drug and
HIV explosion along its southern border and Burma's growing economic
problems. 

Ten years on, it is therefore time for a major reassessment of policy
towards Burma. A new policy must include: 

    efforts to understand the nature of the three key actors in Burmese
politics. The West knows and admires Aung San Suu Kyi; unlike
    Japan or the ASEAN countries, it knows little about the nature and
ideology of the Burmese armed forces, the various actors in the
    military leadership, and the tensions within this consensus-driven
government. The armed ethnic minority groups who between them
    command over 65,000 troops and control some of the most potentially
profitable land in the country _ as well as some of them being
    producers of most of the world's heroin supply _ are even less well
known and understood. 

    increased communication with all three actors. The U.S., for
example, should now consider sending an ambassador to Rangoon, and
    ASEAN diplomats should continue their efforts to engage both the
military and the democratic opposition. 

    a real effort at multilateralism. Since 1990, the key multilateral
initiative has involved the passing of consensus resolutions at the U.N.
    Commission on Human Rights condemning human rights abuses in Burma
and calling on the military to change its ways; since 1991 the
    U.N. General Assembly has also passed similar resolutions. Each year
the resolutions get tougher, and each year Burmese leaders
    denounce them as "interference" in Burma's internal affairs and
refuse to implement them. These resolutions would be far more useful if
    they were understood by all as not being merely an annual exercise
in condemnation but as the basis for establishing the benchmarks for
    Burma's acceptance back into the international fold. The upcoming
meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September
    might be a good opportunity for the key parties interested in Burma,
including China, to come together to discuss a coordinated strategy. 

Finally, a road map needs to be laid out that would specify clearly how
concrete steps toward the ending of forced labor, release of political
prisoners, restoration of basic civil rights, and international access
to border areas, among other measures, could lead progressively to a
lifting
of sanctions currently in place and a resumption of normal political and
economic ties between Burma and the major industrialized countries. 

Without a new policy, the next ten years in Burma may be no different
than the last. 

For more information contact:
Sidney Jones (New York) +1 212 216-1228 
Mike Jendrzejczyk (Washington) +1 202 371-6592, x113 
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels) +3 22 732-2009

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