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Sanctions Don't Bring Burma Democra



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Sanctions Don't Bring Burma Democracy
by Ma Thanegi
International Herald Tribune, Friday, 20 March 1998

RANGOON - It is time for those of us in Burma's democracy movement to face
up to a difficult truth: Ten years after the movement began, we have made
almost no real progress toward democracy.

More people are in jail, countless others are suffering from the effects of
sanctions, and the military government seems stronger than ever.  The
National League for Democracy may have won the moral battle, but it is
losing the war.

All of us should be deeply concerned about this.

I joined the NLD in 1988, worked as an aide to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and
came to know and lover her well.  I was arrested in 1989, on the same day
she was put under house arrest.  I spent most of the next three years in
Rangoon's Insein prison, and was released in a 1992 amnesty with about 100
other political prisoners.

We were all willing to go to jail, because our cause was so important --
Burma had been isolated for 26 years, we were desperately poor, and the
people were suffering.  But 10 years later, all we have produced is
idealistic platitudes. 

I know that sounds harsh, but we need to be hard on ourselves.  It is not
enough just to criticize the military regime.  We have an obligation to
seriously examine our strategies -- and if they aren't working, we need to
find others that will.

Let's start with sanctions and boycotts.  The National League for Democracy
has focused on these to pressure the military regime to enter a dialogue.

Why didn't the strategy work?  It was based on the assumption that the
military regime depends on foreign investment to survive.  But the regime
did not topple when millions of us protested in the streets in 1988.  It
did not topple when the United States and Japan cut off aid.  It did not
topple when Washington imposed sanctions.  In fact, it now seems stronger
than ever.

The second claim about sanctions is that they hurt only the elite, since
ordinary people do not benefit from investment.

It is true that the elite is benefiting.  But so are ordinary people, who
have found jobs in garment factories, construction projects, and hotels.
Those may not sound like very good jobs, but we are just at the beginning
of economic development, and even a low-paying job is better than no job at
all.

Most economists would agree that urban elites usually benefit more than
rural farmers in the early stages of economic growth.  So it is sensible to
deny everybody jobs, simply because some people will get richer than
others?  In fact, many of us fear that sanctions are making the people more
vulnerable.

Burma is a poor, agrarian country, and most of our people live without even
electricity or telephones.  This makes Burma easy to rule with military,
rather than political, methods.  But if we encourage large, responsible
companies to come in, they can be a strong influence for modernizing and
opening the economy.  And if Burma develops economically, it will help
promote political development.

The old methods do not work anymore.  Governments in modern, developed
societies have to respond to the people, rather than the other way around.

There are no easy solutions for Burma, and there is no automatic path to
democracy - Cambodia is proof of that.  But sanctions are a path to nowhere.

Politicians inside and outside the country need to set realistic goals and
come up with pragmatic strategies.  Politics, after all, is the art of the
possible, and the future of millions of people is at stake.  Let's drop the
platitudes and find realistic ways to help the people of Burma, not condemn
them to poverty in a senseless pursuit of Utopia.

(The writer is a painter and writer living in Rangoon.  She contributed
this comment to the International Herald Tribune).

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