(IHT) It's Right to Tell the Burma (r)

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Re: (IHT) It's Right to Tell the Burma Regime What It's Doing Wrong

ITS TIME TO TELL THE IHT WHATS WRONG WITH STEINBERG.

He's the guy who brought you the big beautiful Asia Society promotion of
the junta, in a sort of post-CIA syndrome...Thanks Dave, keep trying.
Thanks for giving the generals the extra headlines... the article doesnt
say anything new, it does get Steinberg's name in the paper and surely
he liked that. That's what he wanted to do. But what else did he want to
do here, i dont care, i dont have the time, you read it, you figure it
out, i'm buzy. it does look like a pre-ne win obituary write up. pretty
soon, ne win, he dead. 

ds

The writer, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University and a
senior
> consultant to The Asia
> Foundation, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
> International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France)
> 
> November 15, 1999
> 
> It's Right to Tell the Burma Regime What It's Doing Wrong
> 
> By David I. Steinberg; International Herald Tribune
> 
> WASHINGTON
> 
> The World Bank study on Burma that has been obtained by the International
> Herald Tribune raises
> important questions, not only about the policies of the military regime but
> also about the role of
> foreigners in polarized political environments.
> 
> The opposition National League for Democracy has criticized the bank for
> making the study, which
> covers poverty, the private sector and agriculture. The league says that
> the fact of providing such
> analyses, even though they are critical of official policies, serves to
> legitimate the government, which it
> regards as illegal.
> 
> In Burma, the opposition has usually sought international support in its
> struggle against the regime, while
> the armed forces have complained that the Western states are against them
> and back Daw Aung San
> Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who heads the league.
> 
> The role of foreigners is critical in countries like Burma where
> information is treated as power, fear of
> unorthodox opinions is prevalent and there is reluctance to be the bearer
> of bad news to the top of a
> hierarchy that increasingly becomes insulated from reality and the needs of
> its own society.
> 
> A high officer, now retired, of the Burmese military government said that
> the reason for failure of military
> rule under the socialist system before the coup of 1988 was neither
> socialism as an economic system nor
> the government's capacity to manage it. It was that an elaborate feedback
> system established by the
> armed forces to get information to the rulers from the people about actual
> conditions in the country, so
> that policies might be changed, never worked.
> 
> People, including those in the administration, were too fearful of
> upsetting the top members of the
> regime. So statistics were manipulated and failures covered up. Years
> earlier, even the strongman
> General Ne Win had said that the government had to stop lying with
> statistics because no planning could
> take place when the real conditions were not known.
> 
> Yet everyone feared No. 1, as Ne Win was called. This lack of information
> about reality and popular
> attitudes prompted the military to agree to the May 1990 elections, which
> they resoundingly lost and
> then proceeded to ignore.
> 
> Think also of Ferdinand Marcos at the end of an era of authoritarian rule
> in the Philippines in 1986,
> when he made the same mistake by calling elections that Cory Aquino and the
> opposition won.
> 
> In countries like Burma, foreigners, financial institutions such as the
> World Bank, aid organizations and
> even private scholars have a useful function. It is to bring to the
> attention of leaders an objective analysis
> of the problems that their country faces so that, if political will is
> there, improvements can be made in
> people's lives.
> 
> That an authoritarian government may not like the conclusions reached by
> such analyses is
> understandable, if regrettable. The efficacy of their policies is brought
> into question.
> 
> That a democratic opposition, however, is not prepared to have objective
> studies brought to the
> attention of all concerned parties is more regrettable, because the
> opposition purports to stand for the
> free flow of information that the World Bank and other such organizations
> and scholars also support.
> 
> Rather than complain that foreigners legitimate the military by
> recommending change, the opposition
> should have applauded sound recommendations designed to help alleviate the
> all too pervasive poverty
> that exists. Foreigners have important roles in authoritarian states. The
> World Bank's report on Burma
> is a good example.
> 
> The writer, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University and a senior
> consultant to The Asia
> Foundation, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
> 
> Internet ProLink PC User