Myanmar deserves more objective re-assessment

 
Need to look beyond the human rights agenda
The Straits Time (SINGAPORE), 14-Oct-1995
By Michael Dobbs-Higginson

TIME out, as the Americans say. Sensationalist cries that Ms Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is another Nelson Mandela or Bernizir Bhutto must be tempered with reason. Quite clearly she is a remarkable woman and her six- year refusal to be . released from house detention on condition. that she left Myanmar is to be greatly admired. 		  
However, what must not be forgotten is that, after some 25 years abroad, she only returned to Myanmar in July 1988 to help her mother who was ill.
Her return coincided with the then countrywide civil disturbances. She was then catapulted onto the public stage by virtue of being her tattler's daughter (after World War II, General Bogyoke Aung San was the first national leader to seek Burma's independence from Britain but he was assassinated by a competing faction before the country's Independence in 1945) and by reason of her own innate decency.
However, it must not be forgotten that she had, collectively: no leadership experience was in her 40's, was very idealistic, was approached by a wide variety of inexperienced/experienced self-interest opposition groups, was surrounded, a la Tiananmen Square by student activists and she had an English husband Michael Aris, an academic who, in a rather Don Quixote-like manner, took up on himself the role of roving, international ambassador for the Burmese democratic movement - to say the least, very inexperienced, and thus potentially dangerous, combination.
Certainly this combination was not guaranteed to bring about - atypically, from an historical point of view - the immediate installation of a new Utopian democratic form of government, which would unity the country and give piece, economic success and happiness to all the people in Myanmar.
Objectively, even a comparison with former Philipine President Marcos's downfall, is stretching things.
other than being installed as the result of a democratic election, the laudable, yet Inexperienced and naive Ms Aquino did little to alleviate the chaos and confusion pertaining at the time of her election.
Little fundamental credit seems to have been given to the current Myanmar government (which took over In 1992) for what it has done to date in gradually bringing about order and economic progress with comparatively little of the wholesale representative brutal. and corrupt practice of other regimes. elsewhere in the. world.
Its unconditional release of Ms Suu Kyi in July, and others, 'Las received an initial flurry of plaudits However, me importance of these moves have been completely overshadowed by Ms Suu Kyi's Statement that all that has changed is that I have been released, nothing else".
Further, and more dangerously, she advocated that no foreign aid be granted until democratic elections have been held.
Without aid, how can Myanmar get itself to the point, in terms of sufficient economic critical man with the concomitant benefits to the people, where such elections can be held with a reasonable chance that the peopIe will then have enough not to want to lose It in another bout of the 1938 chaos.?
On a related, more practical issue, in 1933, the National Convention, which is represented by some 700 delegates drawn from a wide range of different groups, including the military, was convened by the Myanmar government to draft a new state Constitu- tion.
In this new constitution, the military wish to follow the indonesian constitutional model which ensures the military a substantial role In the government.
While there has been little golbal, public outcry about Indonesia's system, no doubt Myanmar's current military Government will continue to bashed for its temerity in thinking. that it too should continue to be involved in their country's. government
A more valid criticism, which has been leveled by Some is that this drafting process is too long - the government estimates that the process will take an- other two years or so to finalise it.
To be fair, this begs the question of how long other countries took to put their new constitutions in place.
It is reasonable that we give some objective media airtime to Myanmar, which is making a constructive effort to sort out its problems.
Yet It is a country that seems to attract little serious, in-depth and balanced media Interest - other than endless articles on Ms Su Kyi.
Why has there been little media interest in Interview- lug senior members of the current Myanmar government  they have a point of view and In the interests of fairness, they should be given an opportunity to express it.
Unfortunately, what little exposure It has been given to date tends to have been very cursory, with every article being over-larded with a strong negative bias and much more information about Ms Suu Kyi's point of view. Whatever happened to objectivity?
What most people often forget is. that societies need to. have time to evolve from an authoritarian environment, where the Individual is told what to do, to a democratic environment. where the individual has the free choice concerning what he/she wishes to do.
However, it must. also not be forgotten that before a democratic system can. work effectively, such individuals need to have sufficient educa- tion and a sense of personal moral responsibility and ae count ability for their activi- ties.
Rightly or; wrongly, the military government believed that, from one day to the next, transferring power to the Na- tional League for Democracy was a recipe for a Tower of Babel disaster.
Further, it could be ar gued that .the government, qufle rightly, torik the view that the country was simply not ready for full democracy until a solid, well-robted government and economic infrastructure had been put in place.
Accordingly, they refused to transfer power and they continued to keep Ms Suu Kyi under house detention. The. world, already frustrated by her detention, was astonished, shocked and outraged  after all; perception Is nlnrtenths of most peoples' view ot-reality in this regard, amply assisted by the developed world's press.
This caused Myanmar to be turned overnight into a rIah state by the West pus Japan  an attitude easy to take as there were no busi- ness Interests at stake.
However. when the new leadership took over in 1992, they determIned that, for the country to evolve, Myanmar had to develop an open-market economy and that it could only do so, provided a basic structure of law and order could be developed and main- trained.
THIS policy has already. begun to bear fruit, thanks in no small part to the support of its more reasonable and pragmatic Asian neighbours, who have themselves already been through the same process.
Thus, the West's, in particular the United States', uninformed, superficial and often voter-oriented views, concerning the necessity for im- mediate. democratic elections and, in the interim, the Inappropriateness of extending aid are counter-productive.
It must also be appreciated that, unlike many other countries In Asia, Myanmar has 135 ethnic groups from which some 16 armed insurgent groups were evolved.
This fact, in turn, has dramatically increased the difficulty of the government to encourage a sense 62 national unity and purpose during the period since independence.
Despite the magnitude of its task, the Myanmar government has succeeded in coming to peaceful terms with 15 anti insurgent groups and it has initiated concrete discussions with the ethnic groups to create self-administered zones or divisions  so as to accommodate at least some of these groups' requirements for a degree of autonomy.
Further, since July 1989, the Myanmar government has released some 38,000 trainees, who were detained both during the period of an- archy and subsequently for political reasons.
It should also be noted that political detainees were often merely placed under house arrest  as was the case of Ms Su Kyi as opposed to being Imprisoned.
Finally, after the 1988 "disturbances", although the civil and military courts Imposed a considerable number of death sentences, none were actually carried out.
The point therefore of this article is to emphasise that Myanmar only really emerged. from isolation in 1992, decades after countries such as Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and even China (1978) started their respective arduous roads to economic success and changes In their forms of government; In virtually all cases towards a more demo cratic form of government.
It Is therefore hardly reasonable to expect Myanmar to be at the same stage of development as its Asian neighbours.
Comparatively.. speaking, in law and order terms, it is also well ahead.of virtually all the ex-Soviet bloc. Asian counterparts, virtually all of its Mrican counterparts and, at least, some of its Central/South American counter parts - no .too bad for a late start.
FURTHER, in human rights terms, its confinement tinder house arrest of Ms Suu Kyi in a large house with spacious grounds on the beautiful Inya lake, Its otherwise respectful treatment of her and Its. oiler to allow her to leave Myanmar at any time, contrasts rather positively with the prison cells or "work camps" that major opponents of other governments have found, or now find, themselves in.
It is not a developed country and, as it has litterally only just begun to enter into the real world.
What is also not appreciated is that under General Ne Win's isolationist policIes, the then Burma developed nether capitalist nor communist friends.
Thus, at .the end of. the Cold War, even the most repressive regimes, such a North Korea, had son' friends who were prepared I give it some support.
Conversely, Myanmar when it finally emerged from its time warp cocoon, had no friends, no old alliances, and thus no moral support.
Instead, it seems to be become a convenient whipping boy to be trotted but for some human rights bashing when nothing much else happening or when the. human rights and other liberal white-hat extremists, frustrated elsewhere by the business black hats, need some so target to attack, Who said the world was fair?
The writer is the author Asia Pad&: Its Role In 77 New World Disorder (Hem maim Mandarin), He Is a former chairman of Merri Lynch, Asia Pacific Reglo He contributed this article to the straits times.
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