The United States should engage with Burma’s armed forces, collaborate
with China and further roll back sanctions to enhance reforms, urges a leading
think-tank.
The Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) visited Burma in August to explore the current
political, economic and social transformation enacted by President Thein Sein’s
quasi-civilian government and reported that greater regional engagement was
needed including joint military exercises.
“If the military continues to
support the transition to civilian rule and observes ceasefires in ethnic
minority areas, the United States should begin to consider joint military
exercises with the Myanmar armed forces and provide selected Myanmar officers access
to US International Military Education and Training opportunities in US defense
academies,” read a CSIS report on the trip released on Wednesday.
The Washington-based think-tank
encouraged President Barack Obama to meet with both Thein Sein and opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi when they visit the United States this month. Economic
sanctions on imports from Burma should also be rolled back while assistance
programs by international financial institutions must receive immediately
support.
“Myanmar’s government, opposition
leaders, civil society groups and business leaders all emphasized that there is
an urgency and immediacy around the process of change in their country,” said
the CSIS.
“The United States should be
aware that there are important, perhaps even historic, opportunities to promote
and support reform. It needs also to be aware of substantial threats to reform
and transparency.”
While admitting that real change
is underway in the former pariah state, the CSIS denied that excessive dependence
on China was a primary motivation for military leaders to pursue reform and,
conversely, a proactive policy of consultation with China could help mitigate
concerns in Beijing.
“In fact, the group’s
interlocutors stressed China’s role as a traditional neighbor and encouraged
the United States to avoid zero-sum policies toward China,” continued the
report.
“Given China’s long near-monopoly
on political ties, military sales and trade with Myanmar during the decades of
military rule, the country’s rapidly warming ties with the United States are
being greeted with suspicion in China and are stoking fears about imagined US
containment efforts.”
In fact, the CSIS claims that it
was the generals’ damaged pride over Burma’s economic failings and fatigue with
running the country in the wake of the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” democracy
protests and subsequent violent crackdown that prompted the current wave of
democratization.
“Describing Than Shwe as a wily
political manipulator, informed observers speculated that he sought to diffuse
power to avoid a Ceaușescu-style uprising in the wake of the Arab Spring and to
safeguard his inner circle’s perquisites once safely in retirement,” said the
report, referring to former Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu who was
overthrown and executed in 1989.
The CSIS said that economic
growth in post-sanctions Burma could be rapid considering the
military-dominated nation’s geostrategic position at the “crossroads of China,
India and Southeast Asia,” yet a lack of expertise and experience could
jeopardize reforms along with ongoing ethnic conflicts—as well as the Rohingya
crisis in western Burma’s Arakan State.
“Two years ago, the notion of
‘federalism’ was considered a dirty word by the government. Today government
officials have begun to talk openly about the concept, although they leave it
undefined,” said the think-tank. “The [CSIS] delegation heard considerable
goodwill toward the ethnic groups from senior officials, but so far much of
their attention is focused on ceasefires, which history suggests is not enough
to resolve long-standing differences.”
Civil society activists
emphasized to the CSIS that it was vital to build support for reform and
institutionalize change in the run-up to the 2015 general election while
building confidence within the military with a view to eventually altering
undemocratic articles in the widely-condemned 2008 Constitution.
“Government officials, including
representatives of the Ministry of Defense, said they expected the military
planned to gradually cede its grip on 25 percent of the seats in Parliament as
is now mandated in the Constitution,” read the report.
“Officials frequently cited the
Indonesia model where the military gradually gave up the protected seats it had
in the Parliament following the 1998 toppling of President Suharto. In Myanmar,
military members of Parliament do not always vote as a bloc and end up
sometimes supporting the opposition as many did on a recent proposal requiring
that parliamentarians should declare their assets.”
Meanwhile, despite expressing
disapproval with the manner in which their country’s name was changed from
Burma to Myanmar, opposition figures told the CSIS group that “the country
should be called Myanmar unless and until the people of Myanmar change the name
in the future.”
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