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The Folly of More Burma Sanctions

diplomat_admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:33:57 +0000

If US sanctions against the military government in Burma, the goal of which were regime change, haven’t worked for a decade and a half, by what logic would one suppose that additional sanctions would have a more positive effect? Yet well-meaning human rights and other organizations have recently proposed that further sanctions be instituted, and that a UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations be convened.

This proposal is especially quixotic as the EU has just modestly modified its less stringent sanctions policy in light of potential progress in that country, and none of the Asian states adheres to any sanctions regimen. Rather than being a step forward, then, this proposal undercuts both US policy and the potential for positive change in Burma.

That the Congress and the White House will extend current sanctions policies is a given, as Burma isn’t an issue on which any administration is willing to use up political ammunition. But the country has a new government inaugurated this spring – as a result of last November’s admittedly clearly flawed elections, which in turn were based on a manipulated referendum on a new constitution in May 2008.

The cast of characters in this new act of the Burmese tragic drama is largely composed of the former military, but now in mufti. Still, there are now a few opposition voices in the various parliaments, and the first public criticism of state policies has taken place before the new president, in an act unprecedented in a half century.

In his inaugural speech the end of March 2011, President Thein Sein set forth a remarkably liberal and positive agenda. It called for progress on the alleviation of poverty, economic reform, more attention to health and education – both in miserable condition – better treatment of minorities, less censorship, and the elimination of corruption. The speech could have come from any government spokesperson in a democratic society.

These goals, while articulated by the head of state, aren’t universally accepted among the military power elite in that society, and there are strong elements opposed to reform. They could scuttle positive change and redirect priorities, which have been advocated by many foreign observers and governments. But the call for more sanctions and the UN Commission of Inquiry simply lends more credence to those elements within Burma who are opposed to reform, who will claim that no action will please the United States, and therefore the US continues to be a threat, which in turn requires tighter controls on the population and greater military expenditures. Such views undercut the potential for helping the people of that poor society – those that the advocates of more sanctions wish to assist.

The United States has nominated a special ambassadorial envoy to Burma, and his approval is likely in the Senate. His position calls for coordination of sanctions policies and dialogue with the Burmese. Do the organizations advocating more sanctions really believe that this will positively affect his efficacy in dealing with Burmese officials?

The Barack Obama policy review resulting in ‘pragmatic engagement’ went as far as it could given internal US politics. It called for high-level dialogue, which continues. But US sanctions can’t be eliminated except in response to some overarching reforms inside Burma and the expressed concurrence of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The United States has called for continued support to her and institutionally to the National League for Democracy, a party officially deregistered because of her objections to participation in the elections. All this means that no US administration will use up valuable internal political credits to change existing sanctions, and even the new Burmese administration may not be strong enough to take the positive steps the United States wants.

The reality is that change inside Burma is possible, but likely to be slow. Yet though these internal Burmese reforms may prove ephemeral, they are the first positive governmental steps since 1962 and the military coup of that year. We should therefore welcome them as a start, and watch carefully their progress.

It’s simply self-defeating to advocate policies that effectively undercut the possibility of these reforms continuing, something which would be in the interests of both the United States and the people of that sorry land.

David I. Steinberg is a Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. His latest volume is 'Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know.' This is an edited version of a piece published by Pacific Forum CSIS here.

Why to Accept Iran’s Talks Offer

diplomat_admin — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:54:10 +0000

Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme had been at an impasse since January,until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month announced that he had instructed his nuclear negotiator to send a letter accepting an European Union offer to return to talks with the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany (P5+1). EU and US officials immediately balked at this proposal, however, saying that Iran’s offer doesn’t ‘contain anything new’ and therefore doesn’t ‘justify’ another meeting. These officials are right to doubt Iran’s sincerity in concluding a deal, as Ahmadinejad’s offer is rooted in Iran’s domestic politics. Still, returning to talks may be the West’s least bad option.

The timing of Ahmadinejad’s announcement leaves little doubt that it’s geared towards improving his domestic standing, which has been greatly weakened during his recent dispute with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian presidents have consistently reached out to the West as a tactic for improving their domestic standing. Ahmadinejad’s two most immediate predecessors, Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, used a similar approach (as did Ahmadinejad himself after his legitimacy was called into question during the popular uprisings that followed his fraudulent reelection in 2009).

The problem from the West’s point of view is that it’s the Supreme Leader and not Ahmadinejad who holds the real power in the Islamic Republic. With Ahmadinejad’s power at an all time low, the Supreme Leader would almost certainly reject any new deal Ahmadinejad reached with the P5+1, just as he rejected Ahmadinejad’s previous deal in October 2009.

Yet the EU and United States still have little to lose by returning to talks. Those critical of negotiating with Iran have long contended that participating in talks reduces China and Russia’s willingness to take coercive measures against Iran. But this argument was called into question when China and Russia agreed to the strongest set of sanctions against Iran only after attempts to engage Iran had come to naught. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted, ‘The fact that we have reached out (to Iran)… has given us much more credibility in our dealings internationally, and therefore, the ability to build an international consensus on the need to apply pressure to Iran.’

EU Pushing Sri Lanka Toward China

Madhav Nalapat — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 01:34:28 +0000

That old habits die hard is clear from the way in which the European Union has been seeking to corner Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for daring to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, rather than heeding their advice to call a ceasefire when the army had overrun the last sliver of territory controlled by the LTTE.

With each advance the army made in early 2009, the demands for a ceasefire grew more strident. Once it became clear that Rajapaksa wouldn’t bow to Washington and Brussels, punitive measures were imposed on Colombo that continue today, the most recent being the US-EU withdrawal of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences for Sri Lankan textiles in August.

It’s clear Sri Lanka is becoming another Burma—to be subjected to isolation and sanctions—all in the name of human rights and democracy. And, as in the case of Burma, the major beneficiary of the Western boycott will be the same—China.

China has already displaced India as the country of consequence for Sri Lanka. The distancing of Colombo from Delhi began in 1999, when the then Bharatiya Janata Party-led government refused urgent requests for military assistance. The LTTE had been inflicting defeats on a demoralised Sri Lankan army, which was running out of ammunition and weapons. When it became clear that India would refuse assistance because of its own political compulsions (the BJP was being supported by the DMK, a Tamil party that has backed an independent ‘Tamil Eelam’ homeland carved out of Sri Lanka), the Pakistanis stepped in, providing generous dollops of military assistance that enabled the Sri Lankan army to fend off the LTTE.

Ten years later, history repeated itself. This time around, the DMK was a partner of the Congress Party, and was therefore able to ensure that no help was forthcoming from Delhi in the war against the LTTE. Once again, Pakistan stepped in, joining the Chinese in pumping weapons into Sri Lanka. In early 2009, when India’s parliamentary election was to take place, the Manmohan Singh government demanded Rajapaksa call a halt to the offensive—just a week before the capture and killing of LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran. Since then, it has been the China-Pakistan duo that have become the partners of choice for Sri Lanka (although some care is still taken to avoid making this too obvious lest it provoke an Indian reaction).

But apart from pandering to the political demands of the DMK, another factor that would have weighed on the minds of the Singh government would have been the fact that the EU has in essence been a de facto protector of the LTTE. Led by Norway, a country whose propensity for aggressively backing lost causes seems to rise in proportion to its oil income, Europe enforced a ceasefire in 2002 between then-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and the LTTE. This gave the latter effective control over the north and east of the country, and helped ensure the eventual defeat of Wickremesinghe and his United National Front at the polls.

China-EU Marriage on the Rocks, but Salvageable

diplomat_admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Is the world’s fastest emerging power destined never to see eye to eye with the world’s largest trading entity?

Over the past few years, China and the EU have frequently fallen out, kissed and made up, only to quickly fall out again. But, since 2006, it’s clear that the marriage has been more rocky than smooth. Promises that one side felt the other had made have not been kept. Expectations have been dashed. Moments of reconciliation have been followed swiftly by sharp disappointment. Like a couple who can’t live with or without each other, China and the EU seem doomed to perpetual strife.

So, will this tempestuous relationship ever improve? As recently as November, it seemed that it might. With the final hurdle to the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty having been cleared, the EU was telling the world it would now have more uniformity in its foreign and trade policy. This step, which came at the expense of a long, bitter process of internal argument, was followed by the appointment of an EU President and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Officials in Beijing– perhaps even more than those in Washington–were hopeful that this would allow relations to finally move forward.

After all, one thing the EU and China do understand is how to trade with each other, with the EU running up a deficit in China’s favour of $240 billion in 2008 alone if Hong Kong is included, and $170 billion if it isn’t. But once things stray into more political areas, relations get much trickier. Moves in 2005 within the EU to scrap the arms embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident went nowhere once the United States curtly made its dissatisfaction clear. In addition, for some reason the international response towards China’s position on Tibet seemed to be parked with the EU, meaning that whenever a major European leader met the Dalai Lama there were problems in the relationship.

This was exacerbated in the autumn of 2007, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to tell Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, when jovially discussing issues with him in Beijing, that she was to meet the Dalai Lama almost as soon as she returned home. For years, China and Germany had regarded themselves as the best of friends. German technology was greatly appreciated in China, with companies like Volkswagen and Siemens having a strong presence there. The Germans had, for example, supplied the technology for the flagship high speed Maglev railway that shuttles people from Shanghai Pudong Airport into Shanghai at 430 kilometres per hour. Yet all this goodwill was eclipsed with Merkel bowing to domestic pressure and first meeting the Dalai Lama in the chancellery, then holding a press conference in the Reichstag afterwards.

And 2008, the year of China’s arrival on to the global stage with its hosting of the Beijing Olympics, was little better. Protests dogged the Olympic flame as it was carried through European capitals, with particularly nasty flare-ups in Paris where the flame was snatched from a disabled female athlete (France later apologised for this). Worst of all, President Nicolas Sarkozy, after signing millions of dollars worth of deals in Beijing in November the year before on his official visit there, went and duplicated Merkel’s snub by meeting the Dalai Lama (compounding tensions by doing so while holding the EU’s rotating presidency). The twice annual EU China summit was abruptly cancelled only a day before it was meant to be held, while difficult negotiations over trade issues–from the deficit, to market access, to anti dumping and tariffs–simmered in the background.

The Chinese can be forgiven for finding the EU hard to understand. As historian Perry Anderson has written in a recent lengthy study of the EU, ‘The Union remains a more or less unfathomable mystery to all but those who, to their bemusement, have recently become its citizens.’ Envisaged by some as simply a regulatory unit, by others as nothing more than a giant free trade zone, and by the more ambitious as some grand socio-political project aimed at supra-national dominance, in practice the EU falls somewhere in between all of these, and the confusion is made worse by the frequent identity crises it undergoes when set up against the United States and China.