D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 2002, p. 23-24)

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is calling for a rapid change in Burma. "Quick change is necessary. We cannot afford indefinite delay. If we delay too much, that itself will create its own problems," she said in a video taped address to the international Burma Summit of NGO's and political leaders held recently in Copenhagen.

The urgency of Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal is well-founded. Her country is facing a severe economic crisis, with an inflation rate placed at over 50 per cent and the kyat traded at 1000 to a dollar in the black market. (Official rate is 7 kyat to a dollar.)

Testimonies made by speakers and participants at the Burma Summit that was held parallel to the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) on September 22, 2002 contradict the Burmese military junta's claims of democracy and progress: More than one million Burmese are infected with HIV and millions are displaced as they escape military operations against ethnic nationalities and the dictatorship's policy of sexual violence and forced labour. More than a thousand political prisoners remain incarcerated and still more are getting arrested for acts as simple as starting a literary group.

"What European people are not aware about is the amount of displaced people. I have seen British intelligence reports , I have seen pictures a hundred times worse than Kosovo where people were displaced and forced around," said Helle Degn, former minister of development aid in Denmark and Human Rights Commissioner for the Baltics.

"Democracy" at its own speed Speaking at the Burma Summit, Harn Yawnghwe recalls how expectations were raised when Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest last May.

Yawnghwe is director of the Euro-Burma Office in Brussels and has been monitoring the dialogue between the military junta and Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) since it started two years ago. "It looked as if things might be changing", he said, recalling how the junta released a number of political prisoners and allowed the International Labour Organization (ILO) and several foreign delegations to look into the country's situation.

But the dialogue that started in October 2000 got stuck in the so called "confidence-building stage". Burma would move towards "democracy" at its own speed, said Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt in a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last August.

Khin Nyunt, otherwise known as Secretary One of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), blamed heavy rains as he failed to meet European Union representatives who visited Burma in early September. He also cancelled a meeting with EU delegates last March.

Noting their failure to meet the recent EU fact-finding mission, Harn Yawnghwe said it is becoming clearer that the ruling generals "have no intention to actually carry on the dialogue".

But he refuses to lose hope and points out that "the ethnic leaders of Burma are working" towards reconciliation and democracy.

Copenhagen Declaration

The ruling military junta says that an "iron fist" is necessary to keep the multi-ethnic Union of Burma from disintegrating like the former Yugoslavia. This claim was refuted by leaders representing the ethnic people of the Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan states as they gathered in a roundtable discussion with Dr. Sein Win ( prime minister of the Burmese exile government) at the occasion of the Copenhagen summit.

Burma Summit organisers noted the historic value of this meeting as it was the first concrete step taken by the eight leaders "towards creating a country in which diverse ethnic groups work together to develop a stable democratic society".

The discussion culminated with the "Copenhagen Declaration", a signed statement whereby the eight leaders countered the military's allegations that there are 135 races in Burma all aiming to establish a separate nation. They stressed that "there are only eight constituent states in the Union of Burma" and that its people's basic human and political rights should be recognized by the military "irrespective of their ethnic or state background".

Pointing out that "successive military regimes have tried without success in the last 53 years to suppress the ethnic nationalities who make up at least 40 per cent of the population and whose homelands cover 60 per cent of the nation," signatories of the Copenhagen Declaration emphasised that "there is no military solution to Burma's problems and the only way forward is political dialogue, negotiations, compromises and a willingness to work together to rebuild the nation".

They called on the SPDC to immediately begin a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi; stop the use of forced labour, forced relocations, rapes and other human rights abuses; cease hostilities and military operations against ethnic nationalities; free political prisoners and expand the political dialogue process to include the ethnic nationalites in a "Tripartite Dialogue". Ethnic nationalities' political parties and armies that have signed military cease-fires with the SPDC should be allowed to meet freely and discuss among themselves how they can support a dialogue process.

For their part, the eight leaders declared their readiness to cease hostilities "if the Burmese military is willing to declare a nationwide cease-fire" and to talk to the SPDC to find ways by which they can work together. Reaffirming their commitment to a "Tripartite Dialogue, they stressed that they will continue to consult with their "fellow ethnic nationalities organisations on how they can rebuild the Union of Burma in the spirit of the Panglong Agreement (Signed in 1947, this document proves that the Union of Burma is based on the voluntary decisions of different ethnic nationalities to unite in the building of an independent nation). They will continue to work with the international community and the United Nations to find an equitable political solution to Burma's problems.

Transparency in
humanitarian assistance

A much contended point among some summit participants was the question of foreign development and humanitarian assistance.

Part of the Copenhagen Declaration is a call on the international community "to provide humanitarian relief and assistance to the people of Burma especially in the ethnic nationalities' areas that have experienced the military's scorched earth policies".

But Aung San Suu Kyi mentioned in her meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi last August that foreign assistance should fall within strict guidelines and queries about the mechanisms involved in the proper remittance of funds to Burma abound.

"We have always made it a point to the donors that unless there is transparency and accountability for every assistance that will be channelled to Burma, without doubt, the money will just go to line the pockets of the generals and expand their army which they use to suppress the people, " said Teddy Buri, president of the union of Burma's exiled Members of Parliament.

Criteria for foreign aid

Harn Yawnghwe of the Euro-Burma Office said leaders of the ethnic nationalities and the democracy movement have agreed on a set of criteria that have to be met if humanitarian assistance is to be delivered to the people of Burma. The assistance, according to their guidelines, "must be delivered only after prior consultation with Aung San Suu Kyi , the NLD, independent local leaders and community organizations" and "be monitored by an international independent impartial body". It should be delivered "directly to the people and the most needy areas through credible international non-governmental organizations that abide by an international Code of Conduct" and "not through the SPDC or organizations directly or indirectly under its control."

Among the parties that drafted these strategies are the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), National Council of the Union of Burma, Karenni National Progressive Party, Shan State Army (South), United Nationalities League for Demoracy (Liberated Area), United Nationalities Youth League and the Women's League of Burma.

Emmalyn Liwag-Kotte is a Philippine journalist living in Cologne.

A different position on foreign development assistance is taken by some individuals like Ronnie Than Lwin of the Federation of Trade Unions-Burma (FTUB).

Than Lwin maintains that the only thing that Burma needs is freedom and that no development aid should be provided by the international community until the military junta steps down from power. "If the Burmese government wants to improve the country's education or health situation, it simply has to cut down its defence expenditures", he said, noting that it spends a huge bulk of the country's national budget on more than 400,000 soldiers.

Structural change
towards democracy

Than Lwin's approach may work in bringing about real structural changes in Burma's democratic system. But given its present crises especially in the health sector, one cannot help consider the price attached to such changes.

Human lives are far too valuable to be used as pawns against the generals.

Serious and sustained economic and political pressure on Burma's military government, as suggested by a statement issued by the summit particants, may force the generals to reverse its unacceptable treatment of its citizens and agree to tri-partite negotiations with Aung San Suu Kyi and the ethnic nationalities.

But economic and political pressures succeed only when international actors work within a well-coordinated framework. And as Anton Johannsen (Chairman of the Danish Burma Committee) mentioned in his opening address, several companies - also from Europe - choose to turn the blind eye to the political situation in Burma in their eagerness to get a quick profit.

Until these companies hold back their investments and join civil society organizations in a concerted campaign for democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi's call for change will remain unanswered.