How well do you know Burma?

Why would the government want to do that? Its not as if they practise it :P

I think the only reason we stay engaged today is through realpolitik and the belief that a regime that is benefiting in many ways, including possibly financially, is a regime less likely to accept fragmentation and fracturing in the Burmese ethnic landscape.

This is probably one of the issues that worry the fellas up there, not to mention a weakened Burma at this moment might fall deeper into Chinese influence.

The way I see it, we need a two pronged approach to ensure that ASEAN is engaged in Burma to an extent that it counters Chinese influence in the North yet at the same time, vary the engagement methods such that the regime does not benefit laissez-faire from the investments that ASEAN states, especially Singapore is pouring in.

Perhaps we should start to tie conditions to our investment aid, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for our government to suddenly preach liberty and capitalism in one mouthful to the Burmese junta.

However, I think it’s wrong for us to have defended them to the hilt in the past. In many ways, it’s a reflection of our own lack of esteem for the basic tenets of democracy. As for the arms trade with them, I think it’s just plain immoral of our govt. At least countries like the US supply arms to despotic regimes for national security reasons (not saying that’s right). But our arms trade with Myanmar is just for the money and probably to prop up our struggling defence industries.

Suspending Myanmar or cutting ties with them is not going to change the regime overnight, but at least it sends a signal. No one thought that the apartheid regime in South Africa would give up power, but it eventually did under the weight of international sanctions and ostracism, and a bold organised struggled by the then-opposition ANC. I hope the same peaceful transition to democracy can happen to Myanmar one day.

In fact not all dissident groups oppose ASEAN’s continued engagement with the junta. I was at a seminar with Chairman Bo Aung Din, of the Parliamentary Democracy Party ( a dissident group), at an Amnesty International event at the Oxford Union. I asked him what ASEAN should do about Myanmar. He agreed with me that it was not in Myanmar’s best interest for ASEAN not to engage with the junta at all.He was in favour of trade, cultural and humanitarian links. Interestingly enough, he indicated that some ASEAN governments were actually rather sympathetic to the plight of the Myanmar opposition. At the end of the day however, he argued that democratic change in Myanmar could only come from its own people, and he did not favour foreign intervention- especially military intervention.

I mostly agree with this, and Singapore should maintain economic and other non-military ties with Myanmar. Trade, tourism and other links provide valuable opportunities to allow the common people of Myanmar to know what is going on in the outside world. This is important. We see all around the world that economic sanctions only help to prop up the dictatorships within, and it is unsurprising that the most fervent popular support for dictatorships comes from countries which are culturally and economically isolated- just look at North Korea and Cuba, or the various tinpot autocracies in sub-saharan Africa. In contrast, opening up forces governments to behave more reasonably towards their own people- China is a good example of this.

Having said that, I think that we need to take a consistent and firm stance against the Myanmar government on its human rights abuses. For a start, I think that the government should impose a ban on exports of any weapons or arms-making machinery to Myanmar. Yes, there’s a problem of “dual use” machine tools, but sophisticated systems or machines should not be exported.
And we should acknowlege that mistakes were made by selling arms to them in the past.

I do not think that this will make a practical difference to the ability of the junta in its ability to oppress the people, since the wikipedia article on the subject seems to indicate that Myanmar can produce many small arms on its own. Nevertheless, I think by this gesture we can send out a moral message that we do not condone the gross human rights abuses that this evil government does, and we will not play a direct role in supporting it.

According to defence analysts, Singapore was the first country to supply adequate arms and ammunition to Burma’s leaders when they came to power in 1988. Shortly after the coup in September 1988, workers at the port in Rangoon saw boxes marked “Allied Ordinance, Singapore” being unloaded from two vessels of Burma’s Five Star Shipping Line and onto about 70 army trucks bound for the Mingaladon military area. A report, “Transforming the Tatmadaw: The Burmese Armed Forces since 1988,” which was published by the Strategic and Defense Studies Center in Canberra, said these shipments reportedly included mortars, ammunition and raw materials for Burma’s arms factories. The consignment also contained 84-mm rockets for the Tatmadaw’s M2 Carl Gustav recoilless guns, which were supplied by Sweden-based Förenade Fabriksverken.

It was also reported that in August 1989, more ammunition arrived in Rangoon by ship from Israel and Belgium via Singapore. This was, according to Canberra-based defence analyst Andrew Selth, assisted by SKS Marketing, a newly formed Singapore-based joint venture with the Burmese military government. Singapore has also provided training for a Burmese army and parachute unit, and more recently, a Singapore-based company helped Burma’s intelligence unit to upgrade its war office and build a cyber-war centre in Rangoon capable of telephone, fax and satellite communications. According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, Burma has begun manufacturing small arms, and possibly ordinance, using a prefabricated factory designed and built by Chartered Industries of Singapore in conjunction with Israeli consultants. In February 1998, the small arms factory was shipped from Singapore to Rangoon abroad the Sin Ho, a vessel owned by the Singapore-registered Company Lian Huat Shipping Co Pte. Despite the economic crisis and simmering social unrest, military leaders continue to spend heavily on arms and ammunition, a trend that started a decade ago following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

In November 1997, Singapore refused to back a UN resolution criticizing widespread human rights abuses in Burma and calling on the country’s regime to recognize the results of the 1990 elections. Bilahari Kausikan, the Singaporean representative, told the UN General Assembly that his government could not support the resolution because “Our position is different. We have concrete and immediate stakes.” Not surprisingly, Burmese dissidents have been very critical of Singapore’s support for the regime, but this has, in Singapore’s view, been more than offset by the preferential treatment it has received from Burma’s military rulers. Singapore’s special status as a trade partner was clearly indicated when Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, the powerful first secretary of the ruling junta, instructed a coordinating board for the Myanmar–Singapore Joint Ministerial Working Committee to “give priority to projects arranged by Singapore”.