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A new wave of hope in Myanmar

A new political order in Myanmar has suddenly become a major international project, in a limited sense though. Myanmar’s ruling junta is agreeable to allowing the United Nations to extend its “good offices,” in a practical way, for the establishment of an “inclusive” political system.

With this, the latest popular uprising against Than Shwe and his military government has set off, almost unnoticed, a wave of hope for political reform.

Some form of democracy, or more precisely a compatible variant, is now considered a possibility, but only just that. Because, the military regime, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), does not intend to give up its “power” to control the pace of change. And, Myanmar’s neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) are supportive of the “realistic” idea that the military should be part of any political solution in that country at this stage.

As the Special Envoy of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Ibrahim Gambari is successful on two counts, on the basis of a strong and unanimous stand taken by the Security Council.

During his six-day visit to Myanmar that ended on November 8, his second peace shuttle since the military crackdown on the peaceful anti-junta protesters in September, Mr. Gambari persuaded the SPDC to think about the idea of change. In a fundamental sense, this was a formidable feat.

On a more delicate plane, he won the approval of Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Laureate and Myanmar’s much-heralded democracy campaigner, for a political process in a scenario of hope rather than certainty. Not that Ms Suu Kyi, who believes in Mahatma Gandhi’s political principle of non-violence despite her prolonged detention to this day, has ever been unreasonably rigid in opposing military rule in her country. She is known to have consistently preferred a “no-nonsense approach” from the SPDC, provoking it in the process to accuse her of wanting Myanmar to suffer people-hurting sanctions at the hands of other countries.

However, what she has now done is to grasp a rare window of opportunity, which the peaceful anti-junta protesters — Buddhist monks, students, and political activists — have, through their brave campaign against price rise in August and September, forced the U.N. to open.

It is learnt, on good authority, that Mr. Gambari had, as early as during his previous visit to Myanmar in late September and early October, won Ms Suu Kyi’s willingness to “cooperate” with the SPDC. The breakthrough was not announced then itself. Because, the SPDC insisted that Senior General Than Shwe would “personally meet” Ms Suu Kyi, only if she were to fulfil the condition of giving up calls for all forms of international sanctions against Myanmar. The counter-argument was that she had never really campaigned for such sanctions, and this caused a dilemma regarding how to project, in the right perspective, her pragmatic readiness to engage the SPDC.

In a statement she authorised Mr. Gambari to read out in Singapore after his latest visit to Myanmar, Ms Suu Kyi has now expressed her commitment to “pursue the path of dialogue constructively.”

This formulation of a “constructive dialogue” addresses the SPDC’s “condition” without her having to accept it at all. Such diplomatic niceties may have sufficed to set the stage for “the preliminary consultations,” now under way, between the SPDC and the opposition. Aung Kyi, newly-nominated Minister for Relations, has met her twice so far. Still under house arrest, she has also been allowed, for the first time in several years, to meet the other top leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party she had led to a landslide victory in the general election of 1990 only to be denied the right to rule.

Much creativity, not just smart ideas, will be needed for the “meaningful and time-bound dialogue with the SPDC leadership,” which Ms Suu Kyi has now suggested should “start as early as possible.” She has referred to the SPDC as “the Government” — a concession, considering the regime’s prolonged usurpation of power.

Yet political creativity of a high order is required to fashion a formula that could usher in democracy and also let Myanmar’s military be a part of the solution, as both the SPDC and its fellow-Asean members want.

So, acquiring importance beyond the obvious, in this context, is Ms Suu Kyi’s explicit move of welcoming “the necessary good offices role of the U.N.”

Some major U.N. members, including India in particular, can play significant roles in making these “good offices” substantive. The process may begin during the visit to New Delhi by George Yeo, Foreign Minister of Singapore, which is also the Asean Chair, on Monday.

Before and during Mr. Gambari’s just-concluded visit to Myanmar, India had urged the SPDC, behind the scenes, to expedite political reforms and the national reconciliation process.

Conveyed at the highest political levels, India’s message to the SPDC emphasised the need to make the reconciliation process more inclusive and broad-based to cover the many ethnic groups in the country.

Before the U.N.’s latest proactive intervention in Myanmar, China, and India, with their independent but “special” strategic and economic links to the SPDC, were looked upon as the only powers that could influence its thinking, if only they wished. Ms Suu Kyi’s old “inspirational” links to India were also regarded as a potential factor in the search for a possible solution.

While India and China continue to hold these “cards,” the U.N. “good offices” will give them, individually or even collectively if they so wish in a forum like the East Asia Summit which will meet in Singapore later this month, some sort of a say over the future direction in Myanmar.

This is not to suggest that Myanmar can become a new playground for major external powers. Soe Aung, a top “Burmese” activist in exile, has told this correspondent that the various pro-democracy groups outside Myanmar would now like to play just “a supporting role” to make a success of the U.N. intervention.

Maybe the major powers, including India and China as also the United States, have only a similar role to play, at least at this stage.

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