Time for New Approach (2)

By Ralph A. Cossa

Finding a middle ground approach toward Myanmar does not require Washington to abandon its principles. No one expects that the U.S. is going to embrace the junta any time soon.

Nor will it (or should it) endorse a referendum whose opponents were not allowed to express opposing views or a constitution that in effect blocks Daw Suu Kyi from ever assuming power (it excludes from national office those with a foreign spouse ― her late husband was a British citizen).

But U.S. sanctions need to be more targeted against the government and its leaders and not against the people themselves.

As the International Crisis Group argued last October, ``It is a mistake in the Myanmar context to use aid as a bargaining chip, to be given only in return for political change … Twenty years of aid restrictions ― which see Myanmar receiving twenty times less assistance per capita than other least-developed countries ― have weakened, not strengthened, the forces for change."

The bans on Myanmarese garments, agriculture and fishery products and restrictions on tourism should be lifted.

The U.S. provision of humanitarian assistance during Hurricane Nargis last year was a step in the right direction, despite the restrictions imposed by the junta on its delivery.

The aid offer, and the junta's initial reluctance to accept it, resulted in the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) arguing for, rather than against, the U.S. position; this is the circumstance we need to continue to create.

This does not equate to ``abandoning" Aung Sang Suu Kyi, as critics claim, but involves accepting that the near term goal is not her immediate assumption of power but the restoration of some form of democratic process which can hopefully lead to that long-term goal.

To this end, the U.S. and ASEAN should agree upon a strategy for compelling the junta to live up to its own promises and then judging it by its own standards, not ours.

The junta claims it is on the fifth of seven steps in pursuing its ``roadmap to democracy" ― the official term is actually ``roadmap to discipline-flourishing democracy" but most prefer the shorter version.

It now promises to hold ``free and fair elections" and to then turn over the reins to a civilian government by 2010. Prime Minister Thein Sein reportedly even promised his ASEAN colleagues at their annual summit earlier this year in Thailand that Myanmar would allow the United Nations to monitor the 2010 election.

Without endorsing the vehicles that got them to this point ― the constitution and referendum ― we can still join hands with ASEAN in insisting that the junta live up to these promises. This will at least put the U.S. and the rest of ASEAN on the same side and put the spotlight and pressure where it really belongs.

This approach will not work, however, if the National League for Democracy (NLD) decides to boycott the elections as it is currently threatening to do if all political prisoners are not released and the junta agrees to a review of the new constitution.

This would be a mistake! Such a decision would ensure that the ruling junta will be able to handpick its successor while the rest of ASEAN pretends that the roadmap is being followed.

The new trumped-up charges against Daw Suu Kyi stemming from the intrusion no doubt have the dual aim of keeping her imprisoned and pushing the NLD toward its threatened boycott.

It would be much wiser for the NLD to once again have faith in the same people who voted overwhelmingly for them in the last election and enter the political fray while calling on the junta to keep its ``free and fair elections" promise and calling on the rest of ASEAN to ensure that it does.

In this way, Aung Sang Suu Kyi's incarceration can be used as a further catalyst to get the people to the polls and once again, as in 1990, embarrass the regime, this time with ASEAN and the rest of the world holding it to its promise.

I had the great pleasure and honor of meeting Daw Suu Kyi (legally) in 2002 when I gave the first lecture ever given by a foreigner at NLD headquarters in Yangon, during a brief period when she had been released ``without restrictions" from house arrest.

She was and is a truly inspirational figure totally adored by the masses. I also found her to be totally inflexible and unyielding in her beliefs, characteristics that have no doubt held her in good stead during years of isolation and house arrest.

But the time has come for the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi to become more flexible and try to beat the junta at its own game, not by trying to get it to change its rules (since it won't) but by joining together with ASEAN, Washington, and others to make sure that this time they live up to their own rules.

If that happens, the roadmap toward democracy might actually (finally) begin to live up to its own name.

Ralph A. Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS (pacforum@hawaii.rr.com), a Honolulu-based nonprofit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and senior editor of Comparative Connections, a quarterly electronic journal (www.csis.org/pacfor). He can be reached at RACPacForum@cs.com.