SPEAKING
FREELY The case for sanctions on
Myanmar By Sai Wansai
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
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Lately,
a few commentaries have been published on sanctions
imposed on Myanmar by the United States and the European
Union. Those against sanctions are convinced that they
are punishing and hurting the population, rather than
the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC),
also known as Myanmar's military junta. But one
pro-sanctions commentary that was recently published
argues that while those against sanctions have roundly
rejected the use of sanctions as ineffective and
inhumane, they have failed to come up with a genuine
alternative.
In reality, the issue here mainly
has to do with "moral posturing", and both opposing
camps seem to have valid arguments to back up their
position. Lets have a closer look through pragmatic and
logical lens.
The general argument for those
against sanctions is that trade sanctions hurt and
impoverish average wage earners. The example put forward
here is none other than the textile sector, which is one
of Myanmar's top export earners.
The workforce
employed in this sector is said to be 300,000 workers
strong, according to the junta's sources. This number,
however, is believed to be cooked up by Prime Minister
Khin Nyunt, who created the Office of Strategic Studies,
which is responsible for studying foreign policy and
spinning information to boost the regime's image.
According to a report from the Alternative ASEAN
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Network on
Burma, or ALTSEAN, titled "Ready, Aim, Sanction",
veteran academic on Myanmar David Steinberg estimates
that the figure is closer to 180,000. Neither figure
takes into account that many people have lost their jobs
due to the withdrawal of foreign direct investment,
because of the poor investment climate the regime has
created, or last year's banking crisis.
According to the same report, "In 2000, Cambodia
exported 70% of its garment exports to the US, worth
US$750 million. That year, Cambodian garment factories
employed about 200,000 workers. A direct value-worker
ratio would imply that 140,000 workers were employed to
produce garments worth $750 million.
"Also in
2000, Burma [referred to as Myanmar since 1989] exported
garments worth $400 million to the US. If a similar
value-worker ratio was used, as in Cambodia, this would
mean that about 75,000 workers were employed in Burma to
produce garments exported to the US," the report says.
It seems the junta is inflating the figures in
order to paint a very bleak picture of Myanmar's
downtrodden textile workers and wage a propaganda war to
win sympathy internationally by accusing the United
States of using heavy-handedness on a poor, backward
country such as Myanmar.
Even if the allegation
holds some truth, the other side of the coin is that
textile exports, which were valued at $324 million in
2002 and $251 million in the first eight month of 2003,
are the top foreign-currency earner for the regime.
There is no doubt that the junta would use this
hard-earned currency to expand its military machinery,
as was the case with its purchase of 10 MiG-29 Fulcrum
fighters for $150 million after receiving Thailand's
payment for Myanmar's gas export. The expansion of the
junta's war machinery, which eats up nearly 50% of the
country's yearly budget allotment, has more to do with
the suppression of its 50 million people than defense of
the country. Seen from this point of view, the rational
of stopping the junta's cash flow clearly outweighs the
joblessness of a few thousand people.
Another
point to ponder is that there exist formal and informal
economic sectors. While the formal one, which covers
international trade, investment, production of raw
materials, manufacturing, etc, is monopolized by the
junta and its cronies; the informal sector, in which
most citizens are involved, includes small unregistered
enterprises, self-employed persons who work in their own
or their family's businesses, and people who produce
goods only for their own consumption.
Thus any
blockade of the formal economy is bound to hurt the
regime's war chest and consequently reduce its ability
to suppress the people and expand its military machine.
The effect on the informal economic sector meanwhile
will be very minimal, as it has been during the last
three decades of isolation under the rule of the Burma
Socialist Program Party, which came to an end in 1988.
Those against sanctions have come up with a
series of arguments, including that only constructive
engagement would help change Myanmar's political
landscape, leading to democratization, and not
sanctions, which are counter productive and alienate the
"moderates" within the junta. Such speculation, however,
has proven false if the reactions of the SPDC during the
past few years are of any indication.
Thailand,
Singapore, Japan, Australia and Malaysia have, at one
time or another, tried constructive engagement for
economic reforms and, to a lesser degree, political
reforms. But their generosity and support have been met
with either outright rejection, indifference or broken
promises.
In 1998, the World Bank teamed up with
the United Nations secretary general and ambassadors
from Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, the
Philippines and Australia and the Thai deputy foreign
minister to coordinate a large (estimated at $1 billion)
"carrot" in financial and technical aid from the World
Bank but channeled through the UN. A billion dollars is
an exorbitant amount of funding for Myanmar, whose gross
domestic product for 2002 was only $6.7 billion. The
conditions for the jumbo "carrot" were reportedly the
release of all political prisoners and freedom of
movement for Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the
activists of her National League for Democracy (NLD).
After stalling for time for consultation with junta
members, the SPDC rejected the offer.
Then in
August 2002, when he led a large business delegation to
Myanmar to further generous efforts at economic
engagement, Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad
appealed to SPDC chairman General Than Shwe to tackle
corruption and nonsensical policies of the SPDC. Than
Shwe ignored Mahathir's request.
That same year
the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) assistance offer
to the SPDC Ministry of Health in creating an AIDS
surveillance system was rejected. CDC standards required
voluntary testing, confidential results and testing in
conjunction with counseling and education.
In
2003, as Japan stepped up its aid to Myanmar (prior to
the suspension following the Black Friday attack) and
Thailand started an aggressive business diplomacy
program with the junta, the SPDC became more resistant
to dialogue and more oppressive in its actions.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's policy
of "business diplomacy" with the SPDC to reduce the
spill-over effects into Thailand of Myanmar's problems
such as narcotics, refugees, disease and migrants was
answered with a five-month border closure, the
blacklisting of Thai journalists, public insults aimed
at the Thai monarchy and people, and non-cooperation for
Thailand's proposed ceasefire negotiations between the
SPDC and several armed opposition groups.
The
preferred scenario, for those against sanctions, would
be somewhat like that of South Korea, where remarkable
progress has made both on economic and democratic
transformation. But the problem in Myanmar is altogether
a different story. The military held a nationwide
election in 1990, with the promise to install a
multi-party democratic system, in which it lost
miserably to the NLD, the Shan Nationalities League for
Democracy (SNLD) and the United Nationalities Alliance
(UNA). The combined vote received by the NLD and these
ethnic-based political parties was 91%. (The military
later annulled the election results.)
Against
this backdrop, the junta has been committing gross
human-rights abuses, population transfers and ethnic
cleansing; it has used rape as a weapon of war, employed
thousands of child soldiers and carried out
extrajudicial killings, just to name a few activities.
The heart of the argument regarding sanctions,
according to an opinion piece by David Baldwin titled
"Sanctions have gotten a bum rap", is first that nothing
works perfectly; second, there is nothing that will work
alone; third, costs matter as much as benefits; and
fourth, the rule of statecraft is that alternatives
matter.
"A study by the Institute for
International Economics of 116 cases found the success
rate of sanctions to be about 33%. Some see this as
evidence that such measures do not work and should be
abandoned. Not necessarily. A baseball player who gets a
hit only 33% of the time is a star, not a bum. It may
well be that in statecraft as in baseball, .333 is a
pretty good 'batting average'," Baldwin writes.
"One interesting thing about the question of
whether economic sanctions work [it that it] almost
never asked about military force, propaganda or
diplomacy - the main alternatives to economic sanctions.
Yet the answer is the same for each type of statecraft.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't," he
argues.
In conclusion, Baldwin writes, "No
matter how useful or useless sanctions eventually turn
out to be in Myanmar, one thing is sure: putting
economic pressure on governments we hope to influence or
change will remain a potentially useful addition to the
diplomatic tool kit. Presidents understand this even if
pundits do not."
Given the conflict-ridden and
oppressive political atmosphere, together with the sound
arguments mentioned, we need to ask ourselves which
option is still available for the international
community to promote democratic change in Myanmar. If
the international stakeholders are not prepared or are
reluctant to take drastic measures more than just
symbolic sanctions - of course, one must exclude the US
sanctions, which are really biting - we might as well
withdraw our commitment to the people of Myanmar and
play along the "engagement at all cost" theme and even
abandon our moral high-horse posturing.
Otherwise, it would do all of us well to ponder
on implementing sanctions that really hurt or with teeth
that bite, rather than dragging on or muddling through
aimlessly. The US type of tough stand is what we need if
we are to push for real change. Of course, this must be
coupled with other diplomatic tools and pressures
readily available. If frontline states such as the US
and the EU are dedicated to pulling this through is
anybody's guess.
Sai Wansai is the
general secretary of the Shan Democratic
Union.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click hereif you
are interested in contributing.
