12 February, 2008: Burmese monks stole worldwide headlines last September when they took to the streets to protest the ruling military junta. Their actions failed to spur a coordinated international reaction to their plight, but internal pressures from the Burmese people eventually may crack the regime’s hold on power.
Burmese social activists initiated protests in August 2007 to object to a hike in fuel prices. A January 2008 International Crisis Group (ICG) report indicates the mass movement did not begin until late August after “monk protesters were beaten by pro-government vigilantes.” According to the report, monks responded to the attacks by forming a community network, the All Burma Monks Alliance to urge government action on four fronts: to issue an apology for the beatings, to cut commodity prices, to release political prisoners, and to enter into dialogue with opposition parties.
The government ignored the monks’ demands and violently suppressed the protests in the last week of September. Military troops raided monasteries and attacked the monks and their supporters. The ICG reported, “Riot police and soldiers, evidently freed from orders to show restraint, used tear gas, batons, rubber bullets and live ammunition to break up the crowds.”
In the 20 years since it took control of Burma and renamed it Myanmar, the military junta has consolidated power and taken drastic measures to suppress opposition parties and the general population.
The United States imposed sanctions on the regime when it seized power in 1988. By 2004 Washington had severed all financial ties with the country, which it continues to identify as Burma. Chevron is the only major U.S. company with operations there and its presence is limited. Burma/Myanmar has not hosted a U.S. ambassador since 1992 and it remains on the U.S. list of uncooperative drug-producing transit countries, according to Congressional Research Service.
The junta’s response to the protests has caused a sea change in a new generation of the Burmese public, claims Jeremy Woodrum, Co-Founder and Director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. “There is no greater moral authority [in Burma] than monks,” Woodrum said, adding that government leaders frequently threaten monastery leaders to accept gifts because their symbolic endorsement of the government is critical to maintaining public support. The crackdown on the monks “pissed off a whole new generation of young people,” he said.
Susan Hayward, a Program Officer for the United States Institute of Peace’s Religion and Peacemaking Program agrees. “The image of the junta responding violently to barefoot monks and nuns carrying nothing more lethal than signs advocating the cause of compassion for the people of Burma elicited outrage that translated into greater pressure placed on the junta's ruling elite by international governments and international organizations, as a means to compel the junta to address violations of human rights broadly and the Burmese people's specific right for representative governance,” she wrote in an email.
Indeed, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced new sanctions earlier this month on the family members of the military junta and some influential businessmen. The European Union continues to leverage its own set of sanctions. But the international response remains fractured. China and India continue to court the junta in an effort to secure energy resources. The Association of Southeast Asia Nations also indulges Burma/Myanmar as a member country as part of its strategy of change through engagement.
The situation is reminiscent of the American A&E television show Intervention, which documents the lives of addicts and attempts by their loved ones to give a final ultimatum: enroll in a treatment program or prepare to be cut off financially and emotionally. An addiction specialist typically prepares the family for the intervention by informing them that the addict will exploit the weak link among the participants. If the participants fail to provide a united front, the intervention fails.
China has shown some signs of strengthening its position toward the junta since the protests. After vetoing a United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) in January 2007 that urged the junta to cooperate with the UN, China supported a UNSC Presidential Statement the following October that said it “strongly deplores the use of violence against peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar.”
But Bridget Welsh, Associate Professor of Southeast Asia Studies at John Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies and an expert on Burma, argues that China can only go so far because “when China puts up pressure, India takes advantage.” A case in point, according to Welsh, is that while the junta was cracking down on protesters, the Indian government was working with it to secure an agreement on natural gas resources.
Even if China and India continue to act as the weak links in the international community’s effort to intervene in Burma, a hard-line stance by Western governments may be most effective at supporting an internal movement.
“Sanctions are necessary to keep faith with Burma,” said Derek J. Mitchell, Senior Fellow of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They embarrass the regime and encourage those inside that are struggling. It shows the world cares.” |
