Recent article by John Badgley puts unreal positive spin on Burma "engagement" by Dr. Zarni

Beware of Spin-filled Burma Analyses Fwd: * THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND MYANMAR (BURMA)
Monday, January 18, 2010 2:39 AM
From:
To:

Dear Friends,

I am sharing with you an analysis with a disturbingly positive spin.
Although I disagree strongly with the issues as framed and I find the
empirical evidence given is flimsy, I am posting so that people are
aware of spin-and policy-driven analyses that dot the world of Burma
watchers, who generally go on whirlwind tours in various spots and
gather oral evidence from Burmese elite who speak English and have
their own local elite-spin. The English-speaking Burmese elite is an inconsequential number in Burma, despite the impression that because it was a former colony many people
speak English - but how many is many?

{Copy editor’s note: I can only count less than 20, of which most are woefully out of date and isolated. You also have to take into account that few people will come forward to offer opinions under such a repressive and ignorant regime).

What is most interesting, nah, disturbing, about this brief analysis
is not what it says but what it chooses to OMIT.

The situation is dire for many parts of the country. The
analysis doesn't even consider worth mentioning that Burma's rulers
have just spent $600 million in their latest purchase of MiG-29s while the
agriculture-based economy has nearly collapsed.

Curiously, it talked about the regime consulting with economists as if ostentatious acts of
consultation had a direct correlation with policy improvement or detectable behavioural change on the part of the SPDC.

Senator Jim Webb's meeting with Than Shwe and ASSK was billed as
"a breakthrough". Webb is no longer a credible voice on Burma, and no
one in Washington looks to him for his intellectual or political
leadership, when it comes to Burma. The cowboy manner in which
he went to Burma on a rescue mission to bring back mentally deranged
Vietnam vet John Yettaw, or the Swimmer (across the lake to enter Suu
Kyi's compound) has made even die-hard unconditional regime
engagers uncomfortable.

A regime security official in Nay Pyi Taw who cares about the
well-being of the public wrote me saying that he agreed with my
characterization of General Than Shwe's Nay Pyi Taw or the new royal
capital as the 'graveyard for engagers'.

Washington is no longer enthusiastic or hopeful about the prospects of
engaging with the regime. I was in Washington before and after
Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell went
to Burma. I did meet the USG officials, whom I am sure are the same
officials whom the analysts of the essay also met with.

For the record, Washington's premature hype about the new engagement
is no longer there, after Dr. Campbell's trip. Washington simply
doesn't really care - Burma is NOT N. Korea or Iran. The Obama
Administration doesn't spend much time thinking or talking or doing
anything about Burma. That's just a plain fact.

(Editor’s note: Besides 2 wars which aren’t going well, the economic downturn and the health care reforms, the Obama administration is currently engaged in a big way in helping Haitian earthquake victims. Here too contrast the US response and acceptance of US aid in present-day Haiti with what happened in Burma with first the blocking, then the leakage of Cyclone Nargis aid in Burma in 2008).

Back to the dire economic situation in Burma, which the
positively-spinned "analysis" below does not deem worth-mentioning.
It is a stroke of public relations genius to discuss how generous the
Americans are ($75 million) and how quietly cooperative the regime is
on the humanitarian front. Yet the analyst chose NOT to mention what kind of economic conditions triggered this humanitarian tragedy.

(Editor’s note: Haiti and Burma both suffer from the legacy of dictators, who took out everything and put the cash in Swiss accounts – in the case of Burma, also in Dubai and Singapore).

In many parts of the Delta, people are being forced to skip even the
most basic rice-based meals. I am reminded of an African
mother who responded to the news that Bill Gates wanted to make
computers available (I am sure installed with Windows, not Linux
operating system) for every African child, by asking "can my kids eat
computers?" Intellectual goods are by nature of secondary importance
to those who scavenge for daily meals.

The number of people going hungry is growing simply because they can't afford
enough rice for their daily intake while the morally complacent urban,
educated elite pronounce the restoration of (colonial) Burma's status
as the world's top rice exporter.

Similarly, a lengthier and more elaborate foreign report contains toxic spins.

An FAO/UN report released in Nov 2009, framed the Nargis-hit Delta as
“entering the rehabilitative phase.”

A normally calm Burmese friend of mine who works in the Delta was
moved to write these few email lines to me this morning, upon reading
a UN agency report on the situation on the ground:

"The delta is NOT in a rehabilitation and early recovery phase. It is
mired in near-famine conditions. Well, nobody’s falling dead from
hunger yet, but we have a case of paddy farmers entreating us for
RICE.
How on earth could an international agency state there is a clear lack
of reliance and reduced dependency on food assistance. Can they really
feel hunger and see things from the rural people’s perspective?"

Optimism as a source of positive energy is one thing. But a positive
spin completely devoid of a dose of unpleasant realities is another.
Most analyses (800 word-essays or 20,000 word-reports) fall under the
latter category - positive SPIN with blatant disregard for the
realities as lived by the Burmese people on the ground.

Furthermore, the brief essay below talks about elections and the youth
of Burma today are known among the Burmese political classes
as simply UN-INTERESTED in either the regime or the opposition -
politics in general, election or no election, revolution or no
revolution, unless they are watching trashy DVDs and participating in acts of mourning the death of Michael Jackson are to be interpreted as “progressive behavior”
which will somehow contribute to the country's desperately needed
change.

The favourite motto among Burmese youth, especially those who
live in the ethnic minority states, which captures their collective
aspiration is “to cross over the mountain” - meaning going to China,
India, and Thailand in search of greener pastures.

As for the election, except for those who will run in it and/or benefit from endorsing it publicly, most people believe it will be rigged. According to first hand reports by Irrawaddy magazine etc, the election is NOT on the minds of any Burmese, youthful or nearly dead.

The author talked about minorities whose loyalty has been doubtful to
the great Union of Burma, and yet failed to mention that many
peripheral regions of Burma have never really been a part of
present day Burma. How could a central power consolidate its rule
over territories which, for all intents and purposes, it never really had under its administrative
control?

The analyst simply repeats the 60-year old local Burmese
historiography puffed up with tin-pot local imperialistic aspirations
and views.

(Editor’s note: Evidently Badgley takes the view, like Robert Taylor in The State in Burma apparently does, that the larger and more powerful the central state, the better. This is not necessarily true. Many of the most sustainable and long-lived societies are highly democratic, with weak central administration, for example see Jared Diamond’s analysis in Collapse of some very small Pacific islands and of New Guinea. Balinese agriculture is also very democratic. The farmers work out the irrigation rotations on their terraced farms on their own by discussion).

Finally, the analysis takes the view that the Obama Administration
should go easy on the regime for its human rights violations -
massive and well-documented - while phrasing the invasion of Chinese
migrants, traders, etc. into Burma as something that should cause
alarm - not that one would look to Washington for defending human
rights, but the sentiment behind this exhortation makes my stomach
turn.

So much for educating the English-speaking world about Burma. So much for liberally
educated American minds!

Welcome to the Burma world of delusions, distortions and outright
lies. If this Burma world of both half-baked experts and
self-aggrandizing tyrants is not pathetic and pathological, I don't
know what is.

Best,

Zarni

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:31 AM
Subject: * THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND MYANMAR (BURMA)
To:


Sunday, January 17, 2010

Dear Thirsters Worldwide:

A few weeks ago I asked Thirster from Cornell University JOHN BADGLEY,
political scientist, information systems specialist, and long-time
Burma scholar, to think about giving us a policy essay on Burma
(Myanmar), based on his most recent visit to that long-suffering
country. What, if any, are the glimmers of hope? How should American
policy be fashioned to magnify that hope?

John responded with the following important essay, just in today. He
was stimulated by a ThirsterGram, * IRAN’S ONGOING REVOLUTION II:
U.S. STRATEGY AND TACTICS, dated Sunday, January 3, 2010 (provided by
Thirster BILL BEEMAN), in which Columbia Prof. Gary Sick outlined ways
in which the US could conduct itself so as to maximize chances of
having a positive influence on that troubled nation. He sees the need
for a more or less similar approach in Myanmar.

John has lived in Burma for some years, visited it frequently, and
maintained a decades-long interest in the promotion of authentic
development there. Here, he comments on findings from his most recent
trip, from which he returned about two months ago.

Thanks, John!

Best,

Bob

BY JOHN BADGLEY:

CONTINGENCIES AFFECTING MYANMAR’S ELECTION

Gary Sick does a great job of analyzing how the Obama administration
stays officially above the fray in Iran, yet keeps open the doors to
Congress as well as to the layers of Ahmadinejad’s opposition. I would
like to accomplish the same thing in this short essay, following our
exchange with Thirsters at our watering hole last month.

As we dig more deeply in U.S./Iran relations, some parallels with
U.S./Myanmar become inescapable. Long an outlier with his own reasons
for hostility to the U.S., Senior General Than Shwe has nonetheless
accepted avenues of contact with President Obama. Unlike Iran, the
Burmese regime has responded positively in several ways to
Washington's overtures. While keeping the door closed on past
priorities for the U.S.—release of political prisoners and demands of
the NLD opposition-- they have allowed numerous US supported
humanitarian INGOs to operate throughout the country. Throughout 2009
the governments collaborated unofficially but closely through the U.S.
military attaché’s office and AID to distribute $75 million worth of
assistance following Cyclone Nargis.

Under U.N. auspices and through private international aid groups,
American private and public humanitarian assistance has seeped into
every division of the country. Hundreds of American teachers have
flooded private schools in Yangon and Mandalay, breaching visa
barriers with some cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Under the radar is a favored expression on both sides as youth culture
changes dramatically through these outside influences, not only in
major cities but in distant towns and regional capitals as well. For
nearly a half-century Burma’s leaders aspired to maintain isolation,
but global influences are not to be denied. Upcoming elections this
year are a feature of that response, a fifth step in the regime’s
vaunted seven-step road map to “disciplined democracy”.

As neighbors Thailand and Bangladesh demonstrate, holding elections is
only a partial guarantee of liberty and freedom. Backsliding to
despotism comes easily throughout the region; thus the critical need
to keep avenues of influence open. Western societies are imbued with
high tech communications, reinforced by tens of thousands of tourists
visiting Myanmar from the West, Japan, Australia and Singapore who
leave a vital lingering influence via other avenues than
government-to-government relations. Barack Obama, having won his
election by taking command of networking in the digital revolution, is
playing the same card in both Iran and Myanmar. Youthful citizens in
both countries were equally fascinated by that election process. The
means and method were not lost on them.

In my recent trip I briefly toured several Irrawaddy Delta towns &
villages to visit libraries destroyed by the Cyclone Nargis and meet
local library boards. They are sustained by business families and the
monks they patronize. Theirs is a vital private sector, a feature of
community extant for many years yet overlooked by foreign analysts
focused on central government. International TV and radio news is part
of their lives, local magazines and news is no less important. Myanmar
now has several hundred serial publications dealing with news and
entertainment, compared to fewer than a dozen twenty years ago.
Children watch many of the same DVDs one finds pirated in Bangkok,
China and the rest of Asia. Michael Jackson’s death was no less
mourned by youth in the delta than it was in Yangon, Chiang Mai, Dacca
or Shanghai.

My point is that the hard sell, the poke in the eye, the tit-for-tat
nature of Burmese-American relations is dysfunctional in terms of
meeting hopes of society. I believe most U.S. officials experienced in
dealing with Myanmar understand this; increasingly staff members on
the Hill are coming around to accept that reality as well. This
session of Congress is experiencing fewer fruitless attacks on the
military junta than in past two decades; more House and Senate leaders
are permitting the Administration to grope through the current impasse
in search of better relations. Since Obama’s election I participated
in several meetings and had conversations in Washington D.C. with
officials confirming an altering relationship. From Secretaries
Clinton and Gates the marching orders are a bit furtive, but within
the U.S. Embassy is a mood unlike any I’ve experienced in decades.

Assistant Secretary of State for Far East, Kurt Campbell, his
assistant, Scot Maricel, and the Burma Desk officer, Laura Schiebe,
visited Nay Pyi Daw while I was in Yangon. They also met separately
with a seasoned group of Burmese economic leaders plus a group of
Americans directing humanitarian relief programs. In like manner,
several western scholars have been consulted this past year by senior
officials. Following Senator Jim Webb’s breakthrough meeting with the
Senior General and Aung San Suu Kyi in August, the two sides are
moving haltingly to some civility.

Reconciling sixty years of strife will not happen quickly.
Negotiations were pursued by Prime Minister U Nu in the ‘50s, by
General Ne Win in the ‘60s, and by Premier Khin Nyunt two decades ago.
He established armistices with 17 armed ethnic armies, most of which
remain in place. As part of the settlement these insurgents kept their
arms to maintain police functions in their areas. Khin Nyunt was
deposed and put under house arrest in 2004; since then groups in the
frontier regions have been uneasy about their future. The central
government is now pressing them to imbed army officers with their own
commanders, an order rejected violently by Kokang leaders last month
when thousands fled to Yunnan. Beijing warned against further
aggravations which could destabilize their own minorities in Yunnan
and elsewhere as they struggle to deal with Uighur and Tibetan issues.

The Obama Administration is prudent to quietly drop past policies
supporting militant opposition to Nay Pyi Daw while it consolidates
control over frontier regions of doubtful loyalty since Independence.
Human rights violations will happen and will likely continue; but the
continuing invasion of Chinese migrants, investors, and commerce is
surely not in the interest of Burmese society or the United States.
Reporting the violations and presenting them as one important issue
among others is appropriate, but hingeing U.S. policy solely on that
cause is self-defeating, in Myanmar as in other countries.

=================================================

N.B.:

Reminder to Thirsters: We foregather at our Toping Table EVERY
Thursday of the year except holidays -- rain or shine, earthquake,
fire or flood -- anytime between 7 and 11 PM. Pop in when you wish,
leave when you wish. We meet at McMenamin's Tavern, 1716 N.W. 23rd
Ave at Savier St., opposite Besaw's Restaurant. There is never an
agenda, so no special "preparation" is needed or possible. Whenever
logistics permit and mood conduces -- which we hope will be often --
please feel free to join us at our Table. -- Bob


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http://maungzarni.blogspot.com/

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