Indian Defence Review

Conclusion

The prospects for a functioning and deepened democracy through attrition rather than through revolution, by any internationally acceptable standard in Myanmar over the near term, are remote. Even should that happen, changes in Burmese policy toward the Indian Northeast, access to gas reserves, or improved transportation links are unlikely to alter significantly should that eventuality come about.

The international globalized economic system will play little role in influencing Myanmars internal politics. Although the states natural resources are attractive to multinational corporations”¦

Although there have been cries among expatriate Burmese for blacklisting of those firms that have collaborated with the military junta, economic and foreign policy issues are likely to prevail. Both India and China will continue to view Myanmar as an important, although not pivotal, factor in each’s strategic equation. Under these circumstances, democracy by any definition is likely to play a minor role.

India, on the one hand, might wish to see a democratic Burma/Myanmar as Aung San Suu Kyi might be closer emotionally to India, having grown up there, written on India, and been strongly influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy; thus, she might be less influenced by China. On the other hand, such a desire could easily backfire. It is difficult to envision a democratic Burma/Myanmar by any international standard without some form of greater ethnic autonomy or federalism.

Under the 2008 constitution, the Chin and Naga have areas with a degree of local governance. Under a democratic system, local governance (such as it is) would be most unlikely to recede from that high water mark. Probably greater autonomy would occur, and this would put local pressures on these groups to deal with their ethnic cousins across the border in India, and could prompt reactions from these India-based groups for greater autonomy from centralized Indian control.

In summary, the international globalized economic system will play little role in influencing Myanmar’s internal politics. Although the state’s natural resources are attractive to multinational corporations, Myanmar’s decentralized economy would allow the state to continue even if these resources were to erode. Myanmar’s orientation is not a product of its participation in the international economy, but rather is a product of its history – its colonial past and the perceived dangers and insults of that period, the past predatory roles of its neighbors, ethnic strife, and the glorification of the Burmese military tradition to which the present tatmadaw lays claim. The regime is able to force compliance while titularly espousing a particularistic brand of “democracy” (akin to Suharto’s Indonesia) in which multiple political parties affect only the periphery of power and policy, but under strong, iron bands formed by the Burmese military.

Notes

1. Although the United Nations and most of the world has accepted the Burmese military’s change of name from Burma to Myanmar, an old written form, in July 1989 , the opposition in that country has not done so because they consider that government illegitimate. The United States has followed the opposition, thus making the use of either a political statement. In this essay, Burma is used for the period before 1989. Myanmar thereafter, and both to indicate continuity. No political connotations should be attached to the use of either term.
2. As the designated Prime Minister, General Khin Nyunt, said to the author, while shaking in his hand a picture of President Bush signing the sanctions bill of 2003, “We will stand up to you Americans.”
3. Although there were early reports of Chinese “bases” in Myanmar, these have been discredited. The new Burmese constitution prohibits foreign troops quartered on Burmese territory. Two-thirds of the officers sent overseas for training in the 1990-99 period went to China. David I. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 (forthcoming).
4. In the early 1990s, India approached the U.S. Embassy in Delhi to discuss Burma/Myanmar policies, but was rebuffed.
5. Personal communication, Andrew Selth, 5-2009.
6. National League for Democracy calls for reconsideration of the constitution before the elections of 2010, a factor in whether it might participate in those elections, will be ignored by the junta. Whether the NLD would be allowed to participate, and if allowed whether it would, is still unclear in May 2009. Personal interview, NLD Executive Committee members, Yangon, March 2009. The most careful review of the constitution of 2008 is the International Crisis Group Report, ‘Myanmar: Towards the Election.” Forthcoming 2009.
7. See David I. Steinberg, Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar (Norwalk: EastBridge, 2006, pp. 229-231. Questioning the proposed constitution or preparing alternative versions was declared illegal in Myanmar.
8. An inquiry in May 2009 to the Ministry of Information in Naypyidaw as to whether associate citizens could run for office or even vote in the 2010 elections was unanswered, as even higher level officials were unclear in the lack of the election law.