I intended to post something in this thread last week and just didn't find the time for it. (Right now I've got seven half-finished exams on my computer, and instead of writing those I'm sitting here writing about Burma ... there just ain't enough hours in the day.)
Let me just run down the list of things that I find inscrutable right now, as I worked for several years on Burma issues when the non-prof I was working for gave some funding to a nature preserve in the Karen province through which the oil pipeline is being built.
1. Although there were student pro-democracy protests in 1988 that led to a massacre - being recalled to us loudly by the press right now - that is far from being the meat of what happened in 1988. An actual elected government was overthrown after two generations of democracy, and the country was taken over by a military dictatorship. Aung Sang Suu Kyi was the elected President, and daughter of the previous Prime Minister. Dr. Sein Win was the elected Prime Minister and nephew of the previous Prime Minister. Aung Sang Suu Kyi was arrested and has been under house arrest ever since. Dr. Sein Win fled with the surviving members of the cabinet and currently resides in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government provides official haven to the elected government in exile, which operates as a government in exile from U.S. soil. We do not reconize the State Law and Order Restoration Council (the dictatorship); we withdrew our ambassador but did not close our embassy because it is important to us for drug monitoring purposes. And we still refer to the country officially as Burma.
I have seen no mention in the press, or in interviews, of the existence of democracy in Burma prior to the violent overthrow of the elected government by the dictatorship; nor any mention of the fact that there is a government in exile operating from U.S. soil.
2. Initially the SLORC promised to cooperate with the US in ending the heroine traffic out of Burma, which is the key producer in the "Golden Triangle." Although we knew that the SLORC generals were actually at the source of drug traffic out of Burma - that is the country's only real income - we cooperated at arm's length by providing them with Agent Orange to spray on the opium crops. Independent investigators, one of whom is a personal friend of mine, obtained proof and then testified before Congress that the chemicals were not being sprayed on the opium crops but were being sprayed on Shan villages in the north of Burma to quell rebellion against the SLORC. Congress subsequently terminated its gift of Agent Orange to the dictatorship. This happened between 1988 and 1995.
I have heard a lot about Burma's economy in the press and in interviews, but not one mention of the fact that heroine and teakwood are still the country's only serious source of income, and since much of the Burmese teak that finds its way out of the country is actually poached by Thai lumber companies and vetted through US and European mills, I doubt that even the teak makes much dent in the GDP. The buyers for both the teak and the heroine are not in China; they are in the U.S. and Europe.
3. There are approximately 400 foreign direct investors in Burma. Five of them are Chinese. Almost all the rest are European. The United States passed a selective purchasing law against Burma in 1995 (the McConnel Act) which means that companies that invest directly in Burma may not receive contracts from the U.S. government, and all but two US companies exited at that time (I'm pretty sure that only Texaco and Unical are left.) A number of U.S. States and cities have passed similar laws. But the State of Massachusetts, and possibly other governances, has been sued by the World Trade Organization, in a complaint brought by the E.U., that its selective purchasing law on Burma is a violation of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade. (It's been seven years since I attended the meetings in Boston regarding that suit and I don't know its disposition, but I expect to be brought up to date on that tomorrow night.)
There has been a lot of press coverage concerning foreign direct investment in Burma, all of it exonerating Europe and blaming the Chinese. This is gross misrepresentation of the situation. The direct investment in Burma is overwhelmingly European. European governments do not give aid to Burma and have not done since 1988, but the US is the only country that has taken steps to prohibit its domestic companies from investing there. The only significant US investment in Burma comes from the two US companies that are still involved in the oiil pipeline: Texaco and Unical, and I believe that Texaco unloaded most of its share a few years ago. The majority owner of the pipeline is the French company Total. SLORC does also receive loans from the World Bank at subsidized interest rates as a "least developed country" and that has to happen with the approval of the United States.
4. My daughter informs me of another lawsuit concerning Burma which settled out of court with a gag order as part of the settlement. She's the co-editor of the Human Rights Law Journal at Harvard and they just had a big meeting about Burma ... I expect to get more juicy info in the immediate future.
Anyway, suit was brought against Unical, a US domiciled company whom you may remember because they funded the people who flew planes into the World Trade Center after another lawsuit failed to stop them from paying the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyway, the suit that settled was a Class action under the Alien Torts Act for the kidnap and mutilation of Shan tribespeople to work on the pipeline. They would kidnap them and then cut off one foot ... like the old plantation owners in the US ... I knew about the kidnappings and mutilations because I've seen the documentation on that, but I did not know until my daughter told me about it that Unical had actually been sued over this and did agree to settle.The Bush Administration submitted a Friend of the Court Brief on behalf of Unical and the SLORC. So when Laura Bush writes an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal as she did on Tuesday of this past week, and the last sentence is "the time to free Burma is now," I just gotta say, "Huh?"
5. The U.S. Department of Defense, one department within it at any rate, has wanted to invade Burma and get rid of the SLORC for as long as people have been putting butter on toast. The DOD has a drug enforcement department that basically duplicates the work of the DEA but with their own agenda. I have to be a little bit careful here not to drop clues about the identity of individuals, but I can tell you from the top of the food chain that our DOD knows the location of every blinking poppy seed in Burma, which general owns it, which general transports it, and which general gets paid for it, and where it goes. Nothing would make them happier than to turn those guys into dog chow.
They are prevented by the executive branch from interdicting heroine traffic into the U.S. I was not told which agency within the executive branch is responsible for this, and I won't speculate in public, but in private I can make a pretty good guess, and those of you who have been around the world a few times can make a pretty good guess too.
So ... here's my assessment, with a confession up front that I really don't know what's going on with our administration's sudden 'discovery' of the existence of Burma. That George Bush would give a damn how many Buddhist monks die stretches my credulity beyond its limit. BUT ...
• I notice that China is getting bad press out of this, even though the role they are playing is something we should laugh at. Not that Chinese suppression of human rights is laughable, but blaming them for Burma is really a joke. It's like blaming the Chinese for apartheid. The Chinese companies invested there are all working on infrastructure, and they are likely being paid at least in part by World Bank turnkey contracts.
• I notice that the presidents of North and South Korea just reached an economic agreement, and that's got to burn a hole in George Bush's knickers, since the only country North Korea can actually threaten with nuclear delivery is South Korea. (There's another side to that story too, though, for another time.)
• I notice that our president was in desperate need of a distraction from Iraq, and Burma has long been a popular cause among the student population in the US, the young voters if you will.
I wouldn't hope for a U.S. invasion of Burma in the immediate future. As for embargo, we've already gone about as far as we can in the U.S., and we did so twelve years ago. It's Europe that has to ante up at this point with selective purchasing, and since everyone seems bent on denying that Europe provides most of the investment in Burma, I don't think that a serious embargo is on the table either.
Jn
