What to do with Burma?

BANGKOK, Jun 5 - Mizzima News, a news agency run by Burmese exiles from India, reported on May 4 that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) denied having provided direct financial backing to developmental efforts in Burma (also officially known as Myanmar) under the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) cooperation framework.

Responding to inquiries by the human rights group EarthRights International (ERI) about its role in large-scale development projects allegedly marred with abuses and having negative social and environmental impacts, the Manila-based ADB stressed that no direct loans have been provided to this country since 1986. The article quoted the ADB's e-mail reply to ERI thus: "There is no connection of the ADB, either bilaterally or through GMS, with any government project the Government of Myanmar may be implementing, including the Tasang dam and the East-West Corridor highway in Myanmar". The ADB's financial support to Burma as a member of the GMS consists of "rather nominal" amounts in technical assistance funds for facilitation of regional meetings and other relevant events, it added.

A few days later, on May 10, ‘People’s Daily Online’ of China presented additional insights on the construction and financing of the Burmese section of the East-West Corridor. According to the article, work has started on the Thingan Nyainaung - Kawkareik section, in between the just-completed segment from Myawaddy and the to-be constructed final section to the Mawlamyne deep-sea port on the Bay of Bengal, thanks to aid from Thailand. In particular, this construction is made possible by collaboration between the Ministry of Construction in Myanmar and the Department of Highways of Thailand under the Neighbouring Countries Economic Development Fund, managed by the Thai Ministry of Finance. When finished, this long-awaited road would link the Indian and the Pacific oceans, greatly facilitating intraregional transportation and trade. It would also bring a step closer to realisation the vision of the Asian Highways, a pan-Asian network of roads stretching from Europe to the Far East.

The hesitance by the ADB and the contrasting willingness by neighbouring governments, to provide financial support to Burma under the same GMS scheme are emblematic of the unresolved position of this regional bloc toward its most 'controversial' member state.

The military regime of Burma (with the euphemistic name of State Peace and Development Council or SPDC) is widely condemned for its repressive rules and economic mismanagement, which have led to decades of political stagnation and to the country’s financial collapse. International pressure is mounting on the SPDC to set a democratic process in motion through political reform and national reconciliation.

The United States applies strict sanctions, including visa restrictions, an arms embargo, bans on new investment and imports, an asset freeze, and prohibitions on the provision of financial services to Burma and financial aid to the SPDC. The European Union has visa restrictions and bans on selected Burmese state-run enterprises, and has recommended that its member states vote against international financial aid to Burma (US Department of State at http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rpt/66449.htm). In this context, development assistance by United Nations agencies and other international bodies is justified only for “humanitarian reasons", such as in the case of control of infectious diseases and child mortality, or when aid contributes to global security concerns, such as prevention and control of drugs and human trafficking. Support is also provided to refugees in Thailand and other countries and to groups working on democratisation, mostly from outside Burma.

STILL GOOD NEIGHBOURS AMIDST GROWING CONCERNS

Gradually, even Burma’s neighbours in South-east Asia are becoming more concerned about its internal situation. In 2004, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), comprising ASEAN legislators from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Cambodia, was established to foster political change in Burma. In 2005, ASEAN issued a declaration asking for reforms and for the release of political prisoners, including the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. More concrete measures followed in 2006, when Burma was compelled to renounce its turn to chair ASEAN, and there are now calls to suspend Burma's membership from ASEAN (APMIC at www.aseanmp.org/index.php). Still, no one country in the region has so far implemented economic sanctions against Burma. Both corporate investment and development aid continue unabated, and have even been increasing on the part of some countries.

As a sub-regional bloc, the GMS has shown even less inclination than ASEAN to use political and economic sanctions to ''reform" Burma. GMS states are committed to working together for socio-economic development through "solidarity" and "mutual respect", and adhere to the principle of non-intervention in one another’s national matters. There is agreement among them that the GMS is an "economic" and not a "political" arrangement. Therefore, it is argued that it is not the GMS’ role to criticise Burma, and that ASEAN is the appropriate locus for this thorny issue.

As far as GMS countries are concerned, Burma, as a founding member of the cooperation programme, ought to have the same rights and obligations as other member states. It is also understood that to succeed, regional initiatives require the full participation of all member states. In the same way that the construction of the Burmese road section is essential to the completion of the East-West corridor for the benefit of all GMS countries, other GMS flagship programmes in tourism, energy, and environment are highly dependent for their realisation on Burma's inclusion.

To exclude Burma would imply giving up the entire vision of the riparian Mekong countries as constituting a unique sub-region, thus undermining the very fundamentals of the GMS programme. The economic and geo-political interests of individual GMS countries, and their corporate sectors, further favour market-based rather than human rights considerations. Burma is rich in much-needed energy resources and has a role to play in Asia-wide military and trade strategies, thanks to its access to the Indian Ocean and its proximity to India. Currently, Burma’s main investors are from Asia. Of the four largest, two -- China and Thailand -- are GMS countries (the other two being Singapore and Japan).

This cooperative stance is not well-received by the growing movement of civil society groups in the region and their counterparts abroad that wish Burma's neighbours to finally confront the SPDC. In their view, the implementation of GMS programmes in Burma’s repressive environment, even if well-intentioned, will inevitably lead to rights violations, including forced labour and relocations, and widespread violence against women, ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups. Participation of local people, as key stakeholders in the process of regional integration, as proclaimed in GMS documents, is also difficult to conceive of considering the lack of democratic venues -- an observation that could apply also to other countries of the region, but is particularly poignant in the case of Burma. What is more, the promised economic benefits of regional development do not reach the intended beneficiaries, i.e. the people of Burma, but instead help maintain and enrich the military regime that oppresses them.

Even those critical voices in the opposition camp who do not fully agree with the "politicisation" of development aid, and prefer constructive engagement due to worries that economic boycotts only penalise the population, blame GMS countries for blindly accepting Burma in their midst and for avoiding the raising of any governance issue.

PRAGMATISM, THE CRITICAL FACTOR

Under growing pressure, the ADB and other financial backers of the GMS cooperation programme have started to take into account these arguments, being sensitive to "negative" publicity and having to respond to activist constituencies in the West. Besides the withholding of direct loans to Burma, the sponsoring of sub-regional meetings in the country has been reduced and, for funded GMS-projects, the headquarters are preferably located in other GMS countries. However, the member states have not followed suit, as apparent from the Ayeyawady-Chao Praya-Mekong Economic Strategy or ACMECS, a complementary sub-regional economic agreement involving all GMS countries except China. Spearheaded by Thai development aid and with no prominent role for ADB, ACMECS was launched in 2003 in Pagan and upheld recently in Mandalay -- both these cities are in Burma, as if to stress this country’s vital place in the coalition.

To expect GMS governments with authoritarian inclinations to be moved by rights arguments may seem somewhat unrealistic. The timid reaction of Thailand and the lack of comments from other GMS countries about the SPDC's decision to extend the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi for another year does not bode well for those aspiring to see a clear pro-democratisation stand from the bloc. Nonetheless, we cannot underestimate the fact that GMS countries are ever more part of a global community that "puts pressure on them to pressure Burma", and that civil society groups in the sub-region are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their networking and advocacy efforts.

And, if not political convictions, then maybe pragmatism will be the critical factor in this situation. The same process of regional integration that compels GMS countries to include Burma in developmental plans is confronting them with the transnational impacts of such inclusion.

Poor national governance of Burma's macroeconomics, resulting in the exacerbation of poverty and other social ills, slows down regional growth and causes wider sub-regional disparities. The mismanagement of GMS development projects implies a waste of joint resources, and a delay in the realisation of set common objectives. Conflict and ethnic tensions, compounded by poverty, are leading to unsafe migration and trafficking to neighbouring countries. The cover-up and insufficient control of epidemics poses a threat to the health of the people in the GMS as a whole. The boycott of tourism to Burma impacts on regional plans to promote the sub-region as a unique travel destination. At times, politically motivated lack of cooperation has set back bilateral and multilateral agreements on key issues, including recent Thai-initiated efforts to regulate migration.

It is not unthinkable that if the situation deteriorates further, and structural adjustments fail to be undertaken, even GMS corporations will lose some of their enthusiasm for investing in development projects and for-profit ventures in Burma, thus disrupting the process of market integration and expansion that is supposed to drive development in the sub-region.

Paradoxically, the GMS agenda may be jeopardised by the same governance issue that member countries have been so careful to avoid in order to formulate and implement their joint plans. The unquestioned inclusion of Burma in the bloc may eventually be challenged by the spill-over impacts of well meant, but ill-governed, sub-regional cooperation efforts.

*Rosalia Sciortino, better known as Lia, is a cultural anthropologist and development sociologist by training, who currently serves as Associate Professor at the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Thailand. Before that, she was the regional director of the Rockefeller Foundation in Thailand, overseeing grant-making activities in South-east Asia with a special focus on regional integration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. She has also worked with the Ford Foundation in Indonesia and the Philippines, and has published widely on development issues. A native of Italy, she has lived in Asia for nearly two decades.