burma
23 Feb 2010
When Is It OK To Engage With Burma?
The Rudd Government is learning that juggling sanctions, humanitarian engagement and diplomacy with Burma can be very complicated, writes Nick Perry
After years of lobbying the Australian Government for extra humanitarian funding, Burmese democracy activists were finally rewarded earlier this month with an announcement by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that Australia would nearly double its aid to Burma, one of the poorest and most reclusive nations in South East Asia.
The Rudd Government has in the past openly criticised the junta and ramped up sanctions in protest over its actions. After the 2007 Saffron Revolution, when the regime led violent crackdowns against monks and the pro-democracy movement, the Australian government put in place financial sanctions on more than 418 members or supporters of the regime’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and widened the net again in late 2008.
When Smith announced the increase in aid, he blasted Burma’s military dictatorship. "Australia," he said, "has long been appalled both by the Burmese military’s suppression of the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people and by its disrespect for their human rights." As he did so, a Burmese warship was participating in a multilateral training exercise far off in the Indian Ocean and one of the 13 nations involved in this military exercise was Australia.
A range of groups, including the Greens and the Liberal Party, were quick to condemn the Government for engaging militarily with the Burmese junta, with some even suggesting that Australia may have breached the terms of its arms embargo. Following the military regime’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy supporters in 1988, Australia had pledged to not provide Burma with any direct military aid or training.
Deputy Opposition Leader and foreign affairs spokesperson Julie Bishop hit the ground running, asking the Government if they would ever consider participating in similar exercises with North Korea or Iran. These accusations of breached embargoes rang hollow, however, when the Navy revealed it had had no direct contact with the Burmese navy and that it had already participated in Exercise Milan, a regional navy training operation hosted annually by India, twice before.
This case has reignited debate about how the Government should conduct its foreign policy in relation to Burma. In recent years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has called on Australia to play a proactive rather than an injunctive role in dealings with Burma. While still enforcing targeted military, financial and travel sanctions, the Rudd Government has joined the United States and the UN in shifting toward a policy of "engagement" with Burma, according to ADFA’s Professor Carlyle Thayer.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam argues, however, that participating in Exercise Milan should not be likened to involvement in a multilateral forum like ASEAN, to which both Australia and Burma belong. Whereas these forums offer the potential for diplomatic leverage and discussion, Burma’s involvement was not as an observer but as an equal participant.
"This was a naval exercise," Ludlam told newmatilda.com, emphasising the military nature of the engagement. "I was surprised that we hadn’t even proposed that Burma be refused permission to participate."
Professor Monique Skidmore from the Australian National University agrees that any military involvement with the Burmese regime is "not a good look", but argues that the Government is caught in a balancing act because of its regional ties.
"I think the Australian Government was trying to toss up between two strategic interests. On the one hand, the Government wants to have a presence in the Indian Ocean and be seen as a strong member of its regional partnership," Skidmore told newmatilda.com. "While on the other, whenever it goes to these regional meetings it is bedevilled by the fact that Burma is there."
Recently, the military regime in Burma has given indications — albeit, very small ones — that it may be open to some political change.
For the first time in two decades, the regime has announced it will hold national and local elections, although analysts are doubtful whether the polls, for which no date has yet been announced, will be either free or fair.
And earlier this month, a key member of opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi’s former cabinet, U Tin Oo, was released from detention after seven years, and a UN human rights envoy was granted access to the country and allowed to speak with lawyers defending political prisoners.
The regime is notoriously unpredictable and it is difficult to tell whether these steps will be followed by further democratic gestures. Stephen Smith was adamant that the Government’s boost in aid was "not a reward for Burma’s military but a recognition of the immense task faced by current and future generations of Burmese."
Zetty Blake, from Burma Campaign Australia welcomed Smith’s announcement but she called on the Government to target its funding selectively and to continue to use credible non-government organisations with no military links to distribute aid.
"The Government also has to look at the transparency aspects of working in Burma," Blake said to newmatilda.com "and acknowledge the severe restrictions placed on aid workers inside Burma by the military dictatorship."
But ensuring Australia’s additional aid, set to increase from $30 million this financial year to $50 million next year, actually reaches those in need and doesn’t line the generals’ pockets is a genuine concern. Following the dictatorship’s atrocious handling of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis disaster when international aid representatives were deported, supplies embargoed and funds siphoned, many are sceptical about the prospects for humanitarian projects in Burma.
After Cyclone Nargis, Yangon and the Irrawaddy were the areas most in need of aid and consequently were the focus of relief efforts. The need for urgent cyclone aid relief has now passed but 90 per cent of aid to Burma still flows through these regions, in spite of the fact that the eastern areas of the country — particularly the Karen tribal areas — are in desperate need of assistance because of civil war.
Scott Ludlam argues that aid distribution patterns need to change and that Australia should engage in cross-border aid to Burma, as many other nations already do. He visited Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border, in January and witnessed the success of initiatives already in place there. Ludlam questioned AusAID officials about the geographical priorities for aid in Burma in Senate Estimates earlier this month.
"I am convinced that the groups on the border [Thai-Burma border] know exactly what they are doing and that many of our aid partners do fund cross-border aid. The first priority is to get more money to the border. What I would ideally like to see done is for the NGOs there to have a greater degree of flexibility into where they think the aid should be best spent," he told newmatilda.com.
Assessing the Government’s recent aid increase becomes more complicated again once bilateral trade between Australian companies and Burma — on which there are no sanctions — is taken into account. While the Government enforces sanctions on individuals trading with Burma, Australian companies are let off the hook.
"I believe it is hypocritical to not want to engage with the military regime if you are going to allow it to be done by Australian companies, rather than through the Australian government," said Professor Skidmore. According to Burma Campaign Australia, the dictatorship is set to earn US$2.5 billion from a joint-venture project with Australian resource company Twinza Oil. With all this money going directly to the regime, Senator Ludlam says the loophole is "unconscionable".
"No matter what we might say about our aid budget, what about commercial trade?" Ludlam said. "That’s a very easy pipeline we could cut to put the pressure even further on the regime."
Others, however, question the merit of increasing aid to Burma at all.
Sean Turnell, a specialist in Burmese economics and editor of Burma Economic Watch, points out that the country is a key regional gas exporter, with coffer reserves in excess of US$5 billion. Not unlike Sudan — which receives 10 times as much aid as Burma — the problem is not the absence of funds but the government, he said.
"It really is the nature of that regime that holds the country back," Turnell said. "It’s got plenty of cash and it doesn’t need aid to develop. What it needs is a government with a development mindset."
"Unless the government is going to make use of [aid] in socially productive ways … then how much aid it receives is actually irrelevant."
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Hi Nick, quite a well-balanced article you’ve written (something that’s particularly hard when you’re writing about Myanmar, given how passionate a lot of people are about this issue).
Unfortunately, it’s a much more nuanced piece that you’ll find anywhere in the mainstream media in Australia, with the exception of course of Radio Australia/ABC.
Was it just me, or was the increase in aid funding completely ignored by the major newspapers in favour of the beat up over Exercise Milan and even Myanmar’s application to join that nuclear safety group? And the fact that this exercise focused primarily on cooperation on issues like humanitarian assistance, terrorism and piracy – pretty relevant to Australia, I would have thought – was completely overlooked. It was definitely in Australia’s interest to participate.
Just a few things though. I think the aid funding will rise to 50 million over the next three years, not next year, but I could be wrong. And also I’m curious where you get the 90pc figure for aid distribution. I would have thought there would be programs in Northern Rakhine and Mon State, for example. I’m not really against cross-border aid and it has its purpose, but I think the vast majority of aid to Myanmar should be directed via Yangon.
On the investment issue, Twinza hasn’t even started drilling yet, so it mystifies me how this 2.5 billion figure gets thrown about. It’s possible but unlikely; most probably, Bill Clough will lose his 30-40 million investment - that’s the nature of oil exploration. But we’ll see.
There is also the real possibility that the post-2010 government will abolish the dual exchange rate system, closing the loophole that allows the military to siphon off 99 percent of gas earnings. Which would mean Twinza will actually be contributing to the national budget, but I’m sure there will be other avenues for the military to swindle the country.
The answer to the question “When is it ok to engage with Burma?” is not right now.
Just because you engage with Burma, does not mean that you cannot have a strong sanction regime, like the US. They maybe engaging, however, they have set clear benchmarks for what must happen before they will consider lifting sanctions.
Australia can impose stronger sanctions and still engage. And this is timely given what Kokyaw says about Twinza Oil. Any chance of giving billions to the regime is too high a risk.
While the increase in humanitarian aid to Burma is welcome, it needs to be recognised that aid to civilians displaced by the ongoing armed conflict in eastern Burma has significantly decreased during the Rudd administration’s term. AusAID provided an average of $1.3 million per year between 2005 and 2007 for the food and shelter needs of refugees on the Thailand Burma border, which was around 4% of the total aid budget. This decreased to an average of $850,000 per annum in 2008 and 2009, or 3% of the international community’s response in relative terms.
At the same time, the junta’s restrictions on humanitarian access into conflict-affected areas of eastern Burma mean that little, if any, of AusAID funding channeled through Rangoon can respond to some of the most vulnerable communities in the country. This does not negate the value of poverty alleviation efforts through civil society actors in other parts of the country. It does however raise questions about the commitment of AusAID to respond to the protracted emergency in eastern Burma. Indeed, Steven Smith’s Ministerial Statement on Burma earlier this month failed to even mention the reality of ongoing armed conflict in eastern Burma.
While AusAID’s contribution to eastern Myanmar might have fallen, the number of refugees settled in Australia from camps along the Thai-Myanmar border has increased sharply since Rudd came to office. I don’t know the exact figures, but I believe refugees from this region were the single largest group accepted last year, and are second-highest this year.
Still, more funding could definitely be directed through cross-border aid.