Burmese Join US Presidency Debate

By WAI MOE

The United States presidential election is just one week away, and Burmese both at home and in the US are watching closely to decide for themselves who is more likely to have a positive impact on Burma’s future.

Both presidential candidates are seen as having similar positions on Burma, in keeping with the tradition of bipartisan support for democratic reform in the Southeast Asian country. But each candidate has some specific appeal for different members of the Burmese public.

Some believe, for instance, that Republican hopeful John McCain will take a greater interest in Burma because he has visited the country. Supporters of the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, on the other hand, say that he is a strong advocate of human rights who will do more to press for improvement of Burma’s horrific record on this issue.

Not surprisingly, the debate has been most vocal among Burmese living in the US.

While some US-based Burmese lobby groups note that American trade unions support both Obama and Burma’s pro-democracy movement, providing a natural link between them, some activists still favor McCain because he has been more outspoken in his criticism of Burma’s military rulers.

“He [McCain] is very interested in Burma,” said Moe Thee Zun, a former Burmese student leader now living in the US. “He has been to the country and he is one of the leading senators who have backed sanctions against the Burmese junta.”

McCain, who visited Burma in the 1990s, was especially impressed with the country’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he described at the time as “the greatest person I have ever met in my life.”

Even Cindy McCain, the Republican candidate’s wife, has expressed strong views on Burma’s rulers.

“It’s just a terrible group of people that rule [Burma], and the frightening part is that their own people are dying of disease and starvation and everything else and it doesn’t matter,” she said during a trip to Vietnam in June, describing the regime’s response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Cyclone Nargis in early May.

For some Burmese living in the US, however, there are other concerns besides Burma which have persuaded them to throw their support behind Obama.

“When I migrated to the US during the Clinton administration, I got a job easily. But then George W Bush won the election and 9/11 happened, and now I have to struggle harder than before,” said Ko Shwe, a Burmese with US citizenship living in New York.

“After two terms of a Republican presidency, the economy has gotten worse. Now it affects everybody in the US,” he added.

Ko Shwe also expressed doubt about how much McCain could do to end tyranny in Burma, even if he did win the election.

Maung Yit, a Burmese who lives in California, cited Obama’s age as a key reason he has decided to support the Democrat.

“He is the same age as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was twenty year ago,” he said, suggesting that Obama’s relative youth would put him in a position to transform his country’s political scene in the same way that Suu Kyi consolidated Burma’s pro-democracy movement two decades ago.

While Burmese immigrants in the US try to decide who will do a better job of leading their adoptive country, interest is also strong in Burma, where privately owned newspapers and journals have given extensive coverage to the US election.

Local publications have tended to emphasize news that shows a more favorable outlook for Obama. The Burmese version of The Myanmar Times, for instance, recently highlighted poll results that gave Obama a nine-point lead over his Republican rival, while a report in the popular Weekly Eleven suggested that the Democrat’s strong showing in the last presidential debate practically guaranteed his victory on November 4.

Another leading weekly, The Voice, looked elsewhere for evidence that Obama was sure to win: In a report published this week, the Rangoon-based weekly said that the Russian government expected Obama to become the next president of the US.

Some local supporters of McCain have even echoed the complaints of US conservatives, who have long accused the media of a “liberal bias.”

“All the Burmese journals are covering the US presidential election and most of them favor Obama for the presidency,” said a businessman in Rangoon who said he would prefer a McCain presidency.

Ironically, some people say they support McCain because he belongs to the same party as the incumbent, President George W Bush—a deeply unpopular leader who McCain has taken pains to distance himself from.

Bush’s tough stance on sanctions against Burma’s ruling junta has earned him a great deal of respect among ordinary Burmese. Between 2003 and 2008, Bush issued three executive orders targeting the ruling generals and their cronies.

But like many people around the world, some Burmese have been captivated by the image of Obama as a new and exciting figure on the world stage.

“I prefer Obama because he is young and he will be the first black president of the world’s superpower,” said Maung Aung Min, who works with a UN agency.

Ma Swe, a travel agent in Rangoon, said she supported Obama because he is “young and dynamic.”

Meanwhile, analysts said that whoever wins the presidency, Burma policy is likely to remain unchanged, since both sides seem to fundamentally agree on how to deal with the country. They cite the bipartisan support for the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act 2008 as evidence of their common position on Burmese issues.

“I don’t think it matters for the Burmese democracy movement who wins, because they have the same view of the country,” said Bo Kyi, secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, based on the Thai-Burmese border.