Burma, the Opposition and Economic Development

By DAVID I. STEINBERG

The "Special Statement" by the National League for Democracy (NLD) on February 12 focused on the two-decades-old question of dialogue between it and the ruling military junta in Burma.

In a shocking and inexcusable paragraph, however, the NLD admitted, almost as an afterthought, its collective failures to pay attention to economic development of the country and the well-being of the Burmese people.

In its seventh paragraph, it stated, "Another point we discussed with [the] special envoy was about economic development for our country. NLD representatives responded that it could not be discussed as we still did not know the causes for economic development and how to bring it about."

This is a remarkable statement of both ineptitude and the disregard for the well-being of the peoples of that country who have severely suffered daily economic hardships. The statement is inept because there are still in Burma, but not a part of policy decision-making no doubt, first-class Burmese technocrats, including economists, who have professional knowledge and experience on economic development issues.

These local experts with solid international experience have had extensive contacts with the NLD senior leaders and no doubt have provided the NLD with relevant policy advice on the subject.

The NLD could easily seek their economic development views. The United Nations Development Programme, with resident personnel in Rangoon, has undoubtedly done the same. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank have all provided missions to that country in recent years. A wide variety of international nongovernmental organizations with senior staff in the country could contribute to this developmental process as well.

Judging from the aforementioned NLD statement, it seems that the NLD considers economic development, and thus the well-being of the people and their improvement in life chances, a lower priority on its official agenda.

Democratic citizens and governments share the NLD's goals of democratization, reconciliation and dialogue in Burma. However, this statement comes across as though the NLD leadership prefers to keep the already impoverished people in poverty until a political agreement is reached between the junta and it—an extremely unlikely prospect.

To be sure, successive Burmese military governments since 1962 have mishandled Burma’s national economy and created 47 years of economic hardships for the bulk of the population. The NLD leadership's initial open support for economic sanctions against the country and continuation of holding the country's economy—and along with it public welfare—hostage does nothing to advance the cause of either freedom or development.

Whether one agrees or disagrees about the past imposition of sanctions and their effects is a separate policy matter from this issue of denying both the capacity to understand what is needed to improve the lives of the people and implicitly the moral responsibility that results from such astounding ignorance. In the interests of transparency and for the record, I will state I have been against economic sanctions even before the US instituted them because I felt they would not accomplish their goal—regime change. They never have.

Although the NLD leadership has been persecuted and its organizational capacity emasculated, if any political party comes out in favor of ignoring the betterment in the lives of the people, it is likely to lose whatever popular appeal or moral authority it may still have.

That the military has ignored the Buddhist precepts of good governance that call for the caring of the people is no excuse for the NLD to ignore the issue of the people's livelihoods, which is what economic development is all about.

The State Peace and Development Council government has failed the country in economic development terms in spite of its accrual of substantial foreign exchange reserves. That the main opposition party and its leadership, so widely admired worldwide for their courage in standing up for principles, has, in effect, refused to deal with the issue prompts a profound sense of pessimism for the future of the country and her people.

David I. Steinberg is a specialist on Burma, North Korea, South Korea, Southeast Asia and US policy in Asia. He is a professor at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.