INTERNATIONAL POLICIES aimed at opening up Burma’s military regime are failing even as they overlook a continuing major tragedy. In January the situation in Burma could not even win serious attention in the UN Security Council. The world needs an approach that focuses not on fostering democratic governance but on the critical health and education needs of Burma’s long-suffering people.
Western economic sanctions, international diplomatic pressure and “engagement” with the ruling junta by its Asian neighbors have produced scant progress. Given the military’s deep stake in the economy, it is unlikely to relinquish power. Rebellion is improbable, and regime change by outside forces is not an option. As long as India and China maintain strong trade, development assistance and military ties with the regime, and Burma produces more natural gas, efforts to end or reduce five decades of military control will be ineffective.
Meanwhile, Burma’s 52 million people endure increasingly appalling conditions. About one-third live in poverty; male life expectancy is only 56 years. More than 30 percent of children under age 5 suffer malnutrition, and nearly half of all children never attend school. Tuberculosis and malaria are endemic in some areas, and the country’s mortality rates are among the highest in Asia. At least 37,000 people died of HIV-AIDS in 2005, and more than 600,000 others are infected with HIV.
The junta’s brutal conflicts with ethnic minorities have resulted in tens of thousands of Burmese killed and thousands of villages destroyed. More than half a million people have been internally displaced, and some 150,000 Burmese minorities live in camps along the Thai-Burmese border. Reports persist of forced labor, human trafficking and vast numbers of forcibly recruited child soldiers.
Burma’s deprivation also fuels instability across Southeast Asia. Drug trafficking emanating from Burma is extensive, and more than a million Burmese have fled ethnic conflicts and poverty, taking with them high rates of HIV-AIDS and other infectious diseases.
The military leadership bears responsibility for the degradation of the people. Beyond negligence, the junta increases the people’s suffering through mismanagement of the economy, vast underfunding of key social services (despite rising oil and gas revenue), and restriction of personal freedoms and political development. The internationally accepted principle of the “responsibility to protect” apparently does not apply for Burma’s people. Moral indignation is the practical extent of Western responses to these atrocities.
Providing humanitarian assistance to a desperate people is a better response.
Annual international assistance to Burma of $150 million, however useful, is grossly insufficient. Almost every other developing country receives more. The depth of Burma’s situation warrants a multiyear commitment on the order of $1 billion annually from international donors — public and private — to fund improvements in health and education, including upgrading the country’s crumbling infrastructure in these sectors. A consortium of donors should be established to review projects and their implementation, to pursue cooperation from the Burmese government and to monitor the delivery of aid.
There is, of course, peril in a humanitarian approach. Millions of aid dollars may well be diverted by the junta, and the flow of aid might convince the government that it need not reform. Nor can we be sure the government would accept such a program. Cooperation with the regime, in any event, will be patchy — the junta has long placed onerous restrictions on aid agencies already there. But cooperation must be pursued, as there is no possibility of working on a large scale inside Burma without such efforts.
Western officials and politicians may bridle at this approach. Certainly, vigilance is required to minimize the hazards of working in Burma. But risk is unavoidable, and the costs of inaction — measured in mortality, drug addiction and infection rates — loom larger. The international community is caught between the need to address the downward spiral of the Burmese people and not wanting to inadvertently support the Burmese military government or see international aid wasted. But this dilemma will not be solved in any reasonable time frame by relying on the shibboleths of “engagement” or “pressure.”
Concerned countries will continue their efforts to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected Burmese leader who remains under house arrest, and to get the military to embrace meaningful political change. These efforts, however important, are an insufficient response to Burma’s worsening situation. The focus must shift from Burma’s generals to its people. Imagining that a massive and sustained increase in humanitarian aid can produce political change in Burma over the long term may be a triumph of hope over reality. A program cannot be justified on that score. But if we can improve the lives of millions and avert further human disaster, it is incumbent upon us to try.
— Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a former US ambassador to Thailand. Jonathan Kolieb is a research associate at the Century Foundation.
