Reconsider Myanmar investment: activist

REPRESSION: A former aide to Aung San Suu Kyi said that foreign investment is not helping the Burmese people, but only the corrupt junta generals and their families

By Shih Hsiu-chuan and Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTERS
Friday, Oct 19, 2007, Page 3

Nyo Ohn Myint, former spokesman of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, yesterday called on the international community to review its investments which benefit only junta generals and their cronies and not the public.

"I would like to ask the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP], as the governing party, to review individual investments in Burma because the regime has survived not only because of China's support but also because of foreign direct investments from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh," he said.

The coordinator of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National League for Democracy (NLD), who went into exile in Thailand a year after participating in the popular democratic uprising in 1988, made the appeal in a forum hosted by the Taiwan Thinktank in Taipei yesterday.

"Foreign investment is not helping our people ... Twenty years ago, before 1988, there were only a few thousand [Burmese] working in Thailand. Today we have 4 million legal and illegal [Burmese] workers in Thailand, 1 million in Malaysia ... No one wants to stay in [Myanmar]. People want to get out, because they cannot survive [in Myanmar]," Myint said.

Myint said the junta, which holds 51 percent of the stakes in foreign businesses, has been using the revenue for military and security purposes.

"Military spending accounts for over 50 percent of the government public, while healthcare is less than 1 percent. Our people get less than US$1.40 for healthcare for the whole year," he said.

Myint said Burmese do not enjoy equal work opportunities, and 80 percent of the economy is controlled by the junta generals and their families.

"Corruption is a major problem," he said.

The theory that foreign investment will promote democratization does not apply to Burma, where there is no law and just a "fake open market," he said.

Myint also appealed to the international community to encourage dialogue between the junta and the NLD on political reform.

"What we need are not sanctions or isolation but a push. Bring the generals to the table. If the regime refuses, then we can think of the next step, maybe economic sanctions," he said when asked whether he advocated sanctions.

"Of course, sanctions will partially hurt people, but Burmese people have been suffering for a long time. The sanctions will not affect the junta," he said.

He said that if the international society decides to impose sanctions, it should be uniform across all countries -- not only the US and the EU, but also China and India.

The Burmese pro-democracy movement gained tremendous "political capital" in last month's revolution after the junta suppressed pro-democracy protests led by monks, the biggest challenge to the leadership since a student-led uprising was crushed in 1988, he said.

"The young generation, who were just five or six years old in 1988, have come to know what dictatorship is, what the military regime is and how it treats its people," he said, adding that the people had profited from the experience, giving another boost to the push for democracy.

Myint, who was invited by the DPP, also met Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) at the Presidential Office yesterday.

He appealed to the Taiwanese government and legislature to consider accepting refugees for humanitarian reasons.

Myint said that Beijing's support was the main reason the junta has continued to exist and called on the international community to persuade Beijing to change its foreign policy and use its influence on the junta to good use.

Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), deputy director of the DPP's Department of International Affairs, said the Cabinet had approved a refugee bill but the opposition-controlled legislature has not yet given the green light.

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