Dog in the Manger

by Tettoe Aung

We has a saying in Burmese that if a person has the opportunity but he or she has no idea how to make use of that opportunity then the person is like ‘a monkey with a coconut.’ The monkey, although innovative and renowned for their ability in using tools, knows that coconut is a fruit but since he cannot crack it open, he cannot eat. Thus a coconut is useless to a monkey.

The United States with a new administration headed by the smartest of all Presidents in the White House, surrounded by whizzes, has put an extraordinarily competent team to cope with the crises abroad and at home and to clean up the mess of the past eight years. Hillary Clinton now heads the State Department and is working on the new policy on Burma.

James Warlick, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Organisations seems to have flagged defeat when he told a group of foreign journalists in Washington that, “It is clear that we and the international community have not been successful in Burma.” Like the monkey with the coconut he added, “I think we all are committed to bring about change in Burma, but then the question is how? How can we influence [a government] that has a repressive military regime, which has prosecuted its own people? How can we effectively deal with them?”

This reminds me of the US Senator Mitch McConnell retelling of a story former Secretary of State James Baker like to tell, in his keynote address at the Free Burma Conference which was held at the Paul Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, in May 1996. The story is about a farmer, who after many years of struggle and backbreaking work was finally rewarded with abundant harvest. The first thing he did was to call his preacher to come and bless his bounty. Amazed by the richness of the field and succulent taste of the fruit, the preacher went on thanking the Lord. Finally, the farmer couldn’t stand it anymore and burst out, “Preacher with all due respect, I sure wish you could have seen this field when God was farming it all by Himself.” Senator McConnell said that, since Daw Suu and the National League for Democracy (NLD) has already done most of the heavy lifting, all America needed to do was give them a hand. It was his view that Burma’s liberty must be served by America’s leadership.

What an opportune time for the United States to take the role of that farmer’s friend. The new US administration under the leadership President Obama has Hillary Clinton and her ‘smart power’ at the helm of State Department, Dr Susan Rice at the United Nations and with China for the first time in public admit Burma as an international issue, more than twenty years of the struggle and backbreaking work of the Daw Suu and NLD (the farmer) isn’t time to bear a bountiful harvest?

Like the dog in the manger, the regime will be as stubborn as ever. However, with all the money they got from the windfall of sales such as gas, timber and minerals, stashed in foreign accounts frozen they might now be persuaded. Major Aung Lin Htut, former deputy Chief of Burmese Mission in Washington admitted that because of sanctions the military regimes now is opening up to the America. Steven Blake, Director of the Office of Mainland Southeast Asia at the State Department, has a rare meeting with the Burmese Foreign Minister and other government officials at the junta’s new and remote Naypyidaw. A State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid said that the visit did not signal ‘a change in policy or approach to Burma.

However, to some critics, sanctions are incapable of achieving significant results within the timeframe of foreign policy goals. Commenting on an article by Benedict Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide in the Mizzima in February, Derek Tonkin, a former British Ambassador to Thailand, wrote, “Almost every Burmese I speak to agrees with me.” Dr Sein Win, recently re-elected as Prime Minister of the government-in-exile, complains that, ‘We are concerned that sanctions have not worked.’ Can anyone blame Hillary when someone like Dr Sein Win is sceptical about the effectiveness of the sanctions? Sean Turnell, Associate Professor and member of the Burma EconomicWatch, at the Economics Department of Macquarie University in Sydney said he disagrees with those assertions, including the Burmese Foreign Minister’s statement on sanctions at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, that sanctions have hindered economic development in Burma. According to him, “Burma’s poverty is not a result of sanctions, but 45 years of extraordinarily inept economic decision making by Burma’s military regimes.” He also added that the regime has self-imposed sanctions by creating an economic environment that makes international investment, in true productive industry, utterly impossible.

At a time when China, the principal country funding the military regime, main supplier of arms, commercial and strategic partner, and a key economic mainstay, have publicly shown her change of heart towards Burma, isn’t it time for ‘the farmer’s friend’ to lend a hand in driving the dog out of the manger? With the dog in the manger none of the animals can have hay. - END

Remarks: Author is a former diplomat