The Last Nail in the Coffin of
Constructive Engagement
Kanbawza Win
In our world where business always overrules the conscience, it seems
that the Constructive Engagement Policy initiated by the leaders of
the core members of ASEAN towards Burma has finally meet its doom.
This is not because suddenly their twinge of conscience pop up but
because they finally discovered that they will lose formidable trading
partners of the Western countries if these ASEAN countries continue to
ignore the gross human rights violations going on in Burma even as
they continue to exploit Burma's natural and human
resources. They now have to admit that there are much
more civilized people in the World who would not ignore
the suffering of the Burmese people and can easily turn
their screws on these ASEAN values.
When the Burmese Junta came to power in 1988 killing thousands of
peaceful demonstrators two schools of thoughts emerged as how to deal
with this Burmese regime. One is to isolate the regime or at least to
exclude from international financing (such as World Bank, IMF and ADB
etc) and investment to force to regime to come to terms with the
reality and was favoured by the West supported by Burmese
pro-democracy and ethnic groups. The other was an open door policy,
investing, trading and recognizing the Burmese Junta as a way to
foster liberalization to create a more democratic form of government.
This was christened as Constructive Engagement Policy by ASEAN.
Now after nearly one and half decade this Constructive Engagement
Policy has become an adjective, a hall mark synonymous to the extent
of the tragedy of 50 million plus people that did not move the
proponents of democracy and free market. Several theories and
hypothesis has been put up as reviving the official development
assistance, promoting investment and even encouraging the NGOs to
provide humanitarian assistance will bring the much-needed change in
Burma. They label the pro democracy and the ethnic nationalities to be
too impatient and unrealistic wanting an immediate transfer of
power-full of Western style democracy and want an instant utopia. They
argued that Constructive Engagement presented a rational approach,
which takes into account existing realities and bring change in a
controlled fashion. Now all these interpretation has come to a big
Zero.
The very fact that Burma and other Indo-Chinese states were accepted
in ASEAN itself is something like a marriage between a cock and a duck
because they belong to the family of fowls (Southeast Asian
countries). Hence it neither produced a duckling or a chicken nor is
unable to swim (democracy) or peck (communist). Instead comes out an
odd species somewhat similar to an ugly duckling (a power maniac) with
a hope that one day will miraculously change into a high flying swan.
Burma is exactly like this. Now it seems that it's no longer a
question of whether you should talk to your neighbor who killed his
sons, rape his daughters and beat up the wife but it's a question of
whether that abusive neighbor should be the leader of your village
called ASEAN.
Hence the question of self- respect arises for the people of ASEAN
became pivotal. A new generation, better educated with much reasoning
power that would not listen blindly to their leaders have crop up in
Southeast Asia. They saw that the Constructive Engagement Policy as a
thin guise to exploit Burma's natural and human resources for
short-term gain and is indirectly propping up the regime with
legitimacy. This is having a bad effect on their region and something
must be done. Besides, witnessing the mammoth sufferings of the
Burmese, the religious adherent began to question this illogical
policy. The majority of the people in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia
profess Buddhism; in Singapore the main religion is Confucian, while
Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia profess Islam and Philippines is
Christian. Yet, not a speck of all these religious teachings were in
Constructive Engagement Policy, in other words it paints the religious
and moral bankruptcy of the region as a whole and ASEAN in particular.
Incidentally in the economic scene unlike China's manufacturing
miracle or India's services magic, there doesn't seem to be a single
compelling theme in ASEAN economy, especially after the 1997 financial
crisis. There are multiple strategies, initiatives, and success and
failure stories. This tends to create a new scenario in the ASEAN
business leaders who all the time are conducted to follow the
government lead and adapted their strategy to go where the wind is
blowing. Now suddenly governments in the core ASEAN countries began to
play a different tune. The refrain is one of the supporting roles, not
the virtuoso lead as the previous past. The government are encouraging
private enterprises to think for themselves and shape their own
destiny. They are to be innovative and create their own future. This
compels a major shift in the mindset of the boardrooms and
managers, similar to that the ship captain was
left without the compass. They will have to fend
themselves off. So they began to look at the world especially to the West where much emphasis is given on the prevalence
of democracy and human rights. As far as Burma is concerned they could
not rest their laurels on a short-term gain and be tarnished as
unscrupulous exploiter forever. In other words the Constructive
Engagement Policy is too pungent to have a good business dealings.
Hence, the people began to question their parliamentary
representative. These Members of Parliament began to speak out in
their respective parliaments. Many a country unthinkable about a
decade ago began to set up a parliamentary committee for the
prevalence of democracy and human rights in Burma. The thinking of
dominant one party dictatorship under the smokescreen of democracy of
the region began to change. A classic example is Singapore, where
hitherto PAP dominated by the "Father Son and the Holy Goh" was gone,
when the Father and Holy Goh were in the annals of history and the son
with its retinue of young Turks began to resent the accusation that
Singapore's national character can be measure in dollars and cents,
have now taken the initiative. At the last budget debate the S'pore
government officials have a hard time answering to the quest of the
parliamentarians questioning the Constructive Engagement Policy. It is
the first time in the entire history of Singapore that has come out in
the open, which was usually a closed-door affair as far as Burma and
the hush hush narco dollars are concerned.
Parliamentary Committee on Burma has been formed in the core ASEAN
countries of Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia and S'pore
have joined the bandwagon. PAP representative Charles Chong has said
that besides taking away the chairmanship from Burma their main goal
is for the flowering of democracy and the release of political
prisoners. Come June and one will witness that the parliamentary
representatives of the core ASEAN countries of Thailand, Philippines,
Indonesia and Malaysia will join the Singapore Members of
Parliamentarian to form the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Committee to
pressure their respective governments.
It is also heartening to see that Malaysia Members of Parliament like
Theresa Cock and Mr Lim talking very openly when the UMN0 is still a
dominating power minus its helmsmen Dr Mahirthir Mohammad. Several
representatives like Kraingsak Choonhaven of Thailand and several from
Indonesia, Philippines have spoken out which we hope to bear fruit on
ASEAN. Of course this is not because they are morally transformed but
because they saw the writings on the wall that they will lose much
with their Western Countries and international trading partners if
they insist on this illogical policy. At last the Constructive
Engagement Policy has pinch their pockets and they will have to move.
They have witness that the nature of the Burmese Junta who will take
one step forward to democracy by releasing the Nobel Laureate and
taking two steps backwards by arresting her again. Indeed Than Shwe
and its cohorts tried to assassinate her once and for all at Depayin,
but the Military Intelligence chief Khin Nyunt knew it in advance and
rescued her and for this he is now languishing in jail. How can a
power maniac be the Chairman of this prestigious ASEAN?
One will have to welcome this positive move even though it had taken
15 years for ASEAN to understand the nature of the Burmese Junta while
a Burmese democrat can understand it in 15 minutes. If the ASEAN had
heeded to a soft whispering voice of a Burmese lady now in custody
such costly and heartbreaking experience should have been avoided.
Chiangmai
The views express here are solely the opinion of the author. (Kaowao's Editor)
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