Whither post-'elections' Burma?

The 'general elections' in Burma is now over and the ‘results' also known, but are the many problems in the troublesome member of Asean over?

What is the future of that unfortunate country? Malaysiakini interviewed - via email - Maung Zarni an expert on Burmese affairs at the the London School of Economics & Political Science. He is of Burmese origin.

Malaysiakini: The ‘general elections' in Burma have been held and results known. What is your assessment of the future of the country still under the effective control of the military junta?

Maung Zarni: These elections have been described as 'a farce', 'travesty', 'sham', and 'charade', almost universally except in anti-democratic Asian capitals such as Beijing, KL and Singapore. It absolutely makes no difference, where there was an election or not, under the current military regime.

To put it most simply, today Burma is a military apartheid - two-tiered polity which is run by the generals by virtue of the fact that they are the ruling military class, and the rest of the society are to live as second class citizens.

There is, and can be, no bright future whatsoever for Burma, both pre- and post-'election'.

I will give you three reasons: institutions, leadership, and the monopoly control over the economy and the entire policy process and decision making.

To further explain, the entire state bureaucracy (and other nominal institutions such as the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature) are all in the hands of either ex-military officers or in-service military officers.

These military officers have proven to be irredeemable failures at nation-builders over the past half-century and their institutions have become categorically dysfunctional.

The essence of the rule of the military officers who have come to form the ruling class in the past 50 years is monopoly control over various state sectors as they run every institution as if it were a platoon or battalion.

These three things need to be overhauled. But, there is absolutely no sign of the military showing either the political will, or intellectual and psychological capacities to reform their institution, leadership or themselves.

Without regime change, they can hold another 10 elections in the next 50 years, but nothing positive will come out of this election cycle.

Asean has issued a statement to endorse the ‘outcome' of the ‘general elections' while the US, Britain, Australia and the European Union are critical of it. How do you interpret this clear division of opinion?

It is patently false to frame the issue of Burma's 'election' as being endorsed by the Asean and condemned by the West. During the days leading up to the 'elections' in Burma, the Philippines government officially denounced them as 'a farce' and the Jakarta Post editorialised them as a 'travesty', reflecting the prevailing, but unofficial views within the Indonesian government.

Even Russia's Pravda, not known for democracy promotion, ran a scathing commentary which described the recently held 'election' as 'farcical'.

As a club of anachronistically paternalistic autocrats, quasi-democrats, semi-democrats and brutes, as well as outright dictatorship and one-party communist states, the Asean stance on Burma's farcical election is in keeping with Asean's official pathos, a collective disease, a political cancer of political paternalism towards Asean citizens.

Asean's endorsement of Burmese generals' election is nothing more than 'shameless self-serving spin' originating, among other places, out of the office of Asean Secretary and former Thai foreign minister General Surin Pitsuwan, who amplifies the generals' lies about the election being a 'step towards democratisation'.

He appears to be paid to be optimistic as a bureaucrat when he keeps spinning the sham in Burma as 'a step in the right direction'.

Yes, Western democracies may be hypocritical and practice double-standards, but the White Man's hypocrisy is preferable to the Asean official Brown Men's pathetic crude and crass ‘Aseanism'.

The latter only promotes economic policies of 'begger-thy-neighbor' with regard to resource-rich and geopolitically important Burma under dictatorship.

But of course, Asean's official view as a bloc surprised hardly anyone, for a few reasons. Asean is not an organisation that is known, either among its nearly 600 million inhabitants or globally, that promotes humanistic values such as civil and political liberties, democratisation, government accountability or the voice of citizens.

India, which geographically borders on Burma, enjoys long historical and religio-cultural relations with the people of Burma and prides itself as the largest democracy in the world, keeps silent on the ‘general elections' and its ‘outcome' . Why?

Simple. India treats Burma as a cheap source for resources (gas, oil, timber, and so on) and as a garrison force which helps the Indian army crush ethnic minority resistance groups which view India as nothing more than an occupying colonial power since the British Raj ended its rule in Delhi.

If you ask the Indian author of "God of Small Things", Arundati Roy, she would pooh- pooh the idea that India is the largest democracy in the world, considering how unprogressive and how inhumane the Indian democracy is, and how the system and the Oxbridge-educated ruling elite, has treated the wretched of India.

Be that as it may, Amartya Sen, the proud and celebrated son of India, was moved to say these words during a Burma lecture at John Hopkins University in Washington in October, having witnessed India's shameful and immoral Burma policy of his own country which is currently run by his economic colleague and friend PM M. Singh:

"It breaks my heart to see the prime minister of my democratic country and one of the most humane and sympathetic political leaders in the world - engage in welcoming the butchers from Burma and to be photographed in a state of cordial proximity."

For a long time, Burma has been well-known for its armed ethnic minorities. How many armed groups are there? Why are they still armed and resisting/fighting the central government? What are their hopes and fears?

Just about every ethnic minority or nationality group is armed, numbering in total about 20.

The ceasefire and active resistance groups which are either engaged in active fighting or which will fight the regime in the very near future are the Kachin Independence Army, the United Wa State Army, the Karen National Union, the New Mon State Party, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army faction which refuses to be incorporated into the Burmese regime's command structure, the Shan State Army-North and Shan State Army South, and the Karen People's Progressive Party.

They are all located along Sino-Burmese and Thai-Burmese border areas, which stretches over 2,000 miles

They are still armed because the Burmese military regime has ruled out any peaceful solution through political compromise and negotiations with any opposition, armed (that is, all ethnic armed groups) and unarmed (Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy).

The most important thing to stress is the Burmese generals only believe in a zero-sum game with anyone who disagrees or challenges their views, legitimacy or their rule or their leadership.

Also the Burmese generals have received advice from Sri Lanka leaders who visited them in Nay PyiDaw soon after the LTTE's defeat that the Burmese Army should wipe out the minority resistance the way Colombo has with LTTE.

So, the Burmese regime is emulating the Colombo model. They are sure to fail in this mission to wipe out ethnic resistance, unless they are prepared to commit genocide in these minority regions.

For many ethnic minorities, the central government, especially the ruthless military regimes made up predominantly of Burmese generals, are merely colonial occupiers on their ethnic ancestral land.

Burma as a country, as a nation-state, is young and it is a political fiction that was born as the result of the dissolution of the British rule in Burma (1824-1948).

As such there is no organic national destiny. Different ethnic nationalities do not accept the supremacy and domination of the majority Burmese.

Although started out as pro-secession resistance movements (for instance, the KNU which revolted in 1949), they are all ready to live in the same federated union with the Burmese majority, if the union is built on the principles of ethnic equality, communal justice, rule of law and accountable government. That's their hope.

Their fear is losing their cultures, natural resources, political autonomy and subjugation at the hands of the colonial Burmese armed forces.