Here's Another "Reform" Sham

POR: CAPITOL HILL CUBANS




February 8, 2011


Burma and Cuba are inter-changeable.


From the Washington Post's Editorial Board:


The right way to help Burma's democracy movement


SOME OBSERVERS have hailed the inauguration of a new parliament this week as an augur of a potentially more democratic era for the sad, Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar). If so, it's an odd sort of democracy.

The session took place in Naypyidaw, the remote and lavish new capital that Burma's ruling generals constructed, at huge expense, reportedly on the advice of astrologers. The city's chief feature is that almost no one lives there, and almost no one who doesn't live there is permitted to visit. Parliamentary rules were consistent with that paranoia. Journalists were barred, as were ordinary citizens, and even parliamentarians were not allowed to bring in cellphones, cameras or recording devices. Any legislator who wants to ask a question has to submit it 10 days in advance, with the regime ruling on its appropriateness.

This would be amusing if it weren't so tragic. The Burmese people have shown, through courageous uprisings in 1989 and 2007, that they are desperate to govern themselves. But unlike in Egypt so far, the Burmese army has proved willing to kill as many civilians as necessary to maintain power. The regime, led by Gen. Than Shwe, is one of the world's most brutal, and it has led the nation of 50 million - once among Asia's most prosperous and educated - steadily downward.

The latest farce of controlled elections to a pseudo-parliament is hopeful in one sense, though: It shows that the generals care enough about global opinion at least to pretend at democracy. That in turn suggests that outside nations could exert some influence if they chose.

Which brings us to the failing policy of the Obama administration, ostensibly a marriage of engagement and targeted sanctions. In practice, engagement has been half-hearted and fruitless - the regime seems uninterested - and sanctions have been allowed to languish. The administration hasn't added a single name to the Treasury Department's Burma sanctions list or cracked down on a single bank doing business with the regime - even as the generals sign multibillion-dollar development deals with companies in China, Thailand and elsewhere.

There's an honest debate to be had about whether sanctions hurt ordinary people more than their rulers. But a focused effort to target the regime and its cronies might leave more room to expand humanitarian aid to the population. Right now, the administration has the worst of all worlds. It's not influencing events, it's not helping the people and it's positioning itself to be blamed nonetheless.

A less honest debate would be one that blames the administration's lassitude on Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's democracy movement, or argues that sanctions should await a clear pronouncement from her. Though she was recently freed from house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi is not in an easy position; if she did call forthrightly for enhanced sanctions, she would be vilified in the poisonous state-controlled press. The biggest help the West could give the democracy movement would be to freeze the bank accounts of the nation's rulers and their relatives, to keep them from stealing more of their nation's patrimony, and let Aung San Suu Kyi call for relaxation when and if events merit. The opening of a Potemkin parliament wouldn't qualify as one such event.