Speaking of foreign “meddling” in Southeast Asian affairs Forbes has published an article on the funding that American multi-billionaire George Soros ploughs into Burma. This piece - which quotes a number of big players in the Burma activism scene - has a raft of important and interesting details.
In the context of New Mandala’s earlier discussion of foreign backing for political agendas, there is much to commend analysis of such “meddling” that looks beyond Thailand’s western border.
The Forbes‘ article describes (in part) how:
George Soros spends $2 million a year trying to pave the way for democracy in Burma. It’s a tricky operation. Naturally, the head of his Burma Project is banned in Burma, where ruthless military dictatorships have ruled for decades. And Soros is unwelcome in neighboring Thailand, home to 2 million refugees who have fled Burma. What’s more, Thailand won’t recognize these people as refugees, making them that much harder to help.
Thailand blamed Soros and his hedge fund for setting off the Asian financial crisis in July 1997, which started when the Thai baht plummeted…
…So how does the Burma Project handle these obstacles? It keeps a very low profile, employing just a few people on the ground in Thailand…
…In the lingo of the nonprofit world, the Burma Project puts its money into “capacity building.” This means that rather than provide food or water, it seeks to foster the economic, legal and media skills needed to run a country. One reason? It’s cheaper…
…After 13 years of grants, scholarships and lobbying, is the Burma Project any closer to a liberated Burma? Evidence would say no. Last year 10,000 more refugees arrived in Thailand from Burma, and the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a nonprofit that monitors the border, noted that due to “the systemic violation of human rights in eastern Burma, it is unlikely that the population of the camps will decrease significantly in 2007.” It adds: “Hopes for political change in Burma look as bleak as ever.”…
…After all, maybe democracy can’t be bought. But it’s still not a bad investment.
Do read the full version if you want to learn more about the details of Soros’ Burma funding. A list of recent grantees is available here.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Jon Fernquest // Apr 17, 2007 at 1:59 am
I hope people listen to Thant Myint-U.
Soros and Maureen Aung-Thwin and their activism funding pretty much drown everything else out with the volume of money they are pumping. They’ve set the agenda and nothing else matters. Thant Myint-U is a hero.
2 Alice Stefanson // Apr 17, 2007 at 5:08 am
I agree that people should listen to Thant Myint-U. It’s a shame that many seem so afraid now of standing up to the Burma lobby as epitomized by OSI and speaking their minds. Obviously many agree with OSI’s hardline stance, but many do not and their voices are entirely drowned out. Thant Myint-U was very brave in challenging the sanctions-based approach in an honest way and should be commended. I hope people others will speak out, refrain from ad hominem attacks, and realize that we desperately need to rethink outside strategies on Burma.
3 anon // Apr 17, 2007 at 8:06 am
Soros also funds Thailand projects, including Prachaitai Newspaper.
4 Jon Fernquest // Apr 17, 2007 at 4:16 pm
As the last outgoing British ambassador ironically pointed out, the activists are making their activism targets, but Burma clearly isn’t.
OSI seems to be funding a whole generation of professional activists who can do nothing else. Look at the list of excluded projects:
Ineligible Projects
* Unsolicited research projects….
* Social welfare projects, including health care, schools (outside of OSI’s Burma Project Education Office activities), orphanages, and provision of social services;
* Cultural projects, including those related to cultural heritage and preservation, museums, literature, and fine and performing arts unless directly connected to the protection and promotion of civil and political rights;
* Environmental projects unless directly connected to the protection and promotion of civil and political rights;
* Development projects (i.e., construction of buildings, well-digging);
* Microfinance and loans.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/bpsai/focus_areas/burma/guidelines
When I was doing my (privately funded) research there in the 1990s, I had a research assistant, a young male university student who like so many others had a lot of free time on their hands because the universities were always closed, a male because a lot of people use the hiring of a language teacher or research assistant to make contact with females for nefarious purposes (ironically some people thought I was homosexual when they saw us together). He helped me read Burmese history books and literature and later got a good job at a UN library.
I don’t see why the OSI has such a negative impression of Burmese culture, literature, and history, that they don’t see fit to fund research in this area. They were behind those two wonderful Mon dictionaries, I hear, though.
5 Tara // Apr 18, 2007 at 1:26 pm
It’s interesting to compare the OSI grantees to the list of NED grantees. The NED doesn’t list the names of the organizations, but it’s easy to identify many of the smaller organizations and media groups by the descriptions. The International Republican Institute is an interesting thing – I wonder if anyone has any opinions on that? I had not heard of them until visiting that site.
Funny enough, though, the NED was an OSI grant recipient in 2004.
I think the criticisms of OSI here are valid, but I also think it’s worth pointing out the difference between the ‘international’ discourse on Burma, which is dominated by the pro-sanctions, free ASSK crowd and the attitudes of Burmese exiles/activists/refugees in Asia. For those working on the ground with refugee communities, in education, community development, health, etc. these issues are hardly dominant, and I doubt you’d find many with the ‘hard-line’ perspective referenced above. There are well-deserving groups getting OSI funding.
In my experience in Thailand and Malaysia, I did not meet one Burmese activist who beleived that Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom was actually a solution to the problem, and a few who were openly critical of the focus on her detention. Discussion of sanctions were quite rare, and the few I can remember were not characterized by the dogmatic attitudes commenters are rightly criticizing. The fact is that these issues aren’t really relevant to the work they are doing there – their voices are different, and it would be great if we could hear more of them, but they aren’t being drowned out per se, they just have better work to be doing. That’s not to say some voices aren’t being drowned out by all this, just that the public debate and discourse that is so prominent does not reflect the attitudes of those people actually working on the ground to do something constructive. And I’m not sure how much the drawbacks of funding practices of the OSI and NED necessarily influence that work as much as it does that public debate.
6 Richard // Apr 19, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Though it may be true that certain issues are more dominant than others, that certainly shouldn’t imply that the so called “free ASSK crowd” are any less deserving to be heard than anyone else. Aung San Suu Kyi, could arrange to leave Burma with her freedom any time she wanted and has refused to do so time and time again, the only conditions of her freedom would be to never return to Burma, but instead she remains, suffering equally with her people and for that she deserves equal respect.
To suggest that sanctions are not relevant to the work of refugees and exiles is absurd, they are the leading antecedent, the only difference being that activist and exiles might not focus exclusively on such things because they can only deal with one thing at a time, and are most productive focusing on their immediate goals.
Besides, it is unrealistic to expect the average person in just about any international community to be intimately familiar with all conditions on the ground. It is the repsonsiblity of those who can make a diference to do so to their capacity.
Catagorizing groups and individuals into levels of importance alienates brothers all fighting for the same cause.
7 Richard // Apr 20, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I also want to add that I fully agree with Alice, we do “need to rethink outside strategies on Burma”, also I agree with Thant Myint-U. “Isolating one of the most isolated countries in the world … is both counterproductive and dangerous,” ( I have writen about this on my blog a few times). Constructive engagement and diplomacy far outweighs isolation.
I think the key is highly constructive diplomacy with Burma’s life line, China.
But I also can’t think of any situation in which such a level of diplomacy has been taken. So at this point I think this talk is just theorectical. I don’t think the UN, US or UK or prepared to take such steps and for many reasons.
8 Alice Stefanson // Apr 24, 2007 at 8:13 am
I think there are really two approaches to consider – the first is what I would call a ‘high maintainance’ approach: western governments actually use political capital at the UN, with China, India etc., come up with clever strategies, send in the best diplomats, treat it as an emergency, use carrots and sticks, rachet up sanctions as a form of pressure if necessary. But as Richard says, I think the chance that the US or UK would actually move beyond rhetoric is close to zero.
The second is ‘low maintainace’: accept that our influence is limited, we’re always going to be fairly ignorant about Burma, we’re not going to do much, lift sanctions, provide some aid as we would anywhere else, speak out on individual rights abuses, and hope for the best, letting local politics take its own course, like in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. for better or worse.
9 Pig Latin // Apr 24, 2007 at 10:51 am
Alice, “high maintenance or low maintenance” ??? — Unfortunately this is not a tv chat show!
When using rhetoric such as “hope for the best” in a IR context… it’s rather condescending and arrogant … or even imperialistic, no?
10 Tara // Apr 24, 2007 at 11:55 am
I think you’re right Alice, at least currently, those are the two approaches available to the international community. I think the ’strategy re-think’ that we all agree is necessary, though, would lead us to a third approach. Which would start, at least, with acknowledging that the UN and the Western governments currently trumpeting for reform are simply not a reliable avenue for change. They will never make more than symbolic and token gestures like sanctions. The US will not save the people the Burma. Maybe the UN could do something, given enough pressure, but that’s a long shot. So, let’s forget the governments, let’s forget arguing over token things like sanctions. Let’s just forget the approaches that have been tried over and over again and consistenty fail to stop mass atrocities in other countries over the last 100 years.
No, this doesn’t seem to leave us with much, but nothing we’ve tried so far, in Burma, or anywhere, seems to have worked. Perhaps some serious thinking about strategies that can work in spite of the governments is what we need. I certainly don’t have the answer to what those might be, but there are smarter people than me involved in this.
But at least let’s admit what’s not working, and it would seem, the US, the UK, the UN is not working. Maybe that does means taking the fight to China and India, maybe, probably, it means something we haven’t even thought of yet.
11 Alice Stefanson // Apr 27, 2007 at 1:12 am
Pig Latin said – “When using rhetoric such as “hope for the best” in a IR context… it’s rather condescending and arrogant … or even imperialistic, no?”.
I think the opposite – I think its “imperialistic” to think that we (in the West) can actually determine futures elsewhere in the world. I think we need to be realistic about what we can actually achieve and not assume that the answers are all within our grasp. Sometimes we can only hope for the best.
What’s tragic is if we have only a little leverage (like in Burma), but assume we can do everything, and give people there false expectations, or adopt policies (like sanctions) which have no realistic chance of suceeding but which may do damange none the less.
12 Pig Latin // Apr 27, 2007 at 12:11 pm
But determining futures is exactly what your alluding too Alice with your high maintenence, low maintenence model?
And remember, only George Soros can do everything – he’s investing $2 million a year!
13 Alice Stefanson // Apr 28, 2007 at 3:46 am
Pig Latin said: But determining futures is exactly what your alluding too Alice with your high maintenence, low maintenence model?
Yes, I suppose I agree, but that’s why my preference would be for option 2 (low maintainance) which tries only to help things from the sidelines rather than impose a solution.
Does anyone know if Thant Myint-U has written any since his London Review of Books essay?
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