New Mandala

31 responses so far ↓

• 1 jonfernquest // Sep 14, 2008 at 10:19 pm

  One size fits all.
  American size.

  Easier to break things (like Iraq) than put them back together (like Thailand), though easier to be a hero breaking things (like Che Guevara), then you can run away to another revolution in Bolivia and teenagers will wear your cool photo on their t-shirt.

  (Sounds like that notorious cold war guy who traveled around Asia writing propaganda books and making movies or Graham Greene’s Quiet American though nowadays this sort of thing makes you a fashionable rebel that even the Wall Street Journal likes).

• 2 aiontay // Sep 15, 2008 at 2:17 am

  Yes Jon, it is easier to break things, which is why guys like Sharp, whose examples aren’t exclusively American ones, are going to be needed to fix all the problems caused by the Burmese military’s breaking of the social, political, economic and environmental structures in Burma. And speaking of one size fits all, what is one to make of the regime’s attempts to make the ethnic minorities conform to the standards of the Burmans.

• 3 Tara // Sep 15, 2008 at 6:03 pm

  I haven’t actually read any of Sharp’s work, but I did just finish a CANVAS training of sorts – to say that this is ‘one size fits all’ merely shows that you have also never read any of the work on nonviolent strategy, John. It all boils down to methods, strategy, and analysis – things which are always applicable to any situation.

  There is a presumption that ‘nonviolent’ activists and academics are ideologically nonviolent, or pacifists. This could not be further from the truth. I’m not really sure what you’re getting at with your comment as you’re disparaging both armed methods and nonviolent methods. America is desperately in need of some social revolution, and the implication that because Sharp is an American that he is exporting a dominant American paradigm with some kind of intent to impose American democracy on the world is silly.

• 4 Elli Woollard // Sep 15, 2008 at 11:50 pm

  Further to what readers have said above (and Jon, even before reading your post ‘The Quiet American’ very much sprung to mind), one of the major sticking points of any foreign attempt to overthrow a regime is that however well meaning that attempt may be, and however much the proponents might eschew violence, it is automatically met with intense suspicion.
  Of course no dictator is going to like an attempt to depose their regime, from whatever quarter that attempt stems from, but the charge of being in league with foreigners, is, unfortunately, a handy stick with which to further beat any dissent. Moreover, even in the eyes of a populace thoroughly jaded by a dictatorship, an organization with obvious foreign backing can lose credibility.
  As a result, any direct action to intervene can often be highly counterproductive. I am not for a minute suggesting that outsiders should sit back and do nothing. But I am not sure that joining a guerilla army or training and funding rebel fighters is really the best way out of this moral minefield.

• 5 jonfernquest // Sep 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm

  China has achieved record growth despite continual criticism for its “dictatorial” tendencies from the US and after the current financial crisis seems to be in a position of economic dominance.

  Park Chung Hee and his successors in South Korea were thoroughly supported by the US, but the cold war was a time when US foreign policy defined “dictatorship” differently.

  Thaksin’s one leader one state rule in Thailand certainly seemed to veering towards a democratically “dictatorship” a la Mussolini thoroughly supported by the US but now we conveniently forget this and make him the saviour of the poor people when it was in fact generations of central government projects that brought electricity, water, and irrigation to the rural hinterlands.

  In short, the US should make an effort to stay out of the politics of other far-flung regions of the world and instead engage these parts of the world with business, the one thing that could actually make a big difference in Burma and bring about change there, denied by economic sanctions that impoverish the people.

• 6 aiontay // Sep 18, 2008 at 2:27 pm

  Jon, why are you seemingly conflating the arguments of Sharp, who isn’t representing the US government, with the policies of the US government?

  I never supported the invasion of Iraq, and you’re not going to get any argument from me about the sins of the US, but that doesn’t keep me from thinking that the military regime in Rangoon is a bunch of thugs who also bear the responsibilty for the economic disaster that is the Burmese economy. Ever heard of the Burmese Way to Socialism? That was way before the current US sanctions. Ne Win and his successors are the ones that broke the country, not Che Guevara wannabes.

  Finally, I don’t know about the Burmans, but the Kachins had that whole gumlao thing going before there was an American democracy. Democracy isn’t the exclusive preserve of white people; in my opinion they do a pretty bad job with it. The Mvskoke did it much better.

• 7 jonfernquest // Sep 19, 2008 at 3:10 pm

  aiontay: “Ne Win and his successors are the ones that broke the country, not Che Guevara wannabes.”

  Right now it is 20 year and counting stalemate created by economic sanctions that is breaking the country. Economic engagement and growth is the only way out of the quagmire, and this is happening via China and Asia which takes massive unjustified flak for doing just that.

  aiontay: “Finally, I don’t know about the Burmans, but the Kachins had that whole gumlao thing going before there was an American democracy. Democracy isn’t the exclusive preserve of white people.”

  Exactly. The Licchavis and other republics around the time of the Buddha had a political organisation very different from kingship that was only then emerging reaching its classical ideal in Asoka. These “republics” resembled democracy, and that was invoked by 19th century Burmese political theorists looking for a solution to gradually encroaching British.
  http://burmalibrary.org/docs/THE_RAJADHAMMASANGAHA.pdf

  However, you should use a different word than “democracy” because this is a western word loaded with and biased by long western experience and usage and only bares a, sometimes deceptive, similarity to what you are talking about. (This is a valid point made by Aung-Thwin in his critic of Luce’s late Kyansittha paper in Mysts of Ramanna).

  aiontay: “…why are you seemingly conflating the arguments of Sharp, who isn’t representing the US government, with the policies of the US government? ”

  I am not conflating anything. From my perspective living in Southeast Asia, missionaries, Sharp, cold war ideologues, fly-in-fly-out journalists, foreign aid funded 5 day junket experts, Princeton graduates looking to pump up their resumes with a little two month atruism stint, advocates of an Iraq invasion, Paul Bremer’s green zone dream team, foreign anthropologists identifying with their village “people” who are only part of a complex picture, all belong in a class of outsiders, not fully engaged with their livelihoods in the place they pontificate about from their outside well-funded positions of power, and produce irreparable harm such as what economic sanctions have reaped in Burma.

  The only people who can solve the political problem are people in the country. The only thing outsiders can do is provide economic opportunity with business opportunities and education / technology transfer being the ones that provide maximum long-term benefit.

• 8 Totila // Sep 19, 2008 at 4:19 pm

  Seems to me, the SPDC government already gets billions from natural resource exploitation, with more to be added as the Shwe Gas goes online and pipelines are built from Ramree to Yunnan. How much of this is spent on health or education? What is to keep the SPDC from managing its economy better right now or treating its people with dignity?

  If one reads Sean Turnell and his Burma Economic Watch, it does seem those billions are completely lacking in transparency. To what extent is extending the pool of potential investors in resources and infrastructure (or sweatshops), considering they will still have to play footsie with the likes of MOGE and UMEH, going to do much except to make bribes more competitive and add to the military’s tea money? How exactly does economic mismanagement get diminished, rather than enhanced, by ending what limited sanctions regimes remain?

  Also, there are many many, many people, countries (regional powerhouses India and China, as well as ASEAN) and institutions who already deal with the regime as it is and are happy to. Though not the World Bank, which wants its money paid back from previous loans, or so it seems.

  And since some of same caricatured “fly-in-fly out journos, and 5-day junket types” do favor ending sanctions and more engagement, would it not be better to focus on the strength of arguments rather than on those who, it was claimed, are making them. To the China analogy of economic improvement leading to a dribble down of more basic rights and living standards one could posit the Indian one going in the opposite direction. But to use either involves cherry-picking certain facts (it’s bit of a stretch to see Than Shwe as an emerging Deng Xiaoping) to make a argument that might not work in Burma.

• 9 Tara // Sep 21, 2008 at 5:26 am

  The global economy is not structured to provide equality, nor empower those who are at the bottom. The current situation in the US should be a testament to that. China may be different than 20 years ago, but human rights abuses are still rife, and there are plenty who still want change. The notion that economics can improve social problems seems misguided considering that those in power have been using this same tool to maintain their position, and create the current global situation characterized by gross inequities and lack of respect for basic human dignity, for how many generations?

  Surely there are options between your two choices, John – economic growth vs. ideological imposition? Gene Sharp and the respective institutions in the article do promote the idea of education/technology transfer, because the whole point of non-violent action is that the only sustainable change is change that comes from within. All they provide is training in skills, there’s no consultation or advice on strategy, and they also encourage groups to limit their involvement with foreign supporters, for exactly the reasons you mention in your earlier comment.

  And, personally, I would rather reclaim the word ‘democracy,’ for what it really means, rather than capitulating to the co-optation of it by people who use it to gloss over their alterior motives. (Frequently economic motives, by the way.)

• 10 jonfernquest // Sep 21, 2008 at 6:10 pm

  “Gene Sharp and the respective institutions in the article do promote the idea of education/technology transfer, because the whole point of non-violent action is that the only sustainable change is change that comes from within. All they provide is training in skills, there’s no consultation or advice on strategy, and they also encourage groups to limit their involvement with foreign supporters, for exactly the reasons you mention in your earlier comment.”

  Livelihood skills are the skills that people really need, not revolutionary skills. If Sharp actually devoted his life to teaching rural people how to locate and drill for a water supply like some Peace Corp people do for their two year stint (which should really be supported and extended as a lifetime avocation).

  Who does Sharp think he is? He is a “foreign supporter.” If he was actually doing something other than ideological support like the hydrology example above, then his work would be falsifiable and we could verify whether he was actually doing them any good or not, a point made in a book that says it all about foreign ideologues and their mission:

  Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Penguin Press HC, The, 2006.

  “And, personally, I would rather reclaim the word ‘democracy,’ for what it really means, rather than capitulating to the co-optation of it by people who use it to gloss over their alterior motives.”

• 11 Tara // Sep 22, 2008 at 6:11 am

  This is a silly debate anyway, you’re arguing apples and oranges. My post was also misleading, because Gene Sharp is not the one who does the training. The ones that do are not even American, and trainings are conducted at the request of activists themselves. There is a long history of non-violent struggle that is verifiable, and many that have been successful. Developing in a material sense does not preclude the work of indigenous political activists. Where would the US be if we all had thought that jobs-training would be better for African-Americans than civil rights? They are not mutually exclusive, but I’d hazard a guess that Martin Luther King and Bernard Lafayette would not have found economic development to mean anything in the absence of equality and basic human rights. You haven’t even read any of Sharp’s work, so you aren’t in a position to accuse it or him of being an ideologue.

  Democracy activists from Burma are acting of their own free will, and to imply otherwise is pretty insulting. Neither of us is in a position to judge how much influence the work of Gene Sharp or those institutes has had on their ideas or actions to date. There is no reason to assume that he or others involved support any of the policies, such as sanctions, that you feel adversely affect development in Burma. I

• 12 jonfernquest // Sep 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm

  tara: “Where would the US be if we all had thought that jobs-training would be better for African-Americans than civil rights?”

  Open Thailand is basically besieged by critical thought and has basically become the a plaything for academics, a professor toy, unlike, for instance, Singapore which keeps this under control.

  Critical works on Thai culture and politics coming out of Singapore where no such inward looking criticism is legal is probably the most extreme example of how Thailand has become basically, an intellectual punching bag.

  Burma is off the richter scale. Virtually no aspect of this state (history, language, culture) gets studied unless it is directed towards the ongoing 20 year political conflict. This is unhealthy.

  If the West had taken a more productive attitude, less ideologically centered position towards Burma 20 years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi would probably already be running for her second term as Prime Minister (China – officially – forgot about Tianmamen years ago). As it stands, what we have is an unproductive stalemate with the Burmese being impoverished and falling more and more behind every year, and no amount of ideological special sauce like Sharp’s is going to change that.

  “Democracy activists from Burma are acting of their own free will, and to imply otherwise is pretty insulting.”

  To question something is insulting? Implying no one should question you? Implying you’re more than a little undemocratic yourself.

  Where the funding goes, little critters newly graduated from college, soon follow. Newton’s fourth law.

• 13 aiontay // Sep 22, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  Jon,
  The economic sanctions came AFTER the militiary killed unarmed pro-democracy demonstrations untainted by money from Soros, after the military put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and after they refused to concede elections that they unsuccessfully tried to rig. And despite opening up the country to foreign businesses, including American ones, they did not change the basic economic tenets of Ne Win’s Burmese Way to Socialism; the state still owns the land, as Stephen pointed out in a previous post. In light of this, it is hard to see how ASSK would be serving as prime minister if only there hadn’t been sanctions.

  I’d say that, “outsiders, not fully engaged with their livelihoods in the place they pontificate about from their outside well-funded positions of power” could apply just as easily to an employee of the Bangkok Post as it does to some academic in the US. It’s not like either of them are busy planting mustard right now for the winter crop with the Kachin villagers at Ho Nawng Kaji.

• 14 Tara // Sep 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm

  “Ideological special sauce”. I like that. Still, you’ve never read Sharp’s work, so it’s hard for me to accept that as an informed judgment. He doesn’t even study Burma. Personally, I do find their rhetoric a little cheesy, but I see their non-violent strategy being used far more effectively by the evil-doers in power in the US and certain other countries than Burmese activists.

  “To question something is insulting? Implying no one should question you? Implying you’re more than a little undemocratic yourself.”

  No, to imply that (Burmese) people are incapable of thinking for themselves, is insulting, though perhaps ‘patronizing’ would have been a better choice of word. I was not trying to imply anything other than what I wrote, I thought my statement was pretty straightforward. You are free to question whatever you want, and I am free to point out the patronizing implications of your question. Surely democracy does not preclude us hurling insults and judgments at each other, does it?

  A wise person I knew once said, “Nations don’t have friends, they have interests.” I would say the same applies to ideology. I understand where you are coming from, Jon, I really do. But I think it is a mistake to think that the US government and affiliated QuaNGOs are acting out of ideology and not practical national interests. The ‘freedom and democracy’ thing is a ruse, but that should not devalue the reality of those concepts as practiced or advocated for by people who truly value the right of all human beings to have control over their own fate. Of course, neither they, me, you, nor many others hanging around NM, are as aware as we could be about how our position of privilege affects our actions and relationships with those around us, but we shouldn’t assume everyone is an ivory-tower ideologue with blinders on. After all, Jon, we are both White Westerners having a fruitless debate online about what we think is best for Burma, and no amount of our personal experience is going to change that fundamental fact.

• 15 Stephen // Sep 23, 2008 at 1:10 pm

  It does seem like the dichotomy of indigenous/legitimate vs. foreign/illegitimate is overly simplistic. This is very much the argument of the SPDC which dismisses any indigenous criticism of its rule as coming from the “minion axe-handles” of “foreign masters”. But how does the indigenous appropriation of foreign ideas weigh in? For example, Gene Sharp was greatly influenced by Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement which was also an influence on the Burmese independence movement through Burmese activists U Ottama and U Wisara, both Buddhist monks, and Aung San (see Myanmar’s Nationalist Movement (1906-1948) and India, by Rajshekhar, South Asia Publishers, New Delhi, 2006). If foreign ideas were necessarily illegitimate and inappropriate, then Buddhism would have stayed in a small corner of northern India.

  However, I do think that Jon’s point about the dangers of “outsiders, not fully engaged with their livelihoods in the place they pontificate about from their outside well-funded positions of power” is very important for external actors to keep in mind in all discussions on the situation in contemporary Burma. Nevertheless, this does not mean that such individuals should not consider Burma’s current political context when discussing possibilities for positive engagement. Even The White Man’s Burder which Jon recommended appears to suggest that there are possibilities for accountable forms of external support for indigenous efforts to address locally-perceived needs. And, furthermore, that much of the problem of conventional external support for poverty-reduction has been a negligence of domestic political obstacles. The key is thus to get more local, especially non-elite (whether SPDC, NLD, KNU or other), voices into ongoing discussions and debates about engagement with contemporary Burma and without dismissing indigenous initiatives just because they have political implications (which may very well, for that matter, not even be revolutionary in their intent but simply efforts to resist, mitigate, or wholly evade to local-level implementation of abusive State policies).

• 16 jonfernquest // Sep 23, 2008 at 2:15 pm

  aiontay: “The economic sanctions came AFTER the militiary killed unarmed pro-democracy demonstrations untainted by money from Soros, after the military put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and…..”

  Much like Tianamen Square, which the Chinese have officially forgotten about, much to their economic benefit. True believers who continue to repeat these mantras in a religious fashion , 20 years after the events happened, and not thinking first and foremost about the economic advancement of the country, are engaging in the same sort of anti-intellectualism that Jeffrey Sachs decried in his op-ed piece today: “In recent years, the United States has been more a source of global instability than a source of global problem-solving. “ (http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=154008&bolum=109)

  aiontay: “it is hard to see how ASSK would be serving as prime minister if only there hadn’t been sanctions.”

  Significant participation by an emergent middle class (Korea, Thailand) creating more stakeholders in the economy empowered by a strong economy is a force bringing about democratic change. The Thai middle class has very little tolerance for a military coup nowadays, thus there has been none. It’s not hard to imagine a counterfactual world similar to China in which Burma had put the election failure behind them, flourished economically, and already advanced democratically too.

• 17 jonfernquest // Sep 24, 2008 at 3:09 pm

  tara; “After all, Jon, we are both White Westerners having a fruitless debate online about what we think is best for Burma, and no amount of our personal experience is going to change that fundamental fact.”

  Like many Burmese I personally have paid with a pound of my flesh for US sanctions against Burma. I sat there in a hospital for many months, used up every penny I had, to save the life of a loved one.

  I talked to a lot of other Burmese people in that hospital who were doing exactly the same thing, paying for the 20 year hiatus that US economic sanctions have wrought.

  This was a private hospital where people could actually find out what was happening to them via medical tests. In government hospitals people just died.

  So, no tara, we are not the same. I know that I speak for many Burmese people who just want the whole thing to end right now, no matter what, so that they and their families can get on with their lives. Even if Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest forever.

• 18 Hla Oo // Sep 24, 2008 at 5:50 pm

  Definitely we Burmese have suffered far too long. When the Ne Win’s BSPP government was collapsing in 1988 the group of Burmese politicians namely U Nu, Aung Gyi, Tin Oo, and Aung San Su Kyi, yes ASSK too, had a chance to lead Burma out of that quagmire, but they stubbornly refused to form a united civilian government then and finally let the army to grab the power again in the name of The Restoration of Law and Order.

  Yes, these so called democratic politicians, willingly or unwillingly no one really knew, initially allowed the existence of SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) government now calling themselves SPDC (State Peace and development Council) government 20 years later.

  Like Kyaw Nyein and opposition Socialist Party did in 1962 they let the Burmese people down and delivered the country again into the hands of generals in 1988.

  Like Kyaw Nyein and opposition Socialist Party believed in 1962, they believed in the army’s promise of fair election. Yes, the army gave them a fair election. Except, the army didn’t agree with the fair outcome.

  “My father built this army” ASSK and former general “I was from this army too” Tin Oo then took a hard line stance against the generals and brought down onto the poor people of Burma the mighty sanctions of the western democracies. Now Burma and her once proud people are on their knees haplessly witnessing their country rapidly becoming another province of China.

  Violent and non-violent opposition or the sanctions aren’t the only ways to get Burma back into the democracy’s fold. How about genuine negotiations and serious talks among all the parties concerned including the generals?

• 19 Stephen // Sep 24, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  Jon: “many Burmese people… just want the whole thing to end right now, no matter what, so that they and their families can get on with their lives. Even if Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest forever.”

  This is a really important point and I think supported in some ways by Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung’s 2003 article “Rural perceptions of State Legitimacy in Burma/Myanmar,” such as the following quote:

  “other factors, long ignored in the literature, may be central to a degree of grassroots legitimacy accorded to the military regime. This is especially true of the countryside, where the image of the Burmese state hinges less on the high profile issues singled out by the international press and more on the agrarian agenda of the military government.” (p.8)

  However, it is also important to point out that the most pervasive human rights concerns within contemporary Burma appear not to be the current or previous restrictions on civil and political rights, whether they be the 1988 bloodshed, the 1990 non-transfer of power to the NLD, or even current restrictions on political organisation. It has been one of the most unfortunate failings of the international Burma democracy lobby that it has focused so narrowly on these issues. Rather, abuses which affect a far larger segment of the population (especially the 70% rural population) are the many forms of systematic exploitation (like forced labour and arbitrary taxation) tied to the “agrarian agenda” of the SPDC and the restrictions on movement and trade used to facilitate them.

  Foreign engagement in Burma at present will necessarily enter into this context. Those seeking to invest in business or implement socio-economic development or humanitarian programmes mustn’t wilfully neglect (or consciously suppress) the local-level political concerns (i.e. how resources are controlled and distributed) of indigenous communities regarding the implementation of foreign investment, development or humanitarian projects. Attempts at ostensibly ‘apolitical’ engagement, however, risk doing just that.

• 20 aiontay // Sep 24, 2008 at 10:52 pm

  Jon,
  What about India? They changed their dealings with the regime, but did the regime change at all? No. Also, the sanctions were never absolute. There were American companies doing business with the regime. I know, I had dinner with them in Rangoon. The US State Department also funded rural development projects in the Shan States. The fact is the generals have had plenty of opportunties to change, they’ve just never taken them. It takes a true believer to argue otherwise. What policies have the generals taken that would allow a middle class to emerge.

  To follow up on Stephen’s point, I’ve worked with the rural population in the Lashio/Namtu area, and I’ve seen the exploitation of the SPDC agenda firsthand. If the city dwellers have paid a pound of flesh, the Kachins, Shans, and Palaung have easily doubled that, but strangely enough they all blamed the regime for that. Also, I believe that China’s reform started with the agricultural sector, as did Korea’s and Taiwan’s. What specific policies is the regime engaged in that will help the Burmese agricultural sector?

• 21 Tara // Sep 25, 2008 at 6:14 am

  Yes, Jon, US sanctions are the cause of all suffering in Burma. This conversation is getting derailed at every point. I never said anything about sanctions, or Aung San Suu Kyi. Last I checked, I was having a conversation about Gene Sharp and the nature of non-violent strategy vs. ideology, and how I felt you were unfairly judging work you were unfamiliar with. I understand that you feel your experiences were unnecessary suffering because of ideology, and that for you, sanctions and the ‘free Aung San Suu Kyi’ crowd are part of that, but I am not the person you think you are talking to. Our individual trains of thought seem to have no intersection. Others are contributing far more intelligent comments at this point, so I will concede to you the last word in this conversation, Jon. It’s turning in to the same one we have every time I post a comment here, so I’m just going to go back to lurking as usual. Post away.

• 22 Hla Oo // Sep 25, 2008 at 11:50 am

  Aiontay “Also, I believe that China’s reform started with the agricultural sector, as did Korea’s and Taiwan’s. What specific policies is the regime engaged in that will help the Burmese agricultural sector?”

  From a Burmese point of view the strategic agricultural reform is either the total redistribution of large tracts of land owned by absentee landlords like they are trying to do it in Philippines and Latin American countries, or the complete dismantling of Agricultural Communes like they successfully did in China and the countries of former Soviet Union.

  In case of Burma the communes never exist even though the land is nominally owned by the state aka the army. The wholesale redistribution of large tracts of agricultural land owned by the absentee landlords, the legacy of colonial times, was started in the fifties by the Communist rebellion and later completed by the Ne Win’s Socialist Government.

  Since all the agricultural land is basically in the hands of farmers now, my question to our learned Americans, Aiontay and/or Stephen, is what sort of further strategic reform Burma still need except for the technical reforms of providing crop loans and other resources like fertilizers?

• 23 Stephen // Sep 25, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  Hla Oo: what sort of further strategic reform [does] Burma still need except for the technical reforms of providing crop loans and other resources like fertilizers?

  I think you’ve raised the key issue, Hla Oo. Ideally, agricultural policy would be set by the country’s predominantly small-scale farmers themselves. Actually, the monthly Township Peace and Development Council meetings that the SPDC currently has in place could provide a venue for such local input into agricultural policy, but because of the SPDC’s authoritarian proclivities, agricultural policy has become a top-down process, set at the national level, with no account for local environmental, climatic and other difference, and is furthermore set and enforced by military personnel, not agronomists. For example, Burma’s Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation is Maj-Gen Htay Oo, current head of the USDA. Agricultural policy is thus subservient to military policy and as I’ve quoted before, agricultural analysts Koichi Fujita and Ikuko Okamoto who have done extensive fiend work in Burma, identify the SPDC’s agricultural policy objectives as, “avoidance of social unrest and sustenance of the regime”.

  But anyway here are some initial suggestions,

  1. Stop forced labour. As forced labour is now so pervasive, at least in rural Karen State, it significantly cuts into time needed for agricultural work leading to reduced or wholly failed paddy harvests.
  2. Eliminate roadway military checkpoints and tollbooths. Excessive road tolls have made small-scale agricultural trade in many cases unprofitable.
  3. Allow farmers to set their own agricultural agenda. The whole kyet-su castor bean fiasco is just one example of the failures of authoritarian agricultural governance.

  Economist Sean Turnell likewise reports that SPDC officials dictate to local farmers “what, how and how much to produce”. Despite the reports that the SPDC eliminated the paddy procurement quota in 2003, many farmers in Burma report that the practice continues. When Burma’s inflation reached 35% last year the IMF, likewise recommended “liberalizing agriculture to give farmers more freedom to grow and sell their crops.” Anyways, these are just some initial thoughts.

• 24 aiontay // Sep 26, 2008 at 9:27 am

  I’m not sure if I’m a learned American or just an opinionated one, but here are some comments based on my limited experience working on an agricultural project in a Kachin-majority area of the Shan State (which may not be relevant to the situation in Central Burma).

  First, the land tenure situation isn’t as straightforward as you seem to think, Hla Oo. While it is true that practically speaking in day to day affairs the land is in the hands of the farmers, as Stephen has noted in another discussion, the state still technically owns the land. Add to this a clear pattern of confiscation of land without compensation by the military, and you have a situation where the farmers are always looking over their shoulders with uncertainty, which is not conducive to agricultural production. Furthermore, virtually all the villages I worked with had been forcibly relocated, in some instances multiple times, due to the military’s “Four Cuts” campaigns. In one instance villagers had spend an entire day walking to their agricultural fields from the area they had been relocated. Needless to say, this had severe negative impacts on their agricultural production. So the issue isn’t whether land tenure is communalized or privatized, but that land tenure is always uncertain and at the mercy of the military’s agrarian agenda.

  I think Stephen also is correct in the basic reforms he thinks are needed for a start, although I would point out that in fairness to the military regime, they are not the only group to demand forced labor from the populace. In the Shan State various ceasefire groups have also adopted the practice.

  I would also point out that point out that technical reforms like crop loans and providing resources like fertilizer are far from easy tasks. I can tell you direct personal experience that fertilizer procurement can be a major undertaking. While proposing how exactly these technical reforms should be carried out is far beyond my expertise, they are absolutely critical. Stephen’s #3 would be a good starting point to address this problem, but I doubt we’ll see the regime take such action any time soon.

  Finally, I would say that any reforms would have to take in to account potential negative impacts on women. The political and economic upheavals in Burma have had a particularly negative effect on women, who additionally have traditional roles and societal expectations, which may have protected them in the context of traditional societies, but in the current context work against them.

• 25 Moe Aung // Sep 26, 2008 at 9:56 am

  Here we go again, Jon’s broken record, stuck in a rut, namely his reductionist version of economic determinism, never mind the choices the rulers make or deny, the priorities they set themselves for themselves. If Sharp serves the purpose, a means to an end, it certainly is a valuable asset. Both Sinn Fein and the Mahatma inspired the Burmese independence movement. All options should be considered.

• 26 Hla Oo // Sep 26, 2008 at 11:46 am

  Definitely the agricultural situations in the war-torn areas namely the border regions of Karen and Shan States are starkly different from the peaceful Delta and Central or Upper Burma. As I mentioned as my own personal experience in a previous post the Burmese farmers in the Proper Burma know exactly where they stand when it comes to the permanent and transferable tenancy of their own plots of land.

  Forced labor and military checkpoints situations are directly related to the outgoing civil war, and for the conflict’s various participants it is almost totally impossible to get rid of as long as the war is going on in that war-torn areas.

  I used to work as an Irrigation Engineer for the Ministry of Agriculture and, even though the ministers and various heads of departments are the army or ex-army officers, the ministry is run by the professionals as in any other countries. Agricultural extensions offices are in every townships and Burma has a specialized agricultural university and agricultural research institute.

  When it comes to tactical reforms in Burma, Burmese agronomists know better than anyone else. Where I come from some farmers even have crops growing in every season. Paddy in the rainy season, jute in the summer, gluttonous rice in the winter. All thanks to the efforts and supports of these well-learned government agronomists.

  My point is the strategic agricultural reform of the redistribution of agricultural land has already been completed since 40 years ago in Burma and the result is the food-self-sufficiency and the ample export of excess produce to neighboring countries.

  Once the sanctions are removed Burmese farmers will be able to send the rice and other agricultural produce exports to the west like seemingly democratic Thais and still Communist Vietnamese are doing now.

  Burma used to be the biggest exporter of rice and now, even with all the current troubles and a nasty civil war she is just lagging a bit just behind Thailand the current biggest rice exporter on this planet.

• 27 aiontay // Sep 27, 2008 at 10:41 am

  I worked with Burmese agronomists; they’re incredible people, but as Stephen pointed out, the military constantly interfers with their good work.

  Hla Oo, do you have a source that you can provide for your assertion Burma lags just a bit behind Thailand? I think there are several countries that would better qualify for that position.

• 28 jonfernquest // Sep 29, 2008 at 5:10 pm

  “Here we go again, Jon’s broken record, stuck in a rut, namely his reductionist version of economic determinism, never mind the choices the rulers make or deny, the priorities they set themselves for themselves. ”

  To butt your head stubbornly against the wall for 20 years with the same failed strategy, the opposition strategy, is truly: a broken record, stuck in a rut.

  Moe Aung you’re displaying the same true believer behavioural characteristics here that, for instance, puts Georgetown political scientist on a black list of enemies because he suggests alternatives, which is exactly his job as a political scientist.

  “If Sharp serves the purpose, a means to an end, it certainly is a valuable asset. Both Sinn Fein and the Mahatma inspired the Burmese independence movement. All options should be considered.”

  And the one most obvious option is to withdraw economic sanctions.

  Sharp is just a minor variation on the last 20 years of going absolutely nowhere.

• 29 Moe Aung // Sep 30, 2008 at 6:35 am

  All right Jon. If you can’t fight them, join them. Make them doubly rich for good measure, why don’t you? Negotiate, that’s if they let you, and engage constructively as the non-Western states have been doing for the last whatever. Talk like Gambari and the rest of them before him like you talk to a brick wall. I’d love the West to lift the sanctions if only so you see for yourself how well that option works. Good luck.

• 30 jonfernquest // Sep 30, 2008 at 4:05 pm

  “All right Jon. If you can’t fight them, join them.”

  Join them? I fled Burma, just like many Burmese I know. I was actually supporting a family in Yangon, but my livelihood, like so many other people I knew there, got wiped out, and I had to start over.

  It’s the poor Burmese who cannot leave the country and who will probably be stuck there for the next 20 years with an oppressive government and economic sanctions that stifle their economy that I really feel for, and with the collapse of the US financial sector in the last week, I can’t see how things are going to get better.

  I refuse to worship at the Church of Aung San Suu Kyi because that is all the western media talks about when they deign to look at the country for a split fraction of a second. The fact is there are 50 million people suffering in that country and Aung Suu Kyi is only one of them, and they suffer because their country is the economic hermit kingdom, made even worse by economic sanctions.

  A guy on the street pulled down his baso and showed me the stitches from having his appendix removed, once. Why? He was begging to exchange his worthless kyat for US dollars so he could buy some crappy medicine so he couldn’t die.

• 31 Andrew Walker // Sep 30, 2008 at 7:10 pm

  OK guys. We’ve exercised a very light hand so far on this increasingly repetitive discussion. We will now be taking a firmer moderating approach to comments which just toss the same old points back and forward.

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