Political change in Myanmar's back burner

Corruption: The symbol of Myanmar's democratic aspirations, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is credited with providing one of the most insightful pronouncements on corruption.

It is fear and not so much power, which corrupts, she once said. Fear of losing power corrupts the oppressor and fear of the oppressor, corrupts the oppressed. By an extension of the same idea, absolute fear corrupts both parties absolutely.

This insight into corruption provides us with an understanding of the Myanmarese political situation in particular and that of the Third World in general. It is certainly fear of losing power which is preventing Myanmar's generals from releasing Suu Kyi from long years of house arrest. The possibility is great that her release could trigger a pro-democracy movement of even a greater scale than before in Myanmar and lead to an erosion of the military's power.

Meanwhile, fear of the military could very well be preventing the Myanmarese from increasingly opposing the military junta on issues espoused over the years by Suu Kyi.

It must be noted that signs of the Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) triumphing electorally in 1990, prompted the military to stall the electoral process, put Suu Kyi under house arrest and crack down heavily on the pro-democracy movement. Thus has the democratic process remained stymied in Myanmar, now a rising star in ASEAN's economic constellation.

Reports from Myanmar say that the military has launched a fresh crackdown on pro-democracy activists commemorating the NLD's 1990 polls triumph and calling for the release of Suu Kyi. Apparently, there will be no easy let-up to the repression in Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the West, including the US, Britain and the EU, have called for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Backett, for instance, was quoted as saying of the Myanmarese junta: "But we cannot have any faith in their promises while Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 1,100 other prisoners are held for nothing more than expressing their desire to bring freedom and democracy to Burma."

It is gratifying to see the world's liberal democracies taking a firm stand on the repression in Myanmar. However, mere verbal opposition would not help in activating a political liberalization process in Myanmar. Increasingly strong economic and political sanctions may help in this process but such measures need to be stringently applied. But this is yet to happen in a substantial way and as long as this is so, change would not come to Myanmar easily.

Moreover, there are no concerted moves to internationally isolate Myanmar; a process which brought substantial change in South Africa, although, the issues in then South Africa and present day Myanmar differ vastly.

The fact remains, however, that Myanmar is an active associate of ASEAN, an organisation which is proving a vital catalyst in market-led growth in the Asian region. For ASEAN, economic criteria are of greater importance at the moment than political criteria and by virtue of this, political liberalization in Myanmar would be considered a matter of lesser importance.

Therefore, the liberal democratic West, in particular, would need to make-up its mind on Myanmar and act concertedly on it.

Moral opposition would need to translate into substantial economic and political sanctions if Myanmar is to move in the direction of democratization.