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• Daw Aung San Suu Kyi • Dr.Sein Win • others Printable Version

These are important times for Burma's small government-in-exile, five of whose 25 members work out of modest surroundings in an anonymous Washington office building a couple of blocks from the White House. At the Millennium Summit of world leaders at the United Nations in New York in early September, the problems of Burma, ruled now for a decade by an oppressive military junta, briefly took center stage. An array of foreign leaders, including President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reiterated their support for democracy and for Burmese opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who on Sept. 2 had again been confined to her home by the junta and barred from contact with the outside world. Clinton cited Burma as a country where "the international community must take a side, not merely stand between the sides or on the sidelines."

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, as the elected exile government is known here, sees this as a crucial moment. With an American election looming, the exiles want to push the newly elected President--George W. Bush or Al Gore--and a new Congress for tougher policies that would force the military government to give up power and allow Suu Kyi to take office. Her party won more than 80 percent of the vote in a 1990 election, but the military never allowed her to assume power.

But the exiles in Washington have an uphill battle. Their cause, in truth, is small compared with other civil conflicts in Asia and around the world, and they have to work hard to get attention. Burma's struggle has not captured popular U.S. attention the way opposition to Fidel Castro has or opposition to South Africa's apartheid regime did.

The exile government, in a strategy decided on at its August leadership meeting in Washington, nevertheless wants to push for new U.S. sanctions on textiles and other imports from Myanmar--as Burma is called by the junta--starting this year or next. It wants to gain House support for a Senate-passed resolution seeking multinational support for U.S. sanctions. The coalition also wants a strong stand in the International Labor Organization, which, in an unprecedented move, has threatened sanctions against Burma for using forced labor. The ILO is to make its final decision on sanctions in November.

U.S. policy toward Burma, and the potential for strengthening it, is more important to the exiles than it might seem at first glance. Washington's policy, according to Exile Prime Minister Sein Win, is a key to the coalition's success because the United States has the toughest policy toward the military government and because other countries look to Washington for leadership. The European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the United Nations all watch U.S. moves closely, according to Harn Yawnghwe, a Burmese representative in Europe.

Whether the coalition can push through further changes in U.S. policy is not clear. For one thing, the United States is already doing plenty to pressure the junta. Current U.S. law limits bilateral U.S. aid to Burma, calls for U.S. opposition to international financial institution lending to the government, and limits U.S. visas for junta officials. The Clinton Administration has also withdrawn some trade benefits, imposed an arms embargo, lowered the level of U.S. representation in Yangon--the capital city formerly known as Rangoon--and barred new investment.

The effectiveness of the exile government poses a second potential obstacle. One U.S. official praises the coalition as quite effective in New York in dealing with the United Nations. Thaung Htun, the group's U.N. representative, is particularly successful, this official said. He also praised Thaung Htun and Harn Yawnghwe as having had a major role in shifting Europe closer to the U.S. position.

But more than one Administration official describe the group as less effective in directly influencing legislation in Washington. One official said he isn't sure the coalition possesses the knowledge to lobby successfully in Washington, and that the coalition might be "outgunned" by interests with more money and resources--such as American and other companies with investments in Burma. The coalition at times also fails to exert much influence on policy development. In a lengthy conversation with another Administration official about interactions with the Yangon government in recent years, the official hardly mentioned the exile coalition. At the end of the conversation, he hastened to say that his omission meant no criticism of the group, but then acknowledged that his lack of contact with the group could be interpreted as some weakness on the exile government's part.

Yet, although the coalition has not shone as a Washington lobbying organization, exile leaders have been able to count on bipartisan congressional support for action against the junta and on ardent Clinton Administration backing--starting with a strong personal interest by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and the President himself, who, during a human rights talk at the Kennedy Center on Sept. 19, cited "the brave example of Aung San Suu Kyi." Moreover, Administration officials have generally been in frequent and direct touch with Suu Kyi and do not need to be lobbied the way the European Union or United Nations does.

One U.S. official who deals with the coalition calls the exile government credible on another front: It has successfully represented the views of the opposition leadership and has served as a source of information on events in Burma.

This official said he takes what the group sends him seriously and notes that if the coalition asks the Administration to raise an issue or raise points internationally, the Administration does so. The group, he added, is seen as "serious, responsible [and] measured," and that U.S. officials listen to exile Prime Minister Sein Win closely--which is not the case with every opposition group seeking Washington's ear. Although the Administration never hesitates to get tough on the military government, the exiles need a vocal advocate in Washington. That's because, the official said, issues relating to China and Taiwan, North Korea and Indonesia are all vying for the Administration's attention in Asia, often at the expense of Burma.

David I. Steinberg, director of Georgetown University's Asian Studies Program also praises Sein Win and calls him "very low-key, but effective." The coalition has a "very tough job" in keeping alive Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy. Steinberg says, and international publicity is the only thing preventing the Yangon regime from closing it down and expelling Suu Kyi.

Steinberg downplays the exile government's supposed lobbying weaknesses in Washington. Sein Win, he says, already has Washington "locked up" given the breadth of official opposition to the junta, and therefore, can spend time roaming the world to lobby other countries. The coalition probably couldn't afford to have the prime minister spend all of his time in Washington, he says, and adds that better lobbying would not necessarily change U.S. policy much.

Washington tends to look at lobbyists as "mercenaries" in the pay of governments or other interests, but the Burmese coalition is viewed differently, Steinberg says. Although the group may seem somewhat naive at times, its credibility is greater as a legitimately elected government, many of whose members are in prison and whose leader has been frequently under house arrest and restricted in her movement by the junta for the past 10 years. By networking with human rights groups and using the Internet, the coalition can mobilize a large body of public opinion, Steinberg says. And no one wants to be seen voting for a pariah regime such as the Yangon government. "I don't see how they're going to be more effective," he says, adding that the group is mainly buying time, hoping for a Burmese economic or political collapse.

On the other hand, Steinberg says, "times are changing in Washington," and the coalition may need to work harder if it wants existing U.S. sanctions against the Yangon government to continue. Steinberg cited an emerging campaign to eliminate U.S. economic sanctions generally, and he said the coalition might have to push to make sure the Burma sanctions are exempted from any such move. GOP vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney has expressed sympathy toward the view that sanctions don't work. Steinberg does not believe, however, that a change in Administration--under either Bush or Gore--would lead to a change in U.S. policy toward Burma, barring some sort of major development, such as the junta opening a significant dialogue with the opposition.

Although Unocal of California, a large oil company, has major investments in Burma and is not fond of the tough U.S. sanctions, and although Bush and Cheney both come out of the oil industry, other Republicans staunchly oppose the junta. Among them is a tough and influential GOP stalwart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. In addition, the Republican Party platform is fairly straightforward on Burma, saying the party "is committed to democracy in Burma," as well as to Suu Kyi "and other democratic leaders whose election ... was brutally suppressed and who have been arrested and imprisoned for their belief in freedom and democracy." The GOP platform calls for working with European and Asian allies to oppose the military junta in Rangoon, pointedly not calling the capital Yangon.

Vice President Gore is also solidly behind Suu Kyi and the sanctions against the junta. On Aug. 31, Gore condemned the military regime's limits on Suu Kyi's ability to travel around her own country and said, "Every day that the Burmese authorities restrain Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's isolation from the international community deepens."

In the end, Burma's small size and the starkness of its case may help the exiles' struggle. Unlike China, for example, Burma isn't a giant economic power. The United States and other major powers have had difficulty imposing economic sanctions against Beijing for its human rights abuses because the Chinese economy is so important to Asia and the world. But that is not a problem with small Burma. And unlike China, Burma can point to a free and fair national election in which the opposition won 84 percent of the vote. Those facts won't change even if Burma's exile government is not the most muscular lobbying group in town.

(Steve Hirsch is editor in chief of National Journal Group's UN Wire, which can be found at www.unfoundation.org)

9/23/2000 NATIONAL JOURNAL (From Page 2982 to 2983)

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