[Comment] The Burma dilemma

from The International Herald Tribune

By Thant Myint-U

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon arrives in Yangon on Thursday at the invitation of Myanmar's ruling generals, the first official visit by a UN chief in over 40 years. He will tour the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy River delta and work to persuade the government to allow greater international access to the hundreds of thousands of people in need of life-saving assistance.

But he will not just be visiting a country reeling from its worst natural disaster ever. He will be in a country only now emerging from decades of armed conflict, where aid has long been politicized and where the urgent tasks of emergency relief may soon be coupled with the immeasurably more complex challenges of recovery and reconstruction.

As early at 1990, Rolf Carriere, then Unicef director in Yangon argued that there was a desperate need for humanitarian and development aid in Myanmar, and that it could not wait for democratic change.

His call went largely unheeded. The military government pleaded for assistance, especially from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to reform the economy. But Western governments had just begun to impose sanctions in the hope of nudging the junta towards democracy, and nearly all aid - including through the UN - was cut off.

Only in the last several years have things begun to change. Several UN agencies and international charities have tried hard to expand help to the country's most vulnerable people, with support from a few governments like Britain and Norway. But it's hardly been enough.

Myanmar is one of the poorest nations in the world, with millions living in extreme poverty. But the average Myanmar citizen receives less than $2 a year in international aid - about a 10th of per capita aid to Vietnam and a 20th of per capita aid to Laos and Cambodia. Thousands, mainly children, die every year from treatable diseases like malaria.

Though the government had once looked forward to aid, it eventually became suspicious, especially when allegations of a humanitarian crisis in Myanmar were used to press for UN Security Council action. The government worried that humanitarian issues would serve as camouflage for a "regime-change" agenda and that aid workers themselves were a "fifth column." They knew that foreign funds were also helping pro-democracy dissidents both at home and abroad, and feared that aid programs were part of a conspiracy to unseat them.

Many of the regime's opponents were also suspicious, believing that any aid would further entrench the status quo. They pointed to the government's long record of economic mismanagement. A fierce debate ensued. At the very time the UN was trying to scale up assistance, Myanmar's authorities began to tighten restrictions.

Cyclone Nargis struck at a time of particularly sensitive relations between the junta and the aid community.

The outrage felt at the lack of international access is more than understandable. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. But the actions of the generals should also come as no surprise.

Myanmar's ruling junta is not simply a military government. At its core is a security machine developed over a half- century of civil war and foreign intervention. Everything is viewed through a security lens.

The idea of throwing open the country's borders to international aid teams goes against the most basic instincts of the men in power. It will never happen.

If the diplomacy around securing access seems tough, the dilemmas around any future recovery may be thornier still. Once the immediate crisis is over, the Irrawaddy delta will require a gargantuan reconstruction effort, lasting months if not years. Entire towns have been wrecked, millions displaced, livelihoods ruined. With rice prices sky-high, the lives of millions more could become untenable.

Should the United Nations and others only provide emergency humanitarian aid and then leave? Or can the world help revive the Irrawaddy delta, once Asia's greatest rice exporter? Can there be any logic to maintaining sweeping U.S. and European economic sanctions on aid, trade and investment while also trying to rebuild the devastated areas?

And what of the rest of the country? The delta is obviously the priority, but huge numbers of other people live in terrible poverty. Should not aid be increased for them as well? The north and the east - especially the uplands inhabited by Myanmar's many ethnic minorities - have suffered from decades of war, with enormous humanitarian challenges of their own.

Can any rehabilitation of the delta's economy be possible without a more general vision of Myanmar's economic development? What sorts of reforms are needed and what kind of economic dialogue is possible with the ruling junta?

There are of course political challenges as well, until recently the nearly sole focus of international attention. Myanmar's generals will want to push ahead with their new constitution, one that ensures the military a dominant position, like past constitutions in Indonesia and Thailand. Dozens of ethnic-based insurgent armies have agreed to ceasefires with the Myanmar army, but there is no permanent peace and moves towards disarmament and demobilization are just beginning.

Can the UN both push for political change and be the institution working on humanitarian and development issues? As Rolf Carriere questioned years ago, does help for the poorest have to wait for democracy? Does a policy of further isolation make sense?

Thant Myint-U is the author of "The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma."