Dr Jason Abbott on Burma
Friday 22 February 2008
Dr Jason Abbott, Lecturer in International Politics and International Political Economy (Southeast Asia), talks about the current political situation in Burma.
You can listen to the interview online using the player below, or you can download the MP3 file 00:08:05 (3.7MB).
Transcript
Q: I'm here with Dr Jason Abbott from the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. Jason, one of your areas of expertise is Burma, recently there has been an announcement that Burma may be going on the path to democracy, can you tell us something about this?
00.14
Jason: First of all I would say that I'm very sceptical about the latest announcement by the military regime. Let me give you some details: the regime announced that in May this year they will have a referendum on a constitution that they have drawn up, a constitutional commission consisting of hand-picked advisors picked by the military junta. We don't know the full details of the constitution yet, in 2003 the junta announced that they would have a 7-stage road map to democracy, towards what they specifically called a ‘disciplined democracy', and it's clear from a constitutional commission that met earlier in the year that this would retain a significant role for the military. So I'd be a little bit sceptical, but what they have done is announced that in May they will hold a referendum on the document.
1.20
Q: The UN seem to be taking this quite seriously, Ibrahim Gambari has been going to Beijing and various places trying to garner support for this. Do you think that the powers in the local area might be able to force – or at least facilitate – change in Burma?
1.40
Jason: I think sceptics see the hand of China behind the announcement. The Chinese are one of the key players in this region, they have a long, contiguous border with Burma, they are one of the largest foreign investors in Burma, particularly in its growing oil and gas industries and of course, we all know that later this year Beijing will host the Olympics and it doesn't want anything to rain on it's parade.
The Chinese are quite sensitive to international criticism that they are not doing enough here, so I think we can see the hand of China behind the announcement. I know from colleagues who are China specialists that Beijing has been leaning on Burma behind the scenes, but still, if you look at what Ibrahim Gambari has actually said, he's welcomed the announcement on one hand, but he's said on the other that there need to be more details and he wants the elections to be credible, he wants there to be genuine political participation in the elections that follow from this referendum and I think the prerequisite is that the National League for Democracy has to be one of the parties that is able to compete in any elections in the UN's eyes.
3.10
Q: There are plans for the referendum later this year with potentially elections in late 2010. Do you think there is any chance that the military regime in Burma would let go of the reins if the Burmese people voted in an Opposition party?
3.27
Jason: Past experience suggests no and that's why I'm very sceptical of this announcement. You have to remember that in 1990 there was a free and fair election and that Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won 80% of the vote and the military simply refused to turn power over to her. They refused to recognise the results of the ballot box. All the evidence suggests that the military won't simply roll over and that they want to retain a significant role in the politics of this country. One suggestion from the constitutional commission is that the military should be able to declare a state of emergency ‘at any time' and that would be very worrying and would not represent a major step forward.
Let's not forget, they rounded up innocent monks and ordinary people, these people have been tortured and killed and some of them have been kept in terrible conditions in prisons throughout the country. We still don't know the true extent of the death toll from September.
4.50
Q: How difficult is it for people to actually organise in Burma?
4.53
Jason: It's very difficult to hold any kind of protest or demonstration. Demonstrations are banned or prohibited by law, indeed if you want to have a guest stay at your house you have to post a notice on the nearest lamppost, providing information to the police with the details of the person who is staying with you, so it's an incredibly tightly controlled regime.
The monks protesting back in September is enormously significant. They are revered within the country and unlike monks in the West, unlike the way we conceptualise monks, the monks in Burma are not just revered, they are also made up of ordinary people. Ordinary Burmese will at some point in their lives spend time in a retreat, in a monastery and to a lesser extent in a nunnery. So it's not out of the ordinary for a young student to finish university and spend a year in a monastery and then go into business, or for a businessman to take a career break to spend some time in a monastery. So the monks represent the ordinary people, as well as being an institution in their own right.
6.12
Q: We've spoken a little bit about the Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, can you tell us more about her?
6.19
Jason: She's a remarkable figure, she is the living embodiment of Burma's hope for change and she has enormous appeal within the country. Her struggle has been the struggle of the Burmese people. She has been effectively under house arrest with a brief period in which she was allowed to travel in the country since 1990, so effectively 18 years of house arrest.
She was educated in the UK, she was married to a British journalist who died in 1997 of cancer, and indeed, her story is one of both personal and political tragedy. She is the daughter of the Burmese revolutionary hero Aung San, who led the country to independence in 1947 as well as the fact that when her husband contracted cancer she was unable to visit him and the military regime basically said to her that if she left to be by her husbands side as he died, they would not let her back in, so she was forced to face the choice between staying in Burma and remaining a living symbol of her countries struggle, or going to be at the side of her husband. She chose Burma and her husband died in England and she never saw him again. Indeed, when she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 it was collected for her by her son.
7.51
Q: Well Jason, thanks for explaining the situation in Burma, it's been very illuminating and no doubt we'll speak to you soon.
08.00
Jason: Thank you very much.
Produced by the webteam, with assistance from the e-learning unit.
Dr Jason Abbott
For more information on Dr Abbott's work and research interests, visit his profile page.
