There can be no doubt that Myanmar is currently undergoing an important political transition. In most cases where such a political transition occurs, it is accompanied by a significant process of “national reconciliation”, especially where politics have been profoundly divided and polarised in the past. A genuine process of “national reconciliation” is now happening for the first time in Myanmar in at least 20 years, targeting different segments of the population. The collective efforts of all Burmese, at home and abroad, and their supporters, are being encouraged in this process of national reconciliation, and their contributions have the potential to generate vital practical benefits for the people of Myanmar in a relatively short space of time. The process also has implications for the international community.
The idea of using national reconciliation to help achieve this goal of bringing practical benefits is much more than a romantic or sentimental goal. Politically, as well as practically, it could be an absolutely essential step if efforts towards reform are to succeed and be sustained. There is a substantial, but regrettably still incomplete, consensus about working towards a collective contribution to this national reconciliation. Many examples can be found of the concrete benefits that might help the process of transformation that everyone aspires to.
There is ample evidence that Myanmar’s current transition depends critically on the human talents available to devise and implement the change programs the Myanmar Government has adopted. It is not hard to see why this should be so, when account is taken of the fifty years of enforced isolation and conformity under Ne Win (1962-88) and the State Peace and Development Council (1988-2011), which essentially left Myanmar behind even its small ASEAN neighbours Laos and Cambodia in some aspects of socio-economic development. Myanmar’s leaders on all sides have publicly acknowledged their worries about the current capacity building deficit. Aid donors are concerned about Myanmar’s ability to absorb the increased levels of aid that are already being foreshadowed.
One way to overcome the large gap in human resource capacity is for overseas Burmese to return to help achieve changes, as happened in other ASEAN countries like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. By and large, there are no longer compelling reasons for Burmese living overseas to fear going “home”, and some high-profile Burmese have already done so.
Note: This New Mandala post is based on a presentation to the Burma Medical Association (Australia) “Building Bridges” Seminar for “Strengthening Collaboration and Building the Collective Contribution of Overseas Burmese Health Professionals to Maternal & Child Health in Myanmar/Burma”, 10-11 April 2012, Sydney.
The challenge of national reconciliation
“National reconciliation” can be defined as a process that involves all the different groups that make up a “nation” wherever they are located, and whatever ethnic, socio-economic and political position they occupy. Focusing on matters of national purpose and a national agenda can help mobilise support for the process, thereby strengthening it. Of course, this is a “political” statement, although it is arguably something on which a strong and resilient consensus among all groups is achievable.
In Myanmar, national reconciliation is a “home-grown” product; it is not being facilitated or imposed from outside; while the United Nations is supportive, it does not play a direct role; the burden of responsibility falls directly on national political leaders. So it is no surprise that Myanmar’s current political leaders views on “reconciliation” are almost identical. Their views include the following statements:
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi:
тАв Myanmar needs: “a more inclusive political process” to achieve national reconciliation which is something that is “in everybody’s interests”
тАв A genuine political dialogue with all ethnic groups is essential for national reconciliation.
President Thein Sein:
тАв “Releasing prisoners of conscience is an important step for advancing national reconciliation” (March 2012)
тАв “Confidence is very important for national reconciliation in our country.”
тАв “The expectation of ethnic groups is to get equal rights for all. Equal standards are also the wish of our government”
тАв “Ceasefires are needed on both sides first for political dialogue… We all have to work so our ethnic youths who held guns stand tall holding laptops.”
The August 2011 meeting between President Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in itself was an important step for national reconciliation. “We should all work together,” Ko Ko Hlaing, Political Advisor to President Thein Sein, said after the meeting.
The new Myanmar Government seems to be slowly making progress in its negotiations with ethnic groups, and most recently representatives from the Karen national Union and the government (and, separately, Aung San Suu Kyi) met again, inside Myanmar. Realistically, such negotiations and such reconciliation will take some time; it will not happen overnight, or just through a piece of paper. Mutual trust is essential, and for the first time in many years, we are seeing signs of growing trust.
Also needed are satisfactory arrangements to bring home displaced people along the border of Myanmar and at present located in Thailand. Some attempts to return these people were made in the past, but did not work. These people cannot be abandoned, but their trust in the authorities (Myanmar and Thai) needs to be restored. It should be possible to do this successfully. Remember the example of thousands of cross-border returnees in the cases of Cambodia (370,000 people) and later in Laos.
Political Leaders’ Messages to the Burmese diaspora
On 17 August 2011 President Thein Sein for the first time issued a public invitation to the Burmese diaspora to return to Myanmar to contribute to national building. He said:
тАв Any individuals and organizations in the nation that have different views from the government should not take account of disagreements and we invite them to work with us for common goals in the national interests. We will make reviews to make sure that Myanmar citizens living abroad for some reasons can return home if they have not committed any crimes.
тАв The targets, he said are: “Everyone who is honest and good-hearted loves their homeland. They want their country to enjoy prosperity and to live in amity and unity. And they have strong attachment to their country and own people, and build a peaceful and prosperous society. That is our common ground. I would like to urge all to work hard together based on the common ground in order that our country will be able to stand tall as a peaceful and modern one in the international community.”
For the first time the new Myanmar Government has followed up by sending Railway Minister Aung Min (the government’s chief negotiator with ethnic communities inside Myanmar) to Bangkok to meet exile groups in February 2012. There are already some examples or high-profile overseas Burmese who have returned to make their contributions include: Zaw Oo, former Director of Burma Fund, Washington; Dr Thant Myint-U, formerly based in New York, now resident in Bangkok, but working as a Director of the LIFT multi-donor assistance program and spending long periods in Myanmar.
тАв Other examples include visits to Myanmar for the first time by the prominent exile media leaders Aung Zaw from The Irrawaddy, Aye Chan Naing from Democratic Voice of Burma (whose exile publications were formerly banned!); it seems that some of these journalist/proprietors (such as Democratic Voice of Burma – based in Thailand and Norway, and Mizzima News – based in India) will be making their contributions by setting up in-country publications.
Aung San Suu Kyi has also publicly supported the idea of exiles returning to make such a contribution to the task on national building. In an important message to the April 2012 Burma Medical Association (Australia) seminar in Sydney, she asked BMAA members to “help in any way they could”. She did not impose any restrictions on this. She did not mention “sanctions”. This has always been her policy, but she is now indicating that she believes that the time and circumstances have come when it is possible.
Why is there an important role the Burmese diaspora?
It is natural in a home-grown reconciliation process, that voluntary contributions should be sought from all those who would like to assist the process of re-building the nation. There could be as many as three million Burmese living overseas at the moment, perhaps more. (This is half the population of Laos.) They have enormous talents and skills that they can contribute, many of which are missing or under-developed in Myanmar today.
Even in Australia there are now probably 26,000-30,000 people who were “born in Burma”. In recent years, this has been one of the fastest growing Asian communities in Australia, due to the numbers coming under humanitarian resettlement (especially Karen and Rohingya). The 2006 Australian census – recorded approx 13,000 “born in Burma” (Note: Australia’s 2011 Census data are not yet released). However, Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship data shows that between the 2006 Census, and 31 December 2010, there were 8,847 permanent arrivals from Burma. In other words, the Burmese community in Australia increased by 42 per cent in just over four years (2006-10). According to additional Department of Immigration and Citizenship data, arrivals from Burma in 2010-11 were 4,000 (c.f. Lao 2,000; Cambodia 8,000; Vietnam 54,000).
Finding the best contribution from overseas
What kind of contributions by exiles from Burma might be valued in Myanmar? Sectors such as:
тАв Financial system regulation and management;
тАв Judicial system: prosecutors, judges/magistrates, court officers;
тАв Setting up a proper national environmental protection framework and regulations;
тАв Social workers and counselling services, but there are many, many others.
In medicine, speakers at the Sydney seminar suggested many practical ideas, such as a establishing an integrated emergency management system, and a national pathology and diagnostic services regime. The other important area, which needs to be assigned higher priority, is mental health, something that truly values individual human rights, and where a number of overseas Burmese hold qualifications.
Delivering strengthening programs effectively
Strengthening institutions that are reforming, and building under-developed human resources capacities are not only badly needed, but are also vital ways of trying to ensure that reforms in Myanmar cannot be reversed. It may be important to strengthen both the government and non-government sectors. So international and national (Myanmar) Non-Government Organisations obviously have an important role in implementing such programs effectively and ethically on the ground in Myanmar. INGO’s will need reliable and dedicated partners from Myanmar’s growing NGO community; the Myanmar Medical Association, for example, is already known and respected by Australian NGOs.
One can envisage a pattern of triangular collaboration, with donors and sources of expertise pairing up with recipient organisations, often with the inter-mediation of a facilitator or catalyst. The ANU is trying to act as a catalyst in this way, encouraging its outstanding scholars to travel to Myanmar for educational and practical academic purposes and seeking ways to invite Myanmar scholars to Canberra.
The Australian Government has now introduced a special visa for “refugees” who have not taken out Australian citizenship but who wish to return temporarily to their country of birth. The “Resident Return Visa” – is a permanent visa for current or former Australian permanent residents. According to the official explanation, “This visa allows you to leave and enter Australia as often as you want, within the validity period of the visa, while maintaining your status as a permanent resident.” In 2010 Department of Immigration & Citizenship data on permanent returnees did not mention Burma, even though figures under 10 were included. (Highest number of returnees were from the UK, New Zealand and China; after that Vietnam was only 1,300; and Cambodians 169, of whom 115 had been in Australia more than 5 years.) It should be possible to put “Myanmar/Burma” on the map here as well in the future.
Concluding remarks
The fact that the Burma Medical Association, Australia, could host such an ambitious, wide-ranging and enthusiastically supported global seminar, is strong evidence for the case that the collective efforts of all Burmese, at home and abroad, and their supporters, can be part of this process of national reconciliation. It also demonstrates some of the specific potential for generating untold practical benefits for the people of Myanmar in a relatively short space of time. The seminar was impressive as a brilliant model which other groups inside and outside Myanmar could follow.
Trevor Wilson is Visiting Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. He is a former Australian Ambassador to Myanmar.
What a well articulated article, highlighting the desperate essentials that encompass the very basic to the higher order needs to a better Myanmar’s citizenry future.
Thank you for delineating Ne Win isolationist period that dismissed and dispersed the Know-How that were educated in all necessary fields by the West through exchanges and the subsequent very West over zealous effort to punish SPDC set back at least 5 more generations of will be Know-How.
The good news is the frameworks for every aspect to a democratic Myanmar is still intact.
And desperately asking to be strengthen and be applied effectively.
Whether in Law/Education, Economics, Medicine and other essentials toward a vibrant citizenry in every respect.
The past policy of the West is what shaped Myanmar towards present quagmire.
Repeat or prolonging the same mistake might permanently destroy those very framework.
Without which N. Korean like destiny await.
Especially now that N Korean know and willing to persuade Myanmar to be their main resource in every respect, in order to continue their very best at being N. Korea.
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I would like to know the source of your quotes from President Thein Sein, as I think that he has always refered to national “reconsolidation” rather than “reconciliation”. The New Light of Myanmar’s reproduction of the President’s first anniversary speech to parliament on March 1 this year is the most recent example of the President focusing on reconsolidation. In the context of Burma/Myanmar, “reconsolidation” is associated with overcoming supposed threats to the disintegration of the union, whereas “reconciliation” is associated not only with rapprochement between the constituent nations of the state but also the promotion of truth and justice for victims of human rights abuse.
I suggest that this distinction undermines the author’s assertion that the views of Aung San Suu Kyi and the President on reconciliation are almost identical. There are indeed substantive reform and peace processes in motion, but I suggest that national reconciliation is not yet on the agenda.
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Apart from a few wet ears, nobody trusts Thein Sein. Any one left now should see a psychiatrist as he has repeated and unashamedly shown that he can bleat rubbish like Myit Sone Dam stoppage and stopping the Kachin war and all sorts of craps for lies. He is just a speaker for his true masters as Mr Wilson understands very well.
Even though the desperate public are clinging onto Aung San Suu Kyi as an only hope of liberation from al sorts of repression and giving her undue credit for the sudden degree of release of pressure in urban areas, unless there is tangible progress, the tide can easily turn as popular opinion is fickle as in George W Bush being the most popular and the worse popular president in his own lifetime of presidency.
Again although average Burmese couldn’t care less about Kachin deaths, they do take notice of the fact that Thein Sein or whoever controlling the country is killing their own people for the Chinese. And all are conscious that Than Shwe is a million time more powerful than currently fronting clowns all of whom are always rushing to lick Than Shwe’s good-for nothing grandson’s boots. All these are visible in spite of Aung San Suu Kyi’s exhortation otherwise.
Majority Burmese of these statistics in the article are in Thailand as sweatshop workers or whores, same in Malaysia. Some, only some, other countries do have a lot of people with technical know-how. But a large proportion of them may donate some money for nostalgic value but would never go back or have any association, a lot of them will go back to join the carpet baggers in hordes along with some companies advised by some ex-ambassadors from a few countries.
A lot of people who can really help and want to help will always be on a look out to do so but would not do it until Aung San Suu Kyi , who has done a 180 turn and kicked a lot of people in the gut doing so, has shown that she is at least something more than Thein Sein’s publicist.
Even the named gentlemen of repute running various celebrated websites will require true change of law to protect them rather than business as usual of “released at the President’s pleasure” because even though they have been crowing the man’s extensive quality they understand he is a hollow man and would still prefer long distance relationship when their own lives are concerned.
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I thank Duncan for his comments. My ultimate basis for asserting President Thein Sein’s linking of the release of political prisoners with national reconciliation is the presidential decree for the major release of prisoners in January 2012. As reported in the New Light of Myanmar, this says: “The President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar granted amnesty to 651 male and female prisoners …with the aim of ensuring stability and eternal peace of the State, fostering national reconciliation, enabling them to participate in the political process, and on humanitarian grounds and turning them into the citizens to participate through whatever way they can in the nation-building tasks by realizing the magnanimity of the State.” I am tracking down the March 2012 quote I used.
My argument is not based on his use of one word on one occasion. NLM is not always accurate in its translations anyway. However, many reports from The Irrawaddy and Mizima News (who are not especially positive about Thein Sein) refer to Thein Sein seeking “national reconciliation” when he does not always seem to have used that phrase.
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Shall we settle for the middle way between Trevor Wilson’s gushing endorsement cheered on by plan B and the rather rambling rant by Ohn?
For one thing, we haven’t actually witnessedthe significant and genuine process of “national reconciliation” that TW appeared to have convinced himself readily except the ceasefires which do not seem to hold in any consistent manner casting doubt as to whether the ‘democratically elected’ president is really in control of the military which presumably takes its orders only from the NDSC (National Defense and Security Council) and does not honour the remit of the parliamentary committee set up to implement ‘national reconciliation’ . Such highly publicised peace parleys have in Burma an unfortunate track record of merely being the military regime’s tactical retreats in order to buy time and wriggle out of a crisis. Grasshopper TS (Than Shwe/Thein Sein) has been a very good student of the great Sensei Ne Win.
Thein Sein can indulge in plenty of platitudes and lip service (no change there really) in hitherto taboo subjects too for now and will go through the motions while this new found permissiveness needs to soldier on a bit until they achieve their objectives. Seems like it was Kyaw Hsan who first uttered the word reconciliation instead of reconsolidation at a press conference last summer.
We all know it wasn’t Moses who created the relatively recent phenomenon of the Burmese diaspora, and most of these wayward and willful erstwhile citizens of Burma will return home like a shot at the first promising opportunity. There is no doubt they can and will contribute to the greater good of the country and help in its take off phase through to catching up with the rest of the world and not just Singapore which seems to be the favourite model. And yes, those sweatshop and sex workers in Thailand may find gainful employment back home in the boom expected by all and sundry instead of doing the same kind of work as second class citizens.
Whatever the real agenda is behind the current state of affairs in Burma, it has qualitatively changed the setting aimed at creating an economic climate and framework conducive to international capital through unavoidable political reforms albeit fundamentally ensuring continued military domination of the nation’s political and economic life.
It is therefore incumbent upon all of us both domestic and international players to make sure the regime stays locked into the reform process until it finds a U turn not only impossible to make but detrimental to their own selfish interests.
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Ko Moe Aung
How about follow up with some specifics to your endorsement for the middle ground?
Does the Buddha pointing East need to be explained?
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plan B,
The prophesying Buddha on Mandalay Hill is pointing south. Perhaps you mean China and N Korea to stoke up Western anxieties.
And the middle way here is the lesser of two evils, a good compromise deal and depends how you play it from here on in. Don’t expect a level playing field. If the opposition wants one, it’s down to them to make it so. Shall I leave the specifics to plodders and one club golfers like you?
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There are a few fundamental problems.
In the unrelated superficial issue, there surely are Australian businesses advised by gentlemen-in-the- know desperate to get in and grab in the imminent lolly scramble with the world’s most supine investment law which will be endorsed by Aung SannSuu Kyi herself reassuring the exploits as “moral” and more importantly the money safe.
The real problem is that there is no so-called reform at all. Step back and look from the distance. The military has calculated these all carefully and it turns out better than their wildest imagination. Because the effusive and consistent endorsement would have come to them as a pleasant surprise just as like a kick in the guts to many previous brethren of Aung San Suu Kyi who never discussed or agreed with her fellow fighters (one simply cannot be sure she realizes there are others involved) simply because she knows best, and she does not seem to need to ask people what they want NOW either. But on this score just about all the participants are the same.
For all the 60 odd million public, most now illiterate and 1% or so on the Internet are simply players in a drama to get directed by the elite, a sort of collective authoritarianism with the very same effect on the public just as much as the Germans under Hitler.
For all those narrow imaginary plans though , eg. like taking the Singapore model, the basic problem is the assumption that Singapore IS a good model or even desirable. (as an aside, Goh Chauk Tong once said none of his childhood friends are in Singapore when he was prime minster. The Burmese are in hordes there now because a large number of Singaporeans who can go out go out just like most of the administrative positions on Burma nowadays are filled by the people from the districts as the Rangoonites either leave the country or get dollar-paying jobs.) For example, the health care in Singapore depends on how much one can pay.
Money unfortunately does not make the world to go around. By now one would think that people around the world would notice that this consumerism based business boom and bust cycles are not sustainable simply because there are always winners and losers. Eg. For the foreign company- say an Australian company- to “gain”, some segment of the population in other part of the world has to lose like in Lynas situation.
Otherwise they would make the reprocessing plant on the Swanson Walk. So long as one person’s benefit is dependent of exploitation of others, it can at least methametically go on until the last one and then what?
Another fundamental problem is the acceptance of the prevailing “democratic” model of the “western democracy” or even as desirable even though all know that there are serious short comings. Once the American Election funds can take “donations” without decleration, it will become more interesting.
It is not required to imitate any model if one wants to do the right thing. In true democracy, the public has a right and opportunity to get truthful, accurate and timely facts ( not like in WMD’s) and honest unbiased assessment and the expression of their own desires. Where there is no conflict of interest between any groups, it is the duty of the government to carry it out and if there are conflict of interest, they are debated, discussed and arbitrated fairly. A model that does not exist anywhere in the world now but used to do so in ancient Indian kingdoms.
There is no doubt immense pressure from around the world and the region as well as from China for Burma to get ” integrated”. This desire looks great as saliently and expertly argued by Thant Myint-U in his rightly much celebrated book. But it neglects the loss of the unmeasurable. Like family connections, traditional culture, social fabric, innocence, caring tradition.
The year Aung San Suu Kyi got married, the previous king of Bhutan introduced the idea of measuring national happiness. Sarkozy commissioned Stiglitz who wrote paper in 2008 but hard to see any evidence he believes that by himself and when people are trouble like David Cameron during the London Riots, they mention it like a desirable but not the thing.
http://www.measuring-well-being.asia/pdf/karmatshiteem.pdf
http://rtm.gnhc.gov.bt/presentations/daytwo/operationalizing_gnh_rtm.pdf
But it is the thing.
Going back to the teachings in religion. One is content only when there is no desire. Getting one always makes you want two.
On the practical point now, this pretend opening up did not lessen the entrenchment of the military but more as we now see open and blatant killing and shellings of the civilian establishment ( Laiza) today unhindered by the world’ s salivating community or colluding “democratic opposition”.
Any willful damage to life, property or livelihood must be stopped immediately.
The investment law must be regarded by the international business community as too good to be true. It must not come into effect.
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Aww…did it upset you too much, plan B?
Rejoice that the West finally realize in Thein Sein a golden opportunity to stop missing out on market share. Rejoice that ASSK now has her match in attracting Western support, forget Zoya Phan, a mere whipper snapper of an ethnic dissident. Rejoice that Thant Myint-U and your good selfless self can cheer openly the regime’s frontman, a Burmese Gorbachev and de Klerk rolled into one.
Never mind the small matter of the Kachin or the massive Shwe Gas gash across the land, it’s only a Burmese Chechnya and Aral Sea/Black Sea. Never mind the family and crony business monopolies, warlordism of militia chiefs twinned with the USDP in all ethnic regions, ongoing land confiscations, persecution of dissident monks, remaining political prisoners etc., since
a rising tide lifts all boats.
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Sorry if things got in a crossfire. #9 was meant to be a riposte to plan B’s #8 in the other thread “Booming Burma”.
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For a new article on the Burmese diaspora, see
Burma in Diaspora: A Preliminary Research Note on the Politics of Burmese Diasporic Communities in Asia
Renaud Egreteau
Free download from http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jsaa
Will be some time before Burmese migrant workers will have the practical benefit of being able to return home from Thailand…
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