U.S. Finds Burma Difficult to Tackle

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THE sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months' house arrest in Burma has angered the world and provoked condemnation from all Western nations.

However, the Burmese government believes it was a mild sentence designed to encourage the Obama administration to change its sanctions-based policy of isolating Burma. Underneath the surface, an intense debate is under way in Washington over Burma policy.

Burma is a nation of nearly 60million people, strategically located between China, India and Thailand. The last time it had a democratic election, nearly two decades ago, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won.

The Burmese generals never allowed her to take power. The US and Europe pursue tough sanctions against Burma, Australia applies basically token sanctions and most of Southeast Asia engages with Burma. Burma's big two partners are China and India.

Western isolation of Burma is almost totally ineffective because China, India and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations give Burma everything it needs from the outside world. The Obama administration came to office determined to find a new way forward with Burma. It has conducted a secret dialogue with a senior Burmese general in Beijing and there may also have been a meeting in a Southeast Asian capital.

In this dialogue, the details of which have never been revealed before, the Burmese counselled the Americans to wait for the court verdict on Suu Kyi, saying that it would be a mild sentence and this would help the US move forward. Probably the Burmese do believe that 18 months' house arrest is mild. It is designed, of course, to ensure that Suu Kyi plays no role in next year's election.

The Obama administration will probably persist in its Burma initiative despite Suu Kyi's jailing.

It showcased some of its new policy at the recent ASEAN meeting in Thailand. This involved a careful statement that the US appreciated a recent episode in which the Burmese generals apparently turned back a North Korean vessel loaded with conventional weaponry.

The US message was that if the Burmese could move forward on some human rights and political participation issues, Washington could move in some measure on lifting investment bans and issuing visas for Burmese officials.

This was carefully crafted and born out of three concerns. First, sanctions had achieved nothing and the situation of Burmese civilians had worsened as they were deprived even of Western humanitarian aid. Second, the US -- which is an Asian power in a way that Europe isn't and, in a sense, even Australia isn't -- was becoming somewhat isolated from its ASEAN partners by its unmoving and unfruitful Burma policy.

And, third, there is growing concern in Washington about the relationship between Burma and North Korea. This is not a new concern. Back in 2004, the Americans had a ferocious session with senior Burmese over the junta's secret plan to buy Scud missiles from North Korea. Routinely, the Burmese barter high-quality rice to the North Koreans in exchange for military supplies.

Australian National University professor Des Ball has come up with some disturbing research, based on the testimony of Burmese defectors, to the effect that North Korea may be helping the Burmese build a nuclear reactor in order to acquire nuclear weapons. The country experts in the US State Department and in Australia have tended to pooh-pooh this research, but the intelligence people take it seriously.

It is dangerously consistent with what the North Koreans did with Syria. As far back as 2003, the North Koreans told the Americans they already had nuclear weapons, and if the Americans did not drop their "aggressive attitude" -- that is, did not accept all North Korean positions -- then Pyongyang would expand its nuclear arsenal, test its weapons and spread the technology. So far it is beyond dispute that North Korea has done all three. The reason the Israelis bombed the Syrian reactor in 2007 was that it was about to "go hot", to start operations. That means the Syrians must have had nuclear fuel. It is not clear whether the North Koreans supplied this fuel, as well as the reactor technology, to the Syrians, but North Koreans were certainly photographed inside the Syrian reactor building.

The fact the Syrians got bombed but the Bush administration did not publicly call out the North Koreans over the reactor suggested to Pyongyang that the US red line -- that is, the point at which there is serious US reaction -- was quite permissive.

The ethical debate over sanctions against Burma is very complex. There is no easy option. The Obama administration recognises, as key figures in the Bush administration did, that sanctions alone are not enough. They are not effective and the Burmese problem is not ageing well. The North Korean dimension adds urgency.

As usual in the diverse and complex US system, congress is playing a big role. Despite the strong pro-Suu Kyi sentiment in congress, policy is being driven in part by the Democratic senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, now in Burma. Webb, who was Ronald Reagan's navy secretary in the 1980s, is hawkish by disposition but believes sanctions have not worked and the US needs to effect a reconciliation with Burma as it did with Vietnam.

Next year's election in Burma will be a fraud, but it will produce a nominally civilian government and will be hailed by Burma's neighbours as a significant step forward politically. Naturally, the junta will make sure Suu Kyi and her NLD, and the nation's persecuted ethnic minorities, are isolated from any real power.

Proponents of sanctions concede that widespread economic development would help Burma's situation. But if Western investment bans were lifted now, this would result mainly in big resource projects going ahead, for which the generals would get paid in cash in Swiss bank accounts; the projects would have small employment effects and little of the embourgeoisement that traditionally accompanies low-tech industrial development.

But American policy, always an engine of central change in Asia, is churning.

Greg Sheridan is the Foreign Editor of the Australian.
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