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Benedict Rogers
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Cover photo: Buddhist monks held a protest calling to free Aung San Suu Kyi in front of the UN office in Bangkok. © Run-
groj Yongrit/epa/Corbis
Next Steps on Burma:
Squaring Interests and Values in Developing
Western Approaches to South-East Asia’s Most
Troubled State
February 2011
Benedict Rogers1
1
Benedict Rogers is East Asia team leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and author of two books on Burma, Than
Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant (2010) and A Land Without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma’s Karen People (2004).
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
W
hile the past half-century has witnessed claimed that 92.4 percent of the people voted in
remarkable advances in democratization favor of the proposed constitution and there was
in Asia, Burma stands in dramatic a 99 percent voter turnout. It was, however, illegal
exception to this trend. Along with North to criticize the constitution-making process, and
Korea, Burma remains Asia’s most tyrannical anyone campaigning against the constitution in the
and oppressive regime. Ruled since 1962 by a referendum could be sentenced to between five and
succession of military juntas, Burma (also known as twenty years in jail. The constitution guarantees the
“Myanmar” following the regime’s name change in military 25 percent of the parliamentary seats, and
1989) remains an isolated dictatorship. The ruling grants the military immunity for their crimes. The
junta has brutally suppressed the movement for election laws issued in 2010 were so restrictive as
democracy, and has conducted a widespread and to make it impossible for the National League for
systematic campaign of persecution against the Democracy (NLD) to register to contest the ballot.
country’s non-Burman ethnic nationalities. The
current regime, the State Peace and Development In terms of press freedom, Reporters Without The regime continues to
Council (SPDC), has one of the worst human rights Borders ranks Burma 171 out of 175 countries, only regard elections as an
records in the world, and its leader, Senior General just above North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, institution to be cynically
Than Shwe, was ranked by Foreign Policy magazine and Iran. The Committee to Protect Journalists manipulated rather than
as the third worst dictator in the world in 2010, just describes Burma as one of the world’s five
embraced.
behind North Korea’s Kim Jong-il and Zimbabwe’s worst jailers of journalists and the worst for
Robert Mugabe. internet bloggers. The U.S. State Department has
categorized Burma as a “Country of Particular
Over 2,100 political prisoners are incarcerated in Concern” for severe religious freedom violations
Burma today. Burma’s democracy leader, Nobel since 1999. Freedom House describes Burma
Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, spent simply as “the worst of the worst.”1
almost 15 years in detention before her release
from house arrest in late 2010. Prisoners of Just as Burma has eschewed Asia’s political
conscience are subjected to horrific torture and progress, it has missed the region’s economic
cruel and degrading conditions. In some cases, dynamism as well. In virtually every global survey
political prisoners have been jailed in prisons of political, press, religious and economic freedom,
hundreds of miles from their families, and denied Burma is ranked among the lowest in the world.
medical treatment. Some have been sentenced to Burma is one of the globe’s five most repressive
extraordinarily long prison terms of 65 years or economies according to the Heritage Foundation/
more. Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom;
is ranked 138 out of 182 countries in the UN
Sadly, the regime continues to regard elections as an Development Program Human Development
institution to be cynically manipulated rather than Index in 2009; and is number 16 in Foreign Policy
embraced. The most recent national elections, held magazine’s Failed States Index, just behind Pakistan
on November 7, 2010, were designed to perpetuate and Haiti and worse than North Korea.
the rule of the military and their cronies, resulting
in little more than a change of uniform. These While Burma remains notorious for its repression
elections were based on a constitution imposed of political freedoms, its discrimination against
through a contrived referendum in the aftermath 1
Freedom House, “Burma Tops ‘Worst of the Worst’ List of
of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, in which the junta Human Rights Violators,” 4 June, 2010.