Democracy in Burma?
Bluestocking
Discussion Group (May 2012)
At the Bluestocking discussion
group last Sunday, we discussed the promising chain of events occurring in
Burma/Myanmar at the moment. From a strict military regime to fair elections,
all occurring within the space of 2 years, there’s certainly a change in the
air. The questions these circumstances prompted us to ask were: What led to
this change? And: Is it as wide-sweeping and permanent as people in Burma, and
around the world, are hoping for?
A brief timeline of events can
help to answer some of these questions... though only time will tell if Burma’s
experiment with democracy will continue. (For a more detailed timeline see BBC
news www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12992883
and www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16546688.)
After colonisation by the
British and invasion by the Japanese in WWII, Burma became an Independent nation
in 1948. Following a short spell of democratic governance, the national
government was removed in a military coup, with the subsequent establishment of
a military-backed ‘socialist’ government (by the mid-1970s).
Over the following decades,
human rights abuses and international sanctions left Burma’s populace
economically and politically disempowered. While ties with ASEAN countries and
China kept the national economy afloat, there was discontentment on the ground,
with several significant public protests. The two most well-known of these
protests were in the late-1980s and in the late-2000s. One result of the first
of these ‘anti-government riots’ was the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader
of the opposition party NLD. Aung San Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest (with
brief stints of reprieve) for the next 20 years.
From the late-1980s to the
late-2000s, the Burmese government oscillated between appeasement and
enforcement: with political prisoners, for example, released and re-imprisoned,
often in response to fluctuating international pressure. In late 2007, however,
public sentiment flared again, with anti-government street protests, most
notably by a large contingent of Buddhist monks. A government crackdown ended the demonstrations,
and in 2008 the government published its new constitution, which favoured the
military and barred Aung San Suu Kyi from contesting elections.
In 2010, under the new
constitution, elections were held, and the ruling party claimed a resounding
victory amid wide-spread condemnation of the corrupted electoral process. From
these very unpromising beginnings, though, a change can be seen in the
government’s approach. From 2011 to 2012, the new government and president
Thein Sein released Aung San Suu Kyi, suspended construction of a controversial
dam, freed political prisoners, enacted new labour laws, and began ceasefire
agreements with several rebel groups. Most significantly, as far as the
international media was concerned, the government allowed Aung San Suu Kyi and
the NLD to contest in by-elections, in which they won 43 out of 45 seats.
So where does Burma go from
here? Are these genuine reforms, are they temporary changes to appease
international interests and spark the economy, or is there intern political
power struggles within the government which will determine Burma’s future
reforms? For answers to these questions, we will just have to wait and see. The
NLD is in the government now, but it only holds 43 out of 664 seats. Ceasefires
with the Karen and the Shan appear to be progressing, but there is still little
government commitment to negotiations with the Kachin rebel group. Yet, we have
also seen, over the last few months, some of the most promising changes in
Burma’s undemocratic history- changes that we can only hope will continue.
