Why is the UK so silent on Burma's human rights abuses?

 July 18, 2013

Telegraph

Michael Harris

President of Myanmar, Thein Sein, left, in 10 Downing Street Photo: EPA

Unless the Foreign Secretary ups the pressure on Burma the apparatus of the military dictatorship will remain, writes Michael Harris

 If you want to know how much has changed in Burma since the much-vaulted transition, try and put on a punk gig in the capital, Rangoon. It’ll take two months and require the signatures of eight bureaucrats from varying levels of government. You may never get permission. But to punks in Burma, the idea they may even be able to play publicly at all is progress.

This is transition Burma, a country full of contradictions where the military no longer hold captive Aung San Suu Kyi and have released some of the thousands of her fellow political prisoners – yet the full apparatus of the military state still exists. The worry is, while the UK and US drop sanctions and William Hague took the time to congratulate President Thein Sein in London for the progress made, little is being done to keep this progress on track. With the army implicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims and the country on the verge of widespread unrest, Burma is merely a few steps away from a full blown military dictatorship.

The transition to civilian rule is supposed to be making steady progress, yet power lies in the same place – with the military. As one journalist told us, “the generals have only changed their suits”. The sight of Aung San Suu Kyi alongside 43 of her National League for Democracy compatriots elected to Parliament in 2012 was hugely symbolic. But it is no more than symbolism for the League to hold an eleventh of the seats in the lower house.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), a front for the old military junta, still controls all the main institutions of state. The USDP controls the presidency, nearly half the seats in the lower house and over half the seats in the upper house of the Burmese parliament. When the seats directly appointed by the military are included, the USDP has an overwhelming majority in both chambers. The majority of these USDP parliamentarians are former army officers or government officials with strong military connections. The lifting of economic sanctions will prompt new trade with Burma, but the West will be dealing directly with these generals who control both the state and many of the major economic interests.

So it’s surprising to see that even with power lying with the military and its associates, Burma is still far freer than it was. The generals have responded positively to the tough sanctions imposed by the EU and US. The last time Index visited Burma in 2010, our researcher had to go undercover and feared for his liberty. Before meeting dissidents, he would be taken to at least two separate locations by go-betweens.