Any parties interested in Burma should maintain close ties with Burma’s government leaders and opposition groups alike. Representatives of foreign governments in Burma should talk to generals, democratic activists, and politicians. If they are not familiar with the perspectives of all sides, how will they assist us in finding a mutually acceptable solution to Burma’s problems? The head of a Western diplomatic mission in Rangoon recently returned home after a three-year stay in Burma. Not once did he meet with members of the democratic movement face to face.
Many representatives from Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries have made no effort to contact us either. Why? They have no interest in what we want for our people? They do not want to know what kind of relationships—immediate and future—we want to establish between their countries and ours?
The international community needs a wake up call, if we're going to come up with an effective strategy to help Burma, we're not going to do it without the help of Burmese democratic leaders. Sitting around and telling the SPDC to start talking to the opposition is just empty rhetoric, when we ourselves aren't even engaging the democratic leaders in a constructive dialogue. But then, those countries who are supporting the 'constructive engagement', and who are in the best position to bring about change, benefit just as much from having the SPDC in power. Thailand might not like the refugees, or the drugs flowing across its borders, but Thaksin certianly likes the power and profit he's getting from the hydroelectric dams and oil pipelines.
Most directives for change from the outside are aimed at the generals, and rely on their compliance for any benefit. These are people who have by all rights committed crimes against humanity, and we are relying on them to listen to us? We're the ones who need to start listening, and not to the SPDC.
The international community has built up a list of symbolic gestures the generals can make, namely, releasing Aung San Suu Kyi, and ending the armed conflicts in the ethnic states. The SPDC has signed cease-fire agreements with all but a handful of the armed struggle groups. They did so by buying off the leaders with the rights to produce opium and heroin without penalty, and to tax the locals. Arguably, peace under the SPDC is no better than life under a civil war. And yet, without understanding the situation in the ethnic states, their relationship to Burma, and their own sense of identity, outsiders would casually deny them the right of armed struggle as a legitimate tool of the oppressed. The SPDC can easily manipulate this situation to earn brownie points. Its the same with Aung San Suu Kyi - if they ever release here, it will probably be done after their sham constitution has guaranteed them some right to power and her release will be a political gesture to win points without actually posing a threat to them. If we would actually engage the resistance leaders in a constructive dialogue, then maybe the international community and ASEAN's efforts wouldn't be so disjointed. And the SPDC might not be able to play their games so easily.