This paper examines the major obstacles preventing political and human rights reform in Myanmar (Burma) following decades of military junta rule. It identifies three primary factors hampering progress: China and Russia's economic interests in Myanmar undermining UN Security Council action; ASEAN's longstanding policy of non-interference despite its potential leverage; and the widespread but inaccurate belief that Myanmar's ruling junta is indifferent to international sanctions. Drawing on reports from Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and news sources from 2006, the paper argues that sanctions and regional pressure from Myanmar's neighbors represent the most viable path to meaningful reform, and that persistence from the international community is essential.
The paper demonstrates effective use of a multi-stakeholder analytical framework. Rather than assigning blame to a single actor, it systematically evaluates the role of the UN, a regional bloc (ASEAN), and the target state itself (Myanmar), showing how their intersecting interests create a structural barrier to reform. This approach is characteristic of international relations analysis and models how to build a complex argument from discrete, well-supported claims.
The paper opens with contextual background on Myanmar's political situation and a three-point thesis. It then devotes one section to each obstacle: UN inaction driven by Chinese and Russian economic interests; ASEAN's non-interference policy and its economic consequences; and the junta's responsiveness to international pressure. The conclusion synthesizes all three threads and reaffirms the central argument that sustained pressure — through sanctions and regional diplomacy — offers the best hope for change.
Since 1988, the people of Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma, have suffered under the leadership of a repressive military junta. The group, which has shown it will stop at nothing to retain power, exhibits such isolationist tendencies that it relocated the country's capital from Rangoon to a remote jungle construction site called Naypyidaw (Pepper, 2006).
Reports of human rights abuses in Myanmar are rampant. The current regime has aggressively oppressed and relocated ethnic minorities, such as the Karens, and many minority groups have retreated into the dangerous and unsafe conditions of Myanmar's jungles rather than face the dangers of the oppressive regime (Pepper, 2006).
The ruling junta in Myanmar has also aggressively suppressed political dissidence and has essentially eliminated the country's democratic processes. The last free presidential elections were held in Myanmar in 1990, and after the main opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi prevailed, the junta refused to relinquish power (Shea, 2006). Further, Aung San Suu Kyi spent many of the succeeding years under house arrest and under the threat of assassination, which was nearly realized in a brazen attack linked to the government in 2003 (World Factbook, 2006).
The current conditions in Myanmar not only force residents to live in fear, but have also brought about economic sanctions and reductions in foreign investment that have hurt the population's standard of living. The situation in Myanmar has received global attention, but bringing political and human rights reforms to this rogue nation has proven difficult. Arguably, progress has been most hampered by the following three factors:
First, China and Russia have discouraged action by the United Nations because of their economic interests in Myanmar. Second, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), despite demonstrating the potential to influence Myanmar, has adopted a policy of non-interference. Third, government and non-government entities persist with the inaccurate belief that the ruling junta does not care about sanctions.
In the end, there may be no easy solution to the Myanmar crisis. But if political and human rights reforms are ever to occur, sanctions and influence from Myanmar's neighbors are the most likely agents of change.
One might expect the United Nations Security Council to play a critical role in encouraging democracy and human rights reforms in Myanmar, as these are core components of the UN's mission. In fact, the UN made recent attempts to encourage such reforms.
In 2006, the United States brought Myanmar before the UN Security Council for its record of human rights abuses, including the repression of minorities. Security Council members voted to place Myanmar on its permanent agenda — a first step toward sanctions (Shea, 2006). The U.S. and the European Union already maintained trade sanctions against Myanmar, and there was clear logic in asking the Security Council to take action that could lead toward global sanctions (Pepper, 2006). In the six years since the UN assigned human rights inspectors to monitor the situation in Myanmar, they had never once been allowed into the country (UN: States must cooperate, 2006). Clearly, Myanmar had thumbed its nose at the UN — and not without reason.
Ultimately, it will prove difficult for the UN to take any harsh stance on Myanmar because two important Security Council members, China and Russia, have large financial interests there. China conducts approximately one billion dollars a year in trade with Myanmar, and other nations — including Russia, India, Thailand, and South Korea — have been active in business ventures in the country (Pepper, 2006). As one example, China, India, and South Korea have all participated in a plan to develop natural gas fields off the coast of Myanmar (Pepper, 2006).
It was precisely these economic interests that led China and Russia to vigorously oppose placing Myanmar on the UN Security Council's permanent agenda, even though Myanmar has never allowed UN human rights inspectors into the country and has a troubling record on human rights and democracy. By allowing economic interests to blind them to abuses in Myanmar, China and Russia are effectively financing repression and human rights violations, according to Human Rights Watch (Burma: UN must act, 2006).
Regrettably, as long as China and Russia sit on the UN Security Council and maintain economic interests in Myanmar, it will be difficult for the UN to serve as a driving force for change (Myanmar: Sanctions, 2004). The real hope is that China and Russia may one day recognize that their current positions are somewhat short-sighted. After all, a more politically and economically stable Myanmar might prove to be a better long-term economic partner. This is a logical conclusion that China and Russia may eventually reach — but for now, it does not appear imminent.
It is too early to tell whether any legitimate winds of change are blowing in Myanmar, and, at any rate, change cannot come soon enough for the millions of Myanmar residents who have lived too long under an oppressive regime. If political and human rights changes are ever to occur, a number of obstacles must first be overcome.
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