04-20-2006, 12:24 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Building bridges with Myanmar </b>
Pioneer.com
G Parthasarathy
India's determination to follow an independent policy on issues of its national security was clearly manifested when President APJ Abdul Kalam undertook a State visit to Myanmar within a week of the visit of President George Bush to India. While the US and India now have an unprecedented measure of understanding on developing a stable balance of power in Asia, their approaches to relations with Myanmar have been radically different. While the US has sought to isolate and condemn the military rulers of Myanmar and has used sanctions on Myanmar exports as a part of its coercive diplomacy, India has joined hands with its ASEAN partners in South East Asia to seek to quietly persuade Myanmar's rulers to progressively move towards more representative Government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Myanmar President General Than Shwe in 2004, that while the "transition to democracy was complex" it nevertheless "offered the best possibilities of addressing problems both of political stability as well as economic development". President Kalam's approach, while in Myanmar, was similarly nuanced.
In a scholarly analysis in his book on "India and South East Asia" one of our foremost experts on South East Asia, diplomat and former Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry Sudhir Devare has devoted an entire chapter entitled, "Myanmar: <b>A challenging Frontier" to the crucial role of Myanmar in India's quest for "strategic convergence" with its South East Asian partners. Myanmar shares a 1,600-km border with four of our insurgency prone Northeastern States - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Mr Devare describes how, as a result of astute Indian diplomacy, the Myanmar army has cooperated with India to fight Indian insurgent groups like ULFA, NSCN(K) and PLA in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004. This has been of crucial importance to India, because Bangladesh becomes hyperactive in aiding separatist and Islamic extremist groups to operate in India, whenever a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led Government assumes office in Dhaka. Members of these groups are infiltrated from Bangladesh into India through Myanmar.</b>
<b>Attempting to isolate Myanmar had disastrous consequences for internal security in our Northeastern States between 1988 and 1993. Narcotics smuggling and cross border insurgencies increased rapidly. Moreover, China moved into the vacuum created by external ostracism and established strong economic and military ties with Myanmar. Things changed for the better after New Delhi undertook a process of extensive economic, diplomatic and regional engagement with Myanmar</b>. India has provided assistance to Myanmar in areas like telecommunications, Information Technology, higher education and in setting up a Remote Sensing and Data Processing Centre. India has emerged as Myanmar's largest export market, because Myanmar has the potential to meet India's ever growing requirements for pulses and beans. But the border trade that Myanmar has with India lags far behind its border trade with China. Like China, we need to adopt liberal and simple border trade practices and procedures. Such trade practices can lead to the requirements of our Northeastern states for agricultural products like rice being met by relatively cheap imports from Myanmar.
With Myanmar having become a member of ASEAN, New Delhi's earlier fears of the country becoming a satellite of China have eased. Myanmar is, in fact, set to become the "land bridge" linking India with the economically dynamic economies of its ASEAN partners. After having constructed a road linking the township of Tamu on the Manipur border to the railhead in Kalemyo, India is now discussing the prospects of linking this road network through the ancient Myanmar Kingdom of Pagan to Mae Sot in Thailand. India has extended credits modernising the Myanmar Railways and supplied rails and rolling stock apart from assisting Myanmar in upgrading the Yangon-Mandalay sector of its railways. What is being envisaged is a trans-Asian rail network that would link Hanoi with New Delhi. With Bangladesh denying transit facilities for our Northeastern States, the construction of an inter-nodal road-water highway through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal is under consideration. This project will provide Mizoram and the Northeastern States access to the sea, bypassing Bangladesh. New Delhi's efforts to make Myanmar a key hub for its "Look East" policies have included the formation of the BIMSTEC Grouping comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, which brings together littoral and hinterland countries of the Bay of Bengal, to promote regional cooperation in trade, transportation, communications, counter-terrorism and energy.
<b>Over the past two years, our Petroleum Ministry had been working on an impractical proposal of building a pipeline through Bangladesh to transport gas to India from an offshore project off the Rakhine Coast of Myanmar, in which both ONGC and GAIL have equity stakes. This proposal was ill conceived as Myanmar has deep misgivings of Bangladesh soil being used to promote Muslim separatism in its Rakhine Province</b>. Further, Bangladesh was placing impossible demands on India on extraneous issues like trade concessions as a precondition for participating in the project. With India dithering on how it would transport the much needed natural gas, Myanmar concluded an agreement that would enable it to supply this gas to China. President Kalam's visit has resulted in a Myanmar expressing its readiness to consider alternative Indian proposals for transportation and utilisation of the offshore gas to India. The new Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would be well-advised to finalise proposals for transporting this gas to Tripura through a Myanmar-India corridor that bypasses Bangladesh. New Delhi should also expeditiously implement the proposal for the Tamanthi hydro-electric project on the Chindwin river in Myanmar that can provide 1200 mw of power for States like Nagaland and Manipur.
No military Government whether in Pakistan, Indonesia or Myanmar relinquishes power suddenly. The SPDC Government in Myanmar has constituted a "National Convention" to draft a new constitution. Rather than joining a Western chorus of condemnation, India would be well-advised, as Mr Sudhir Devare suggests, cooperating with Asian powers like China, Japan, South Korea and the members of ASEAN, to encourage moves towards more representative Government in Myanmar. After the Pakistan army has ruled the country for over half a century, Gen Musharraf has set up a National Security Council that will give his army an institutional say in national governance, for the foreseeable future. Myanmar can, at best, be expected to evolve constitutionally, towards greater democracy, in a similar manner.
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Pioneer.com
G Parthasarathy
India's determination to follow an independent policy on issues of its national security was clearly manifested when President APJ Abdul Kalam undertook a State visit to Myanmar within a week of the visit of President George Bush to India. While the US and India now have an unprecedented measure of understanding on developing a stable balance of power in Asia, their approaches to relations with Myanmar have been radically different. While the US has sought to isolate and condemn the military rulers of Myanmar and has used sanctions on Myanmar exports as a part of its coercive diplomacy, India has joined hands with its ASEAN partners in South East Asia to seek to quietly persuade Myanmar's rulers to progressively move towards more representative Government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Myanmar President General Than Shwe in 2004, that while the "transition to democracy was complex" it nevertheless "offered the best possibilities of addressing problems both of political stability as well as economic development". President Kalam's approach, while in Myanmar, was similarly nuanced.
In a scholarly analysis in his book on "India and South East Asia" one of our foremost experts on South East Asia, diplomat and former Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry Sudhir Devare has devoted an entire chapter entitled, "Myanmar: <b>A challenging Frontier" to the crucial role of Myanmar in India's quest for "strategic convergence" with its South East Asian partners. Myanmar shares a 1,600-km border with four of our insurgency prone Northeastern States - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Mr Devare describes how, as a result of astute Indian diplomacy, the Myanmar army has cooperated with India to fight Indian insurgent groups like ULFA, NSCN(K) and PLA in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004. This has been of crucial importance to India, because Bangladesh becomes hyperactive in aiding separatist and Islamic extremist groups to operate in India, whenever a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led Government assumes office in Dhaka. Members of these groups are infiltrated from Bangladesh into India through Myanmar.</b>
<b>Attempting to isolate Myanmar had disastrous consequences for internal security in our Northeastern States between 1988 and 1993. Narcotics smuggling and cross border insurgencies increased rapidly. Moreover, China moved into the vacuum created by external ostracism and established strong economic and military ties with Myanmar. Things changed for the better after New Delhi undertook a process of extensive economic, diplomatic and regional engagement with Myanmar</b>. India has provided assistance to Myanmar in areas like telecommunications, Information Technology, higher education and in setting up a Remote Sensing and Data Processing Centre. India has emerged as Myanmar's largest export market, because Myanmar has the potential to meet India's ever growing requirements for pulses and beans. But the border trade that Myanmar has with India lags far behind its border trade with China. Like China, we need to adopt liberal and simple border trade practices and procedures. Such trade practices can lead to the requirements of our Northeastern states for agricultural products like rice being met by relatively cheap imports from Myanmar.
With Myanmar having become a member of ASEAN, New Delhi's earlier fears of the country becoming a satellite of China have eased. Myanmar is, in fact, set to become the "land bridge" linking India with the economically dynamic economies of its ASEAN partners. After having constructed a road linking the township of Tamu on the Manipur border to the railhead in Kalemyo, India is now discussing the prospects of linking this road network through the ancient Myanmar Kingdom of Pagan to Mae Sot in Thailand. India has extended credits modernising the Myanmar Railways and supplied rails and rolling stock apart from assisting Myanmar in upgrading the Yangon-Mandalay sector of its railways. What is being envisaged is a trans-Asian rail network that would link Hanoi with New Delhi. With Bangladesh denying transit facilities for our Northeastern States, the construction of an inter-nodal road-water highway through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal is under consideration. This project will provide Mizoram and the Northeastern States access to the sea, bypassing Bangladesh. New Delhi's efforts to make Myanmar a key hub for its "Look East" policies have included the formation of the BIMSTEC Grouping comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, which brings together littoral and hinterland countries of the Bay of Bengal, to promote regional cooperation in trade, transportation, communications, counter-terrorism and energy.
<b>Over the past two years, our Petroleum Ministry had been working on an impractical proposal of building a pipeline through Bangladesh to transport gas to India from an offshore project off the Rakhine Coast of Myanmar, in which both ONGC and GAIL have equity stakes. This proposal was ill conceived as Myanmar has deep misgivings of Bangladesh soil being used to promote Muslim separatism in its Rakhine Province</b>. Further, Bangladesh was placing impossible demands on India on extraneous issues like trade concessions as a precondition for participating in the project. With India dithering on how it would transport the much needed natural gas, Myanmar concluded an agreement that would enable it to supply this gas to China. President Kalam's visit has resulted in a Myanmar expressing its readiness to consider alternative Indian proposals for transportation and utilisation of the offshore gas to India. The new Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would be well-advised to finalise proposals for transporting this gas to Tripura through a Myanmar-India corridor that bypasses Bangladesh. New Delhi should also expeditiously implement the proposal for the Tamanthi hydro-electric project on the Chindwin river in Myanmar that can provide 1200 mw of power for States like Nagaland and Manipur.
No military Government whether in Pakistan, Indonesia or Myanmar relinquishes power suddenly. The SPDC Government in Myanmar has constituted a "National Convention" to draft a new constitution. Rather than joining a Western chorus of condemnation, India would be well-advised, as Mr Sudhir Devare suggests, cooperating with Asian powers like China, Japan, South Korea and the members of ASEAN, to encourage moves towards more representative Government in Myanmar. After the Pakistan army has ruled the country for over half a century, Gen Musharraf has set up a National Security Council that will give his army an institutional say in national governance, for the foreseeable future. Myanmar can, at best, be expected to evolve constitutionally, towards greater democracy, in a similar manner.
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