10-16-2007, 01:36 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>UPA shrewd on Suu Kyi </b>
Sandhya Jain
After hectic advocacy by Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Burma Campaign, UK, British MPs John Bercow and Baroness Caroline Cox met a Chin group on the India-Myanmar border last month, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Earlier in May 2007, the House of Commons International Development Committee called for cross-border aid to Myanmar's internally displaced people. As Britain does not share a border with Myanmar, presumably this meant using Indian territory for British purposes.
The focus on Myanmar, arrogantly called Burma (maybe Zimbabwe is Rhodesia), months before the current unrest wherein organised bands of Buddhist monks and students took to the streets, is suspicious. Last year, rented mobs brought Nepal to a standstill. A Seven-Party Alliance took office, was conned into co-opting Maoist goons with a Christian leadership, and is now being forced to declare a Republic without Constituent Assembly elections, even as Nepalis are revising their hostility to the monarchy.Â
In Myanmar, despite restrictions by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), foreign journalists and missionaries have smuggled themselves in and met Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), under house detention since 1990. Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports Ms Suu Kyi told a foreign missionary her favourite verse in the Bible is John 8:32, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." She regularly asks Christians around the world to pray for Burma (not Myanmar).
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At a time when India is under calibrated international and domestic pressure to denounce Myanmar's military rulers, at the cost of strategic and energy concerns, one notices striking facets in the political careers of Congress president Ms Sonia Gandhi and Ms Suu Kyi. There maybe some significant lessons here.
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Ms Gandhi, an Italian-born Roman Catholic, hails from a family loyal to Benito Mussolini. She married Rajiv Gandhi, son of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; he became Prime Minister after her assassination in 1984. In 1991, Congress failed to win enough seats to form its own Government, so PV Narasimha Rao was asked to cobble a working majority, while the widowed Ms Gandhi bided her time. By 1998, she felt strong enough to physically takeover the party from president Sitaram Kesri, but in 2004, despite overt support, was denied premiership and forced to make way for Mr Manmohan Singh.
Â
She now hopes to groom her son, Mr Rahul Gandhi, for leadership of the party and country. The citizenship status of Ms Gandhi and her two children has never been clarified; she is a naturalised Indian and under Italian law, she and her offspring are eternally entitled to Italian citizenship. This was how she took her husband and children to the Italian embassy in 1977 after Mrs Indira Gandhi lost the elections.
Â
Ms Gandhi's long and privileged stay in this country was lucrative to her native country and friends. The Italian public sector Snam Progetti won extravagant and regular fertiliser contracts in India, and her personal friend Ottavio Quattrocchi even doubled up as a middleman in the Bofors kickbacks scandal. The Congress president had enough political cachet to help friends evade justice after the scandal broke, and as UPA chairperson ensured that the Bofors monies, frozen in two London accounts, were released to Mr Quattrocchi, and that he walked free after detention in Argentina!
Â
More recently, she struggled hard to impose the controversial India-US nuclear deal on the nation, despite its crippling financial, technological and security implications for India. The covert but firm opposition of coalition partners to premature elections appears to have scuttled the deal, but it is too early to celebrate. Observers expect Congress to somehow 'buy' Left compliance.
Â
Ms Suu Kyi, daughter of a respected leader, married an Englishman, lived abroad for several years, and is almost certainly a Christian, even if born a Buddhist. Her two sons hold British passports and live abroad. Despite public nostalgia for her late father, she has weak roots in Myanmar and really cannot be trusted to lead a resource-rich nation for which Western multinationals are lusting.Â
If Senior General Than Shwe seriously intends to negotiate with her, a legitimate precondition would be abdication of Myanmarese citizenship and NLD leadership, and return to the land of her husband and sons. British-style conditions on the religious affiliations of rulers may also be in order. Since NLD claims popular support, it should manage to field native leaders in future elections.
Â
Interestingly, Ms Suu Kyi supports Western sanctions against Myanmar, though these hurt the ordinary people and not the regime. Worse, she maintained a complicit silence over the selective nature of sanctions imposed from 1990. Indian analysts furious at Army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor's advocacy of a "close relationship" with Myanmar counterparts and dismissive of India's quest for energy security, may be unaware that Washington exempts oil giant Chevron from the sanctions regime. Â
The reason, of course, is that Mr George Bush Jr, Mr Dick Cheney and Ms Condoleezza Rice have powerful links with the American oil industry. Oil was the reason why the US had to 'secure' the Iraqi oilfields, and why it is preparing to bring 'democracy' to Iran. Wall Street barons protest that if Chevron does not do business with SPDC, non-American companies will (read China, India, Thailand, Russia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and South Korea). Total of France, which daily extracts over 17 million cubic meters of natural gas, enjoys similar immunity. In the circumstances, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora was wise to keep his appointment in Yangon, and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to oppose sanctions as futile.
India needs Myanmar's cooperation to tackle insurgencies in the North-East. The thick jungles provide refuge to the Isak-Muivah and Khaplang factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, United Liberation Front of Asom, three major Manipur militant groups, United National Liberation Front (UNLF), People's Liberation Army and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup. Cooperation was withdrawn in 1995 when the Narasimha Rao Government conferred the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding on Ms Suu Kyi. The Vajpayee regime repaired ties in November 2000, but confidence-building is not a linear road. Having once burnt its fingers, India cannot sacrifice vital national interests to duplicitous Western rhetoric; the UPA is acting shrewdly.
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Sandhya Jain
After hectic advocacy by Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Burma Campaign, UK, British MPs John Bercow and Baroness Caroline Cox met a Chin group on the India-Myanmar border last month, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Earlier in May 2007, the House of Commons International Development Committee called for cross-border aid to Myanmar's internally displaced people. As Britain does not share a border with Myanmar, presumably this meant using Indian territory for British purposes.
The focus on Myanmar, arrogantly called Burma (maybe Zimbabwe is Rhodesia), months before the current unrest wherein organised bands of Buddhist monks and students took to the streets, is suspicious. Last year, rented mobs brought Nepal to a standstill. A Seven-Party Alliance took office, was conned into co-opting Maoist goons with a Christian leadership, and is now being forced to declare a Republic without Constituent Assembly elections, even as Nepalis are revising their hostility to the monarchy.Â
In Myanmar, despite restrictions by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), foreign journalists and missionaries have smuggled themselves in and met Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), under house detention since 1990. Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports Ms Suu Kyi told a foreign missionary her favourite verse in the Bible is John 8:32, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." She regularly asks Christians around the world to pray for Burma (not Myanmar).
Â
At a time when India is under calibrated international and domestic pressure to denounce Myanmar's military rulers, at the cost of strategic and energy concerns, one notices striking facets in the political careers of Congress president Ms Sonia Gandhi and Ms Suu Kyi. There maybe some significant lessons here.
Â
Ms Gandhi, an Italian-born Roman Catholic, hails from a family loyal to Benito Mussolini. She married Rajiv Gandhi, son of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; he became Prime Minister after her assassination in 1984. In 1991, Congress failed to win enough seats to form its own Government, so PV Narasimha Rao was asked to cobble a working majority, while the widowed Ms Gandhi bided her time. By 1998, she felt strong enough to physically takeover the party from president Sitaram Kesri, but in 2004, despite overt support, was denied premiership and forced to make way for Mr Manmohan Singh.
Â
She now hopes to groom her son, Mr Rahul Gandhi, for leadership of the party and country. The citizenship status of Ms Gandhi and her two children has never been clarified; she is a naturalised Indian and under Italian law, she and her offspring are eternally entitled to Italian citizenship. This was how she took her husband and children to the Italian embassy in 1977 after Mrs Indira Gandhi lost the elections.
Â
Ms Gandhi's long and privileged stay in this country was lucrative to her native country and friends. The Italian public sector Snam Progetti won extravagant and regular fertiliser contracts in India, and her personal friend Ottavio Quattrocchi even doubled up as a middleman in the Bofors kickbacks scandal. The Congress president had enough political cachet to help friends evade justice after the scandal broke, and as UPA chairperson ensured that the Bofors monies, frozen in two London accounts, were released to Mr Quattrocchi, and that he walked free after detention in Argentina!
Â
More recently, she struggled hard to impose the controversial India-US nuclear deal on the nation, despite its crippling financial, technological and security implications for India. The covert but firm opposition of coalition partners to premature elections appears to have scuttled the deal, but it is too early to celebrate. Observers expect Congress to somehow 'buy' Left compliance.
Â
Ms Suu Kyi, daughter of a respected leader, married an Englishman, lived abroad for several years, and is almost certainly a Christian, even if born a Buddhist. Her two sons hold British passports and live abroad. Despite public nostalgia for her late father, she has weak roots in Myanmar and really cannot be trusted to lead a resource-rich nation for which Western multinationals are lusting.Â
If Senior General Than Shwe seriously intends to negotiate with her, a legitimate precondition would be abdication of Myanmarese citizenship and NLD leadership, and return to the land of her husband and sons. British-style conditions on the religious affiliations of rulers may also be in order. Since NLD claims popular support, it should manage to field native leaders in future elections.
Â
Interestingly, Ms Suu Kyi supports Western sanctions against Myanmar, though these hurt the ordinary people and not the regime. Worse, she maintained a complicit silence over the selective nature of sanctions imposed from 1990. Indian analysts furious at Army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor's advocacy of a "close relationship" with Myanmar counterparts and dismissive of India's quest for energy security, may be unaware that Washington exempts oil giant Chevron from the sanctions regime. Â
The reason, of course, is that Mr George Bush Jr, Mr Dick Cheney and Ms Condoleezza Rice have powerful links with the American oil industry. Oil was the reason why the US had to 'secure' the Iraqi oilfields, and why it is preparing to bring 'democracy' to Iran. Wall Street barons protest that if Chevron does not do business with SPDC, non-American companies will (read China, India, Thailand, Russia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and South Korea). Total of France, which daily extracts over 17 million cubic meters of natural gas, enjoys similar immunity. In the circumstances, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora was wise to keep his appointment in Yangon, and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to oppose sanctions as futile.
India needs Myanmar's cooperation to tackle insurgencies in the North-East. The thick jungles provide refuge to the Isak-Muivah and Khaplang factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, United Liberation Front of Asom, three major Manipur militant groups, United National Liberation Front (UNLF), People's Liberation Army and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup. Cooperation was withdrawn in 1995 when the Narasimha Rao Government conferred the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding on Ms Suu Kyi. The Vajpayee regime repaired ties in November 2000, but confidence-building is not a linear road. Having once burnt its fingers, India cannot sacrifice vital national interests to duplicitous Western rhetoric; the UPA is acting shrewdly.
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