BurmaNet News, July 20, 2004

[Editor]

July 20, 2004, Issue # 2520


INSIDE BURMA
Narinjara: SPDC aid does not reach cyclone victims
AP: Burma rebels in uneasy truce

ON THE BORDER
Bangkok Post: A place for healing

HEALTH / AIDS
Irrawaddy: AIDS takes the backseat in Burma: An interview with Chris Beyrer

BUSINESS / MONEY

REGIONAL
AFP: Thailand calls on Myanmar to attend talks over democracy plans
Bernama: Malaysia to persuade Myanmar to be more accommodating

INTERNATIONAL
Reuters via Worldview Rights: Britain under fire over Myanmar stance

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: Are Sanctions Evil?


INSIDE BURMA
______________________________________

July 18, Narinjara News
SPDC aid does not reach cyclone victims

Akyab: It has been learnt that foreign aid donated to SPDC military
government was unable to reach cyclone victims in many places of Arakan
state.

According to a reporter who recently visited the cyclone-hit area, an SPDC
government agency have granted 20 000 Kyat to 373 families for the people
who were killed in cyclone in Chittra, Tharatony, Kyay-toh village under
Kam-htouk-gri village tract of Maebon  Township.

Same source said that a relief camp has been opened at Kathougri village
and is being operated by infantry division 373 stationed at Ann Township.

The cyclone victims under Kyauk Pru and Man Aung Township received only
about 6 kg of rice and one pack of iodized salt each.

But the people effected by other natural disasters like stroms of
Krakrikuam, WagouKri, Pram tha shong, Kyokmoukri, Thushay, Paithee village
did not receive any assistant, said the sources.

Cyclone Divisional Commanding officer of Western Division Maung Do arrived
the effected area and distributed cloth measuring 2 yard, a course Longyi,
2 kg of rice, a pot, a pair of short pants to each victim and left an
officer to take the necessary steps for cyclone effected people.

According to U Gow Ra Aung, the chairman of Krakree Kyant village, they
did not receive 300,000 Kyat that should have been donated to the villages
as the money was spent on entertainment for the officer and the rest of
the party.

160 people died in Krakree Kyant Island. Among them were 30 people from 13
families from Mrauk-U and Kyaktaw townships who came to this island to
work temporarily in the fishery sector.

25 families of Byeenfru and Shew Min Gan villages of Sittwe who were
severely affected by the cyclone sill did not receive any relief goods,
said one local.

Ma-Ya-Ka, township authority of Pauk Taw Township has been arranging to
distribute corrugated iron (CI) sheets at 2900 Kyat per sheet for
reconstruction of the schools and Buddhist temples after buying of iron
sheet with 2600 Kyat per sheet from local markets.

The latest reports say that death toll at Nga-man-ray Island may rise to
more than 1000 because the island has sunk into deep cyclonic sea-water.
There were many outsiders living and working in a variety of jobs on the
island, but the SPDC government has not yet disclosed the list of dead
persons.

The farmers of the island, having lost all their stored grains and
livestock, are facing difficulties for starting cultivation and the
fishermen have also lost fishing boats and fishing nets and so are unable
to fishing.

Private organizations, home and abroad, are forbidden by the SPDC to
communicate with the victims. The relief goods can only be reached through
the government agents.

A relief center has been opened at U Ottama Park under the guidance of Daw
Nyaunt Nyaunt Oo, wife of Divisional Commander lieutenant colonel Maung Oo
to receive the donations indirectly, said the report.

The relief aid only benefited the army personnel, some youth and women’s
organizations and the people of the government-backed health department
instead of reaching to the victims of cyclone, it said.

______________________________________

July 17, Associated Press
Burma rebels in uneasy truce - David Longstreath

New Manerplaw, Burma: The distinctive metallic clang of an M-16 round
sliding into the firing chamber causes everyone inside the hut to pause.
After 55 years of warfare in these jungles, it's an unsurprising reaction.

It's only a camp commander showing a young fighter the right way to load
his weapon.

Outside, in the compound, boys are playing the volleyball-like game of
sepak takraw, while veterans of the world's longest-running insurgency are
putting up simple homes and planting corn and tobacco. Inside huts,
guitars and anti-personnel mines hang side by side.

The ethnic Karen rebels are hovering uncertainly between peace and war.

"We have not signed a formal peace agreement. What we have is a
gentlemen's agreement," said Col. Ner Dah Mya, a top rebel leader.

The Karen National Union, which has fought for autonomy since Burma gained
independence from Britain in 1948, is the last major rebel group that
hasn't made peace with the country's military rulers. Seventeen groups
have signed deals with the junta since 1989.

The Karen fighters were not invited to a constitutional convention that
began May 17 in Rangoon, the capital, which is far from the rugged
Thai-Burma borderlands that are the Karen heartland.

"We do not want to play their game," said the colonel, who echoes
criticism in the West and inside Burma that the convention is being
stage-managed by the generals.

Col. Ner Dah Mya says the "gentlemen's agreement" is holding, and many of
the war-weary Karen hope it will be solidified after more peace talks. But
distrust of the government runs deep, and Karen soldiers have not put
aside their weapons.

"We are not sure what will happen. We have to be ready," said 2nd Lt. Yo
Awe Lah, lighting a cheroot.

With a right arm disabled in combat eight years ago, the lieutenant would
have been discharged from most armies, but the beleaguered Karen National
Liberation Army needs to keep veterans in the ranks alongside fighters who
are barely in their teens.

New Manerplaw, a base near the Thai border, is the Karen headquarters and,
until recently, carried a distinctly military air. But the prospect of
peace has softened its martial edge, and more families have moved in.

Smoke from a cooking fire drifts through a light rain into a crudely built
shelter where Col. Ner Dah Mya shows a new recruit the proper handling of
an M-16.

The colonel is the son of aging Gen. Bo Mya, who led the Karen for decades
and is the most prominent resistance figure in Burma. He joined the cause
in 1947, when he was a policeman under British rule.

His son is proud of the warrior lineage.

"We like to call ourselves freedom fighters," he said, handing the assault
rifle back to the soldier.


ON THE BORDER
______________________________________

July 18, Bangkok Post
A place for healing - Maxmilian Wechsler

Dr Cynthia Maung, the "Mother Teresa of Burma", is the recipient of many
international awards, including the 2002 Magsaysay Award for community
leadership. She runs the Mae Tao Clinic in the bustling Thai town of Mae
Sot bordering Burma.

The word "hospital" is more appropriate for the complex that consists of
several wooden buildings whose signs, written in English and Burmese,
identify them as Emergency, Registration, Surgical Department, Prosthetic
Workshop and others.

Dr Cynthia was born into a Karen family at Insein Township, Rangoon on
December 6, 1959. She studied at Rangoon University and graduated from its
medical faculty in 1985. Afterwards, she practiced in a Karen village
close to her home. She fled to Thailand on September 22, 1988, a few days
after the military seized power and began a crackdown against the
opposition.

With assistance from local Thai churches and business people who gave
food, paid the rent and donated some equipment, Dr Cynthia managed to open
a clinic in Mae Sot in February of 1989.

"I wanted to help the Burmese students who fled Burma, and who needed
emergency medical assistance. We also treated other Burmese refugees who
were suffering from trauma, malaria, respiratory diseases and diarrhea, as
well as injuries from gunshots and land mines," Dr. Cynthia said. "At the
beginning we had only one house. But the clinic grew up as the number of
patients increased each year."

As the clinic grew the facilities had to be upgraded. New water pipes have
been installed, the number of toilets increased and the drainage system
was improved. Other problems, such as medical waste and garbage disposal,
have had to be taken care of. Dr Cynthia assured that they work on all
such issues alongside the local Thai public administration.

"At present, there are around 200 people working at the clinic _
technicians, administrative staff, trainees, social workers and logistic
support personnel. They are all volunteers and many of them are
foreigners. I provide them with accommodation, food and a little money,"
she said.

MIXED RELATIONS

The clinic is operating without a license or any official permission, but
according to Dr. Cynthia, she provides the local Thai authorities
regularly with health reports and information on the international
volunteers working at the clinic. She said they enjoy a good relationship
with the Thai public health officials in Mae Sot.

There have been some blemishes in the relationship, but every time the
Thai government has considered taking action, the widespread international
respect for the humanitarian work of Dr Cynthia's clinic has come to the
fore. One such example was in 2003, when the Thai government was
considering repatriation of Dr Cynthia back to Burma. Some top diplomats
from various countries personally visited her at Mae Tao clinic for a show
of support.

When Thai authorities informed Dr Cynthia some time past that many of her
foreign volunteer staff didn't have proper work permits and could be
deported, foreign NGOs have immediately taken their case to the press and
issued statements in support of the clinic.

She has been criticised for helping armed combatants in their conflict
with the Burmese army. To this charge Dr Cynthia replied: "The clinic
treats everyone, no matter whether they are civilians or combatants. We
don't know who are soldiers or who are civilians. We don't distinguish who
is who here. We treat everyone equally, no matter who they are or where
they come from. Patients who come here with bullet wounds are not
necessarily soldiers. Many civilians come in with gunshot or stab wounds,
or with injuries suffered from landmines."

Asked about the suspicion that the clinic is a meeting place for spies,
she said that she couldn't be sure about who is meeting who, as there are
a great many people who come through the clinic, not only patients.

"We can't screen everyone to identify if they are intelligence people or
soldiers. Many patients come in and leave with their relatives and
friends. In addition, we have several restaurants and shops selling food
and goods to the patients and people with them, as they are mainly illegal
and can't venture outside the clinic. But we screen all the people going
in and out after 8 p.m," she said.

"Before 1997 the patients came mostly from Karen and Mon State but
gradually we saw more people coming here from cities like Rangoon,
Mandalay, and from other parts of Burma. About seventy percent come from
the central part of Burma," she explained.

At this time, according to the doctor, six physicians are working at the
100 bed clinic, and medicine provided by funding from international NGOs
is ordered every three months from a pharmacy in Bangkok.

"We have our essential drug lists. We can't purchase all the newest
medicines. We follow the Burma border guidelines set up by the
international NGOs.

"We receive support from about 20 international NGOs, most of them based
in Canada and the United States. Any sick person who comes to the clinic
will get medical assistance, and this applies to Thai nationals as well.
Most of our clients are illegal Burmese workers who have no access to the
other medical treatment. We charge a 10 baht (25 US cents) registration
fee from those who come to our clinic for the first time. Other than that,
our service and medicines are completely free.

"About seventy percent of our funding is stable, but we are always short
on malaria medications and resources for specialised treatment. The most
expensive disease to treat are, for example, peritonitis (an inflammation
of the thin membrane that lines the inside of the abdominal cavity),
landmine injuries and premature births. We have a very limited capability
as far as surgery as well.

"We deliver about 120 babies per month. The mother will stay here for a
few days to recuperate, but the maternity ward has only 20 beds, forcing
some patients to lie on the floor," said Dr Cynthia.

WAITING FOR CHANGE

The clinic treats about 300 people a day. Most of them work illegally in
factories scattered around Mae Sot, and some come directly from Burma.
There are very few Thais seeking treatment.

Commonly, patients suffer from malaria, malnutrition or reproductive
health problems, or come in for child delivery or accidents at home.
Serious cases are referred to Mae Sot hospital.

Dr Cynthia said she wasn't sure how many people they might be able to
provide adequate health care for inside Burma under the present
circumstances. There are many NGOs and other people trying to work inside
Burma but they face a lot of limitations, such as access to the
population. Getting such access requires lots of networking and good
communication on the part of medical workers, both of which are scarce in
Burma.

"They (health workers) are always observed and don't have the freedom to
work," she stressed.

"Although we are providing a health service in Mae Sot only at this
clinic, we do work and have links from time to time with different ethnic
groups and some Burmese opposition groups, to provide training for health
services for localities (inside Burma)," Dr. Cynthia said.

"But many health workers aren't recognised as such by the Burmese
authorities. When they are found inside Burma with medical instruments,
they will be questioned, or even tortured and jailed."

Even on this side of the border, she said, the political environment makes
people always nervous. Many people who work at the clinic come from
refugee camps or from the internal displaced communities. Whenever
problems occur inside Burma or with migrant workers here, it sometimes
involves politics and the military in Thailand.

Explaining her stance, Dr Cynthia said: "Our mission is to provide health
care and services. We don't care about politics."

"Our main problem is that the clinic is not registered, while the demand
for our services increases every year. We need more facilities, staff and
supplies. As long as the situation in Burma and the quality of life there
is not improved, the problems will continue to exist.

"Thailand is our partner in terms of health care, as the Thai health
officials and hospital staff sympathise with us and are very helpful. The
local Thai officials will not come to the clinic for treatment themselves,
but do sometimes visit," she added.

When asked why she won't open a clinic in Myawadee, a Burmese town
opposite Mae Sot, or elsewhere in Burma, she said: "Seventy percent of my
clients are Burmese workers employed in Thailand. That's why I must remain
in this country. The situation in Burma is not improving but getting
worse. That's why Burmese people cross into Thailand, in search of job
opportunities and security. Another reason is that the Burmese living
along the Thai-Burma border can't access health services inside their
country."

But she was quick to add: "If there's a regime-change in Burma, I will go
back!"


HEALTH / AIDS
______________________________________

July 20, Irrawaddy
AIDS Takes the Backseat in Burma: An Interview with Chris Beyrer

Chris Beyrer has worked on HIV/AIDS issues along the Thai-Burma border
since the early 1990s and is now associate research professor and director
of the Johns Hopkins University Fogarty AIDS International Training and
Research Program. He spoke with Irrawaddy reporter Naw Seng about efforts
in Burma to control the epidemic.

Question: How much impact is Burma’s AIDS awareness and information
campaign making inside the country?

Answer: We don’t have a way to measure that inside the country, but we do
have information very well done by the NHEC [National Health and Education
Committee] and BMA [Burma Medical Association] that I collaborated with,
interviewing Burmese migrants, recent migrants, factory workers in Tak
Province. What we can say is that the level of HIV knowledge and awareness
is extremely low. And information on, for example, condom use is extremely
low. So less than 15 percent of married women in these factories have ever
even seen a condom—much less knew how to use it appropriately. The
evidence we have from people leaving Burma is that their level of
knowledge is extremely low.

For full text, please see: http://www.irrawaddy.org/ChrisBeyrer.html


REGIONAL
______________________________________

July 20, Agence France Presse
Thailand calls on Myanmar to attend talks over democracy plans

Bangkok: Thailand Tuesday called on Myanmar to join multinational talks in
Bangkok to help patch up the military-run regime's damaged relations with
the rest of the world.

"We are ready to host but we want Myanmar to attend," Thai Foreign
Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told reporters Tuesday. "If Myanmar does
not come, it is not useful."

He said the international community would be more willing to help the
impoverished nation if Myanmar showed signs of democratic progress.

Thailand has put itself at the heart of mediation efforts to encourage
movement towards democracy in Myanmar but the junta turned up to the first
meeting, involving 12 nations, in December.

Myanmar's military leaders, who have ruled the country since 1962, then
pulled out of a second round of talks -- dubbed the Bangkok Process -- in
April.

Thailand said future talks would be pointless unless they turned up.

Myanmar has been at the heart of disagreements that have threatened the
Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) scheduled for Vietnam in October, held every
two years to discuss issues such as trade, anti-terrorism and human
rights.

The Asssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has insisted its three
new members, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, be included in that meeting.

The European Union had insisted that Myanmar should not be allowed to turn
up but is sending a special envoy to Asia to try to defuse the crisis.

Europe has been harshly critical of Myanmar's human rights record,
dismissed its much vaunted democracy roadmap as a sham and demanded the
release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, currently enduring her
third period of house arrest.

Her National League for Democracy won a landslide election victory in 1990
but has never been allowed to rule.

The crisis sparked international trade sanctions that have plunged the
country into poverty.

______________________________________

July 19, Bernama
Malaysia to persuade Myanmar to be more accommodating - Mikhail Raj Abdullah

Paris: Malaysia, together with Asean, will be better positioned to support
Myanmar's inclusion into the Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) in Hanoi in
October if Yangon is a bit more accommodating in initiating democratic
reforms as well as freeing the democracy movement's leader, Aung San Suu
Kyi.

"We hope the Myanmar authorities will let-up and do something as regards
these issues raised by the European Union (EU)," Malaysia's new ambassador
to France, Datuk Hamidah Mohamed Yusoff, said here Monday.

"That will make it easier for us to support Myanmar," she said when
responding to questions on the stand-off between Asean and the EU over
Myanmar's membership into Asem at a briefing at the Malaysian embassy here
on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's upcoming working
visit to France.

Hamidah, who took up her posting on July 2 this year, said that Asem was
likely to be among issues to be discussed when Abdullah meets French
President Jacques Chirac on Thursday.

Abdullah will be visiting France for the first time in his capacity as
Prime Minister, at the invitation of Chirac.

The European countries want Myanmar to be kept out, but Asean contends
that as part of the Asian grouping, Myanmar, together with Cambodia and
Laos, should be allowed to join the dialogue forum between Asia and
Europe.

In contrast, the EU would go to Hanoi with an expanded membership with the
inclusion of 10 new members.

Hamidah said that although Myanmar seemed to be a sticking point in
Asean-EU ties, "we want all of Asean to come into Asem."

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who leads the National League for
Democracy, won the 1990 election by a landslide but the military refused
to hand over power to her. She is now under house arrest.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had complained earlier this month that if
the EU attended the summit as an expanded community of 25 members, Myanmar
could not be excluded.

This has led to doubts over whether the Asem summit would take place as
the EU called off two finance and economic ministerial meetings in June.
But Hamidah shrugged of rumours that Asem would not be held, saying: "I
know for a fact that President Chirac is going to the summit."

She said that the EU had no qualms about Cambodia and Laos joining up.
"Sometimes, it's a bit difficult for us to persuade another (Asean)
neighbour to see our point of view because of the policy of
non-interference in the affairs of other member countries," she said.

She said that (former prime minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and even now
Abdullah and Special U.N. Respresentative to Myanmar Tan Sri Razali Ismail
had tried very hard to talk to the Myanmar authorities "to let-up and do
something" and "that will make it easier for other countries to support
them."

Nevertheless, she said, Malaysia would continue to work to include
Myanmar. Former Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Brock would travel to
Asia next week to explore possible solutions and explain the EU's
position.

Asem, set up in 1994, is an informal dialogue between EU member states and
10 Asian countries -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and South Korea.


INTERNATIONAL
______________________________________

July 19, Reuters via Worldview Rights
Britain under fire over Myanmar stance

EU partners are losing patience with Britain‘s hardline stand towards
military-ruled Myanmar, which risks scuttling the bloc‘s November summit
with Asian nations and imperiling its ties with an emerging region

A special envoy appointed to resolve the European Union‘s standoff with
Asian nations over whether to admit Myanmar into their two-continent forum
left on Saturday for talks with foreign ministers in Bangkok, Hanoi,
Beijing and Tokyo.

Diplomats said Hans van den Broek, a former Dutch foreign minister, would
explore possible compromises to rescue the October summit in Hanoi.

These could include granting Myanmar associate membership of the
eight-year-old Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) or inviting it to send only its
foreign minister to the forum‘s biennial summit.

The problem has arisen because the 10 Asian nations which belong to ASEM
insist that Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos should be allowed to join the club
along with the 10 mostly eastern European countries which acceded to the
EU on May 1.

But Britain, once the colonial power in the former Burma, has refused to
accept Myanmar into ASEM because of the ruling junta‘s repression of
political opponents, and in particular the house arrest of democracy icon
Aung Sun Suu Kyi.

The impasse forced the EU to cancel two ministerial-level ASEM meetings
which were supposed to prepare the economic and commercial substance of
the summit in the Vietnamese capital.

Britain‘s partners agree that political freedom is a value the EU must
stand by, but many believe London‘s lone stand on Myanmar is jeopardising
the goodwill of a whole continent.

"It is really irritating," said the ambassador of one of the EU‘s big
member states. "While the United States is moving fast to developing
relations with Asia within APEC, the EU has shot itself in the foot by
canceling those meetings."

Membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) stretches from
Chile to China and includes the United States and Russia. The 21-nation
group has a total population of 2.5 billion and accounts for close to 50
percent of world trade.

Economic links with Asia, which includes some of the world‘s
fastest-growing economies, are crucial for Europe: the continent as a
whole accounts for 21 percent of EU external exports and it is the bloc‘s
third-largest regional trading partner.

Beyond economic links, ASEM is a forum for cooperation on issues like
terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, immigration and
organised crime, and regional problems such as tension on the Korean
peninsula.

"No one is defending Myanmar‘s record," said an EU diplomat. "But we
cannot afford to torpedo the entire ASEM framework."

ASEM‘s Asian side currently comprises seven southeast Asian nations plus
China, Japan and South Korea.

Preferring behind-the-scenes pressure on Myanmar to embrace democracy, the
Asian side has taken offence at the EU‘s attempts to set conditions for
the country‘s membership of ASEM.

The EU -- which maintains an arms embargo on Myanmar and targets junta
officials through an asset freeze and visa ban -- in April demanded Suu
Kyi‘s release and the participation of her opposition party in talks on a
new constitution as its price.

"Myanmar has not done any of the key things we laid down... it has not
taken a single step towards democracy," said a British official. "We have
to stick to what was agreed."

The EU nation ambassador said those who thought pressure on Myanmar would
work had been proved wrong: "The British are making a very dangerous bet.
We shouldn‘t be using blackmail."


OPINION / OTHER
______________________________________

July 19, Wall Street Journal
Are Sanctions Evil? - Michael Judge

The debate over the efficacy and morality of economic sanctions didn't end
with the U.S. grain embargo of the Soviet Union in 1979 after its ruinous
invasion of Afghanistan; it didn't end with the multilateral sanctions
imposed by governments around the world against South Africa's apartheid
regime; nor did it end with the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the
subsequent end to nearly 13 years of debilitating U.N. sanctions against
Iraq; and it will likely be ongoing long after Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba
is but a bitter memory.

Nonetheless, this month's renewal of the "Burma Freedom and Democracy Act"
-- which bans the import of all products from Burma, freezes the assets of
the "Myanmar" junta's senior officials, and prohibits virtually all
remittances to the country -- provides occasion to revisit this debate and
challenge Hegel's pompous assertion that "Peoples and governments never
have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from
it."

Serious thinkers on the left and the right have denounced sanctions --
both unilateral (as in Burma and Cuba) and multilateral (Iraq, South
Africa) -- as diplomatically and economically self-defeating, not to
mention morally troublesome. Noam Chomsky, the doyen of the blame-America
intelligentsia, has even gone so far as to claim, in a Canadian
documentary last year, that "The number of people killed by sanctions in
Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons of
mass destruction in all of history."

Someone should inform Mr. Chomsky that the U.N. sanctions on Iraq were
contingent on Saddam's compliance with numerous Security Council
resolutions and that ultimately the fate of Iraq's long-suffering citizens
was in the hands of a dictator -- not the Security Council. Moreover, the
revelations regarding the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal have made it clearer
than ever before that Saddam was far more interested in enriching himself
and his accomplices than in meeting the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi
people.

Sadly, the regimes most likely to be targeted by sanctions are those least
likely to respond. As Fr. Robert Sirico, a longtime human-rights advocate
and president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and
Liberty, points out: "The worse the government, the less effective are the
sanctions, precisely because despotic regimes ignore the sufferings of the
people. The case of South Africa is the single case cited in their favor
but in this case moral suasion did more than sanctions to effect regime
change. The Cuba case is more common: The despot is entrenched, the people
impoverished, and the benefits of economic and culture contact with the
world foregone."

To a degree, this is what happened in prewar Iraq: Saddam continued
building his gilded palaces while his people suffered. That said, the
recent U.S. Senate report on prewar Iraq clearly shows that the sanctions
succeeded in achieving at least one of their primary goals: debilitating
Saddam's once formidable fighting forces. If anything, before the invasion
of Iraq, our intelligence agencies not only overestimated the potency of
Saddam's WMD programs, but also underestimated the devastating effect a
decade of sanctions had on Saddam's armies.

Another argument made by those opposed to sanctions is that cutting off
trade harms us more than it does the target regime. "I don't think it is
right for selected consumers and businesses to have to bear the cost of
American foreign-policy decisions," says Bruce Bartlett of the National
Center for Policy Analysis. "Especially when such controls are often
arbitrary and have no record of success." Mr. Bartlett concedes that
sanctions can be somewhat effective when there is "very widespread
international support." But unilateral sanctions, he says -- like the U.S.
sanctions against Burma -- are a waste of time. "There are very few things
the U.S. has a monopoly on. If we won't sell to some rogue regime, we know
the French will."

Still, to rally international support for sanctions against a regime as
loathsome as the military junta in Burma, someone must take the lead. This
is clearly the approach of the Bush administration, which has combined its
unilateral sanctions with diplomatic pressure to get other nations
onboard. While it's true that the number of foreign firms in Burma
continues to rise, and the regime has found ways around U.S. restrictions
on dollar transfers (notably through the use of the banking networks of
Belgium-based SWIFT), international pressure is mounting.

The EU, for example, has toughened its sanctions against Burma, banning
arms sales and enforcing a broad visa ban and asset freeze. Japan has
frozen essentially all new non-humanitarian development assistance to the
regime. Major multinationals from Canada and Great Britain have
disinvested. Even the nations of Asean, embarrassed by the prospect of
Burma taking the helm of the organization in 2006, have moved away from
their policy of "non-interference" and begun publicly pressuring the
regime to reform.

But pressure from within is as important as pressure from without. What is
necessary for sanctions to have a chance at success is an organized
opposition that sees them as a valuable weapon. Nelson Mandela's ANC Party
is a perfect example of such a movement, as is Nobel Peace Prize winner
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in Burma, which won 80%
of the seats in parliament in a 1990 general election -- a result the
junta still refuses to accept. Ms. Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest,
supports the U.S. sanctions and has called for other countries to follow
suit. By contrast, there was no viable opposition in Saddam Hussein's
Iraq; they either fled, joined the Baathists, or wound up in mass graves.

So, can we say that Burma is a country, like South Africa, where sanctions
can have a positive effect? Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and
political science at Columbia -- while in principle opposed to unilateral
sanctions -- believes so: "Burma is widely considered to be abusive; it is
pitted against a Nobel laureate for peace; distaste for its regime is
widely shared and recorded in votes at international institutions such as
the International Labor Organization. There are no great contracts to be
lost in Burma. There is also a significant probability that continued
sanctions will maintain the pressure that the junta will respond to."

For the sake of the Burmese people, let's hope Mr. Bhagwati is right and
Hegel -- as he was in his admiration of statism and collectivism -- is
dead wrong.

Mr. Judge is assistant editorial features editor at the Journal and edits
the weekly Manager's Journal column.