The Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (CHD) has till the end of March to vacate its office out of which it ran a political reconciliation programme that began in August 2000. The independent centre’s representative in Rangoon, Leon de Riedmatten, had to leave late February, when the junta refused to renew his visa.
’’We were informed of this decision verbally,’’ Andrew Andrea, head of communications at CHD, told IPS in a telephone interview from the Swiss city. ’’We weren’t shocked but disappointed. It will make our job more difficult.’’
For the moment, the CHD, which has a record of helping resolve conflicts in Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal, among others, has been left with little choice but to close down its office in the Burmese capital and consider working out of Bangkok.
The junta’s decision, however, has brought to light the sensitive work de Riedmatten and his staff accomplished to create the agreeable conditions for senior officials of the military government to have a dialogue with the other important players in Burma’s failed journey towards peace. The latter included the Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, when she was free from house arrest, members of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and leaders of the country’s ethnic communities.
The CHD’s role enabled U.N. envoy for Burma, Razali Ismail, to pursue his work as an intermediary between Burma’s strongman, Gen. Than Shwe, the former prime minister Khin Nyunt and Suu Kyi during a one-year period that ended in May 2003. The pro-democracy leader was placed under house arrest again, resulting in her having spent over 10 of the last 16 years as a political prisoner to date.
’’Before the CHD, there wasn’t any notable foreign organisation prepared to help with the reconciliation process in Burma. And Leon had very good contacts with high level offices in the military government that helped,’’ said Soe Aung, spokesman for the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), an umbrella organisation of 30 political exile groups from Burma.
Little wonder that governments across the international community, including the United States, Britain and those in the European Union, paid close attention and consulted the CHD before shaping any new policy towards Burma. ’’Many governments had a steady dialogue with us, because they knew we talked to all the parties,’’ said Andrea.
Last August’s success in Indonesia — where a peace agreement was signed between Jakarta and the rebels fighting for a separate state in the northern province of Aceh — was a high point for the CHD. This achievement, which began with the CHD-initiated dialogue between the two warring parties in 1999, brought to an end a 25 years of ethnic conflict that has claimed 10,000 lives.
’’The CHD’s approach helped create the right conditions for the subsequent peace talks,’’ Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand’s former foreign minister, who was involved in that reconciliation effort, told IPS. ’’It offered itself as a non-threatening player from the beginning and then worked on preparing the psychological conditions for peace to be acceptable as a viable option.’’
The likelihood of such a success in Burma has dimmed by the junta’s tough stance towards the Swiss body. It is a decision that conveys an unequivocal message that the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the military regime is officially known, is in no mood to be hospitable to any foreign organisation that stands in the way of its iron grip on power.
In January, a similar attitude by the SPDC resulted in the International Committee for the Red Cross stopping its regular visits to the nearly 90 prisons in Burma where most of the over 1,100 political prisoners are jailed.
In August last year, strict travel restrictions imposed by Rangoon on international humanitarian organisations working in Burma forced the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis to shut its operations.
The eviction notice given to CHD only worsens Burma’s position within the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional grouping that had for years come to its rescue when criticised by the international community but has, since last year, been having second thoughts.
This month, Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo reflected the increasing difficulty ASEAN members are having over Burma, when he suggested in Singaporean parliament that Rangoon’s intransigence is leaving the regional group little option but ’’to distance ourselves’’ from the military regime.
ASEAN — which also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam — has seen its political stock plummet in recent years due to the embarrassment caused by Rangoon’s increasingly oppressive regime.
On Tuesday, Malaysia’s foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that a planned trip to Burma this month, to monitor the progress of democracy, has been stalled by the junta. Originally, he was to have made the trip in January.
’’Stopping the CHD’s work is another case of the SPDC wanting to play hardball,’’ says Surin. ’’They are telling the world they don’t want facilitation from outside.’’