Mizzima News – No significant changes in Burma policy are expected from the new coalition government headed by Conservative leader David Cameron, but campaigners retain hope its foreign secretary’s knowledge of Burma and its desire to please may open avenues to press Burma issues.
The British national election held on May 6, failed to produce a clear winner, putting the third-placed Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg in the position of deciding who would be prime minister. After several days of backroom negotiations Clegg opted to join the Conservatives in forming a government.
The coalition marks the end of 13 years of Labour rule, the last three years of which were led by Gordon Brown, arguably one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s most vocal supporters. Brown detailed Suu Kyi’s life in a chapter of his book Courage, published just before he became prime minister. In it he profiled eight of his personal heroes, including Nelson Mandela, Robert Kennedy, Cicely Saunders and the assassinated black civil-rights activist, Martin Luther King Jnr.
David Cameron is relatively young for a prime minister and while the 43-year-old Oxford graduate has never written about Suu Kyi, they earned the same undergraduate degree at her alma mater; the Bachelor of Arts in politics, philosophy and economics.
Burma Campaign UK director Mark Farmaner told Mizzima: “We are not expecting any significant change from Cameron’s government. Before the election we contacted all the main political parties to ask [about] their policy on Burma and they all told us they support targeted sanctions … so we are not expecting any major changes from the new government.”
Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, and now chairman of Network Myanmar, an organisation that unlike Farmaner’s advocates for more economic engagement with Burma, said the coalition government would take some time to adjust to being in power.
According to Tonkin: “I think they have a very difficult situation because for the first time we’ll have coalition government between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrats. They will need to work on their policy towards Burma, and that is going to take a little time, because Burma may not be the first priority.
“My expectation is that the policies of the previous government will continue in the short term, until they have a chance to look thoroughly at the situation in Burma and see what can be done”.
Farmaner said there would be one major difference without Brown as prime minister. “He was very concerned about Burma policies and took a lead on this issue, however we expect that within the new government, Foreign Secretary William Hague will be the one taking the lead on the Burma file”.
He added that Hague “is very well informed about the situation in Burma, so we expect he will be a strong voice on pushing more action”.
Matthew Morgan, a Canadian political scientist and PhD student at Toronto’s York University who specialises in Western foreign policy towards Burma, believed the new British government’s tenure could provide an ideal moment for advocacy groups such as the Burma Campaign to push the Burma issue.
He told Mizzima: “no one expects this coalition government to last a long time, meaning all three of the major British political parties will be preparing for an election to happen in the very near future.”
“The threat of an impending election could make the ruling coalition more open to listening to members of the public because they know they will need their votes in the very near future,” Morgan said, adding, “the Labour opposition does have a real chance to return to power if the ruling coalition falters. This poses an interesting opportunity for civil society to try and influence foreign policy.”
He said Burma advocacy groups based in Europe, such as the Burma Campaign, also had to contend with the European Union, where Brussels played an increasingly important, but often overlooked, role in shaping European foreign policy.
“EU foreign policy towards Burma to a large extent has been shaped by the interests of France and the powerful and well connected oil giant Total, which runs the infamous and extremely lucrative Yadana [gas] pipeline,” Morgan said. “Despite European rhetoric about human rights and streets named after Aung San Suu Kyi, we’ve seen a big push from certain pro-business elements in Brussels to normalise Europe’s relations with Burma’s regime.”
David Cameron’s Conservatives have been quite vocal in their scepticism of the EU and according to Morgan, his new government could challenge what Morgan called “the EU’s ambiguous position on Burma”.
Morgan told Mizzima that: “The EU has set aside several million Euros for ‘civil society’ training in Burma. Many exiled Burma activists are concerned this money will just go to so-called “third force” groups or junta cronies masquerading as civil society and aiming to undermine Suu Kyi’s NLD.
“With massive cuts in spending coming across Europe, I think both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will be more sceptical about throwing millions of Euros to so-called members of ‘civil society’; it will be interesting to see what becomes of these funds,” he said.
