From another board . . .
chindit13 wrote: - Tue, Jun 12, 2012 - 01:55 AM
Welcome to Burma! It’s a country rich in resources but poor in wealth. It has been mismanaged for the better part of fifty years, but recently has given it citizens and the world a glimmer of hope that it wants to be something other than what it has been. An election, which only approximated a sham, and a new constitution which made no pretense of being anything more than a sham, have brought the world’s powers acallin’. Well, it brought the ones who had not assumed Burma was just another renegade province whose ancient manuscript detailing its true providence had yet to be written.
Encouraged by the nation’s dogged determination to pretend, US SecState Hillary Clinton made a visit and declared progress was being made. To some extent that is true. While the new parliament is, per the aforementioned constitution, stuffed full of a military majority that has retained the “right” to retake absolute power at any time for any reason, elections were held that allowed a powerless minority to also take seats in the hoped-to-be august body. Among those elected was Nobel Laureate and daughter of the country’s primary anti-colonial hero Aung San, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The masses applauded her victory. The world applauded her victory. The powers that be in the country saw that this was both good and generally harmless, so they let the victory stand, unlike her party’s earlier landslide victory in 1990.
Ms. Clinton praised this additional progress, and summarily removed the strict sanctions that had been installed to make the US feel good about itself by pretending it was standing up for human rights, when the exact same rights’ violations in China had merely resulted in “constructive engagement” for that major market and major chump for Treasury‘s endless debt. Being resource rich in a world of declining resources and declining markets, morality suddenly carried a cost, and cost is something the US will not pay for something as quaint as the moral high ground. The country’s geopolitical significance, standing as it does between China and Indian Ocean access, also contributed to the new embrace of the land by Washington.
So the resource grab can begin!
Not so fast.
While resource rich, the goods are not uniformly distributed throughout the country. Most sit in two states, Kachin State in the northeast, and Yakhine (aka, Rakhine, Arakan) State in the west. Kachin has teak, gold, silver, platinum, uranium, nickel, chromate, iron, antimony, molybdenum, Rare Earths, jade, and dam-able rivers. China likes all of the above, especially the last two.
Yakhine has, both on and offshore, rather substantial natural gas deposits and sufficient oil to make its exploitation economically viable. China likes these, too, and has not only signed agreements to purchase most of the output, but is even constructing two 450 mile pipelines to carry both from the Indian Ocean to Kunming. The oil pipeline, parallel to the gas line, will also, and predominantly, carry Middle Eastern oil, saving two to three weeks’ travel time through the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca.
The Burmese Government, while welcoming the massive inflow of Chinese investment, began to realize not only that it had placed all its eggs in one basket, but also that its very autonomy as a nation was being threatened. On top of that, since the two states holding all of the resources are not peopled by the majority Burman population, but instead by ethic minorities who have never had the best of relations with the central government, the ability of the government to maintain control over the resources---and allow China virtually unfettered access---was limited.
This point was brought home to the central government in no uncertain terms in 2011, when the Kachin people---famous for virtually inventing guerilla warfare and who served bravely and admirably with Allied Forces such as Merrill’s Marauders, Vinegar Joe Stilwell, and even Orde Wingate’s Chindits during WWII---began to take exception both to their government selling Kachin resources to China, but also to China for raping and pillaging their environment.
Their last straw was when China contracted with the central government in Nay Pyi Daw---which has replaced Ouagadougou as the world’s most unusual capital city name---to construct a massive hydroelectric dam on the confluence of the two rivers that join to form the Ayeyarwaddy. That place has long been held sacred by the Kachin people, and they did not take kindly to China forcibly relocating 15,000 Kachin villagers and importing 20,000 Chinese laborers to construct the 450’ dam, laying waste to the area called Myitsone.
The Kachin, who possess both a military wing (KIA) and a political wing (KIO) that represent them and their aspirations, fought back. They blew up a few Chinese and set up snipers and ambush teams to pester anyone and anything trying to make the trip on the one and only road connecting the Kachin capital of Myitkyina with China’s Yunnan Province.
China, miffed, demanded both a Burmese military response and $600 million in damages from the Burmese Government. The government did not send the money, but they did send the military. The Chinese did their part, too, by fronting the Burmese military with all the necessary hardware, ammunition, artillery and---reportedly---poison gas shells to put the Kachin people back in line.
As Joe Stilwell knew rather well, the Kachin are not cowards. They continued to fight. The Burmese government intensified the response, which, according to local tradition, involves purposely targeting civilians, using systematic rape as a weapon of war, and forcing captured civilians to act as porters and human mine sweepers, as the situation demands.
The US has ignored these transgressions and has continued to embrace the ruling authorities. The war has heated up, and it threatens the ongoing sourcing of all of the resources held with Kachin lands. China has been largely shut out.
Of additional significance is the fact that about half the revenues taken in by the central government originate from resource exploitation and licensing rights in Kachin State.
Most of the other half of revenues come from Yakhine State. Recently, that has become a problem, too. The Yakhine problem is different from the Kachin problem, because while Kachin State is an ethnic minority against the government, in Yakhine State it is an ethnic minority against another ethnic minority, the Buddhist Yakhine people vs. the Moslem Rohingya people.
Though both faiths claim to embrace peace, reality does not always jibe with the practice of the faithful. In Burma, there has always been tension between the largely Buddhist population and the Moslems and Indians (some Moslem, some Hindu). A few years ago a Moslem of Indian descent imported some women’s wrap around skirts, the garment favored by Burmese women, that were decorated in a print that could be mistaken for a wheel. Because Buddhists hold some reverence for the Great Wheel of Existence, and because the garments were to be worn “down there” by women, who are still viewed as unclean by local society, passions flared. A group of monks put to flames the homes of some Moslem garment merchants, burning many families alive. The Moslems responded. Many died before tempers calmed. In any faith, peace takes a back seat to passion.
Recently in Yakhine, rumors surfaced that a Moslem Rohingya had raped a Buddhist girl. Whether or not the rumor was true, and whether or not dozens of Buddhist girls had been raped by Buddhist men recently, did not matter. It became us vs. them. Villages have been torched, usually by bands of roving Buddhist monks, and the Rohingya have responded. Scores have already died, and the tensions are spreading to other parts of the country. Yet again, Buddhists and Moslems have renewed old animosities. (The Kachin are largely Christian, so they are uninvolved.)
The central government has called for peace. It has sent troops into Yakhine State, though because of the ongoing war in Kachin State, they are stretched thin. While still in its nascent stages, the strife does carry the potential to harm the ongoing exploitation of oil and gas in the area, plus it could threaten the vulnerable twin pipelines, still under construction. China might get shut out here, too. The central government also stands to lose more revenue, something it can hardly afford.
The wild card in this Yakhine battle is not the two opposing faiths, but rather the nation of Bangladesh, who has a difference of opinion over who gets to drink whose milkshake in the waters and lands bordering the two countries. Sharing a common faith with the Rohingya, Bangladesh has taken sides and is supporting the Moslems vs. the Buddhists. Not so far away, India is keeping an eye on this budding conflict.
Governments vs. their own people. One ethnic group vs. another. Competing desires to control and exploit increasingly scarce natural resources. Geopolitical considerations. All are at play in Burma, and all offer a glimpse, perhaps, in what awaits the rest of the world in the coming years.
Wish I could convince chindit13 to join us.
of Ancient Alexandria.... 
with a space rock as she did the dinosaurs...