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Burma gets real, but how real?

There can be no doubting the significance of Burma’s moves in the past day or two:  a massive release of amnestied political prisoners and a ceasefire with Karen ethnic insurgents.  There have already been some smaller prisoner releases and cancellation of a Chinese-built dam, which was the subject of local protests.  Elections for a limited number of parliamentary seats are scheduled for April 1.  Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner for decades, has agreed that her political party will participate.

A military junta has run Burma for almost 50 years.  It was only in March that the junta turned over some authority to a “civilian” government.  The current president, Thein Sein, spent his entire career embedded in the autocratic regime, mainly as a military officer.  Among other distinctions, he ran the much criticized relief effort after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

Thein Sein seems to have the backing of the generals for a dramatic shift in Burma’s course, one that has already elicited from the United States a Secretary of State visit and an intention to name an ambassador.  There has been none in Burma since 1990, in protest of military regime policies, but the embassy remains open under a Chargé d’Affaires.

I am not a great believer in brilliant diplomatic strokes.  Most seem that way only in retrospect.  Diplomacy is usually a long, hard slog.  When the full story is told, this one too may turn out to be more Sisyphean than Herculean.

But I still can’t help but note the incredible difference with what is going on today in Syria or Yemen (and what went on previously in Libya).  The Burmese autocratic leadership, after many years of using brutal repression, has decided to go in a different direction.  The Middle East would look very different today if Bashar al Assad and Ali Abdullah Saleh had decided likewise before it was too late. Burma has at least an opportunity now to go down the well-trodden Asian road to a more open political system.  South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and others have achieved democratic reform and improved economic prosperity without violent revolution.

Still, it is not clear how far the Burmese generals intend things to go.  Are they opening up the system in a way that will lead to their own loss of power?  Or is this an effort to open a restricted space for civilian political competition and governance, with the generals keeping at least control of security and foreign policy?  How will they react to efforts to establish accountability for past abuses of human rights?  What if it proves difficult to extend the ceasefire with the Karen and other ethnic groups into political settlements?  Some of the political prisoners released yesterday had been released years ago, only to be re-arrested.  Could it happen again?

What is happening in Burma is real, but just how real is not yet clear.