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Strategic gains from Myanmar strongman's visit |
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In according a warm welcome to top Myanmarese leader Gen Maung Aye during his week-long State visit last week, New Delhi has conveyed the clear message that it is going to give paramount important to its national security interests and its regional engagement with its eastern neighbours.
Questions are being asked in the capital's diplomatic circles whether the welcome accorded to the top Myanmarese leader, Gen. Maung Aye, during his week-long State visit to India last week, signals any change in India's approach to relations with Myanmar. What are the factors that led to this development? By 1993, New Delhi had come to the conclusion that even though the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi enjoyed immense popularity in the country's heartland, the military regime was pragmatically making peace with all the ethnic insurgences. In these circumstances there was little or no possibility of the military regime relinquishing power to the National League for Democracy led by Suu Kyi.
According to G. Parthasarthy, who served as India's ambassador to Yangon, two factors lent urgency to the need for developing a practical and good neighborly relationship with Yangon's rulers. In the absence of dialogue with the Myanmar military, insurgency and narcotics smuggling were assuming alarming proportions in the states bordering Myanmar - Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Further, taking full advantage of the international isolation of the military regime, China moved in with substantial economic and military assistance supported by a trade regime that promoted extensive border trade. Beijing's growing influence and presence in Myanmar set alarm bells ringing in the capitals of the Association of South-East Asian Nations ASEAN), with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore embarking on a policy of "constructive engagement" with Yangon. While western countries led by Britain resorted to shrill rhetoric and condemned the military regime, their oil companies did not hesitate to seek lucrative investment opportunities in Myanmar. It was against this background that by 1993 quiet contacts were established with the Myanmar military leadership and a series of agreements signed to deal with cross border terrorism and narcotics smuggling and to promote trade and economic development along the India-Myanmar border. Yangon was also quietly urged that while India understood and appreciated its efforts to strengthen cooperation with China, there would be serious concern if this cooperation extended to providing military facilities to Beijing on Myanmar soil. There was also recognition in New Delhi that there are deep historical doubts and misgivings to Myanmar about Chinese intentions and policies.
The vicious anti-Chinese rioting in that country in 1967 was only one manifestation of this. The unprecedented public assertion by Myanmar's Foreign Minister Win Aung in New Delhi that his country will not allow any outside power to use its territory against India either for military bases or for the passage of arms has pleased policy makers in South Block as a vindication of their policy of quiet engagement of Yangon's rulers. The last five years have seen increasing cooperation between the security forces of India and Myanmar in dealing with cross border terrorism.
The largest ever coordinated military operation was mounted along the borders of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland with Myanmar in 1995 when groups of militants infiltrating across the borders.
were challenged and heavy loses inflicted on them. More recently, the Myanmar Army has cooperated actively this year in mounting operations against armed insurgents of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-Khaplang) along Myanmar's borders with Nagaland. A border trade agreement was signed in 1993 and engineers of India's Border Roads Organisation are now building a road liking the border township of Tamu on Myanmar's border wit Manipur with the railhead at Kalemyo. this road, to be formally opened shortly, will serve as a vital communications link with Mandalay in Myanmar. It will also, in course of time, become an integral part of the proposed Trans-Asian Highway network. Myanmar is becoming a crucial land bridge linking India with South-East Asia.
Ties with Myanmar are also set to have an important bearing on economic development in India's northeastern states. Discussions have commenced for developing the hydroelectric potential of the Chindwin river in Myanmar. This project would supply nearly 2,000 MW of power for the northeastern states and eventually for the national power grid. There is also considerable scope for he use of Myanmar's gas resources from its yet untapped fields. Finally, Myanmar has become an active partner in efforts to promote regional economic cooperation in the Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand. Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) grouping that brings together the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal. As the south Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) stagnates because of Pakistan's unwillingness to have any m Meaningful trade or economic cooperation with India, it is only natural and indeed inevitable that the resulting regional and sub-regional economic groupings that will emerge.
A discerning observer of foreign affairs, commented that India's relations with Myanmar have to take into account the strategic imponderable of an unfavorable stretch of terrain separating the two neighbours. Factually, two imperatives seek attention in this regard. These are, first, the Trijuntion locality linking India, China and Myanmar near the Diphuk Pass between Rima (China) and Putao (Myanmar) which skirts Arunachal Pradesh, which needs to be effectively monitored and second, the long, common porous border between Myanmar and the Indian sta1es of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, measuring some 1450 kms, that has to be properly secured.
However, India's foreign policy which had been predicated more on moral principles than pragmatic ones relegated this vital aspect of Indo-Myanmarese relations to a less than important status. When the Myanmarese military junta took over that country in 1988, India reacted with its usual pronouncements on subversion of democracy by the military. Relations nosedived with the Suu Kyi episode. Simultaneously, Myanmar faced two major charges from various world bodies - human rights abuses, and trading in narcotics. Even the World bank's carrot-for-democracy soft loan of one billion dollars to revamp its failing economy was of no avail to the junta. China stepped in at this juncture to hold Myanmar's hand, doubtless for its own interests but it suited the junta well enough. China's Yunnan province shares a fairly long common boundary with Myanmar and both countries being protagonists of "one party rule", struck up a cordiality which increased by the day. It was only when China started influencing Myanmar's affairs with Yangon willingly playing ball that India realized the gravity of the situation. This apart, another disconcerting mater. crept up. As far back as the 80s, Myanmar laid claim to Tuivang and Molcham villages of Manipur both of which lay on the international border. Tuivang son became Myanmarese property the relevant demarcating border pillars simply disappeared. Molcham too got appropriated on the specious plea that it stood on the Tamu (India) Kalewa (Myanmar) road which was built during the second world war and which meandered along an approximate alignment with the border, crisscrossing tributaries of the Chindwin river and finally swinging south deep into Myanmar. Unfortunately, New Delhi had no ready answer to Yangon's motivated rationale despite several representations from Imphal. Emboldened, Yangon now started providing succour to various insurgent groups operating in North East India; presumably, Beijing had a hand in this.
Meanwhile, China set up a surveillance station on Myanmar's Coco Islands south of Yangon and is acquiring similar facilities at Ramree island off the Arakan coast and in the Mergui Archipelago complex near Tenasserim in south Myanmar. This clearly shows the hold that Beijing exerts over Yangon. It dawned on New Delhi that an attitudinal shift was necessary in our foreign policy in order to deal with these developments. Shedding its earlier moralization, India began interacting with Myanmar in real earnest. We dispatched high-level delegations to Yangon, commencing with the then Foreign Secretary J N Dixit in 1993. Subsequently, official visits were made by Army Chief General BC Joshi to Myanmar followed by navy Chief Admiral VS Shekhawat to China. Faculty members from out Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, and Untied Service Institution of India toured Myanmar and China, respectively, on fact finding missions. Inputs from all these convinced New Delhi that a calculated thaw in favour of Yangon was t he need of the hour. Regular exchanges of delegations between India and Myanmar with open agendas took place.
Erstwhile Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath led a high-power team in February 1999 when he made it clear to Yangon's state peace and development council that India was not interested in Myanmar's internal affairs, be they Suu Kyi or whatever: India's only interest was to develop trade and political relationships. Myanmar's admission into ASEAN whose regional forum hosts India as a full dialogue partner also helped in realising our objective. A formal border trade post had been set up at Tamu-Moreh by then. India Home Secretary Kamal Pande visited Yangon during August this year to further consolidate the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1994 between New Delhi and Yangon. Myanmar responded very favourably as is evident from the top flight delegation headed by Myanmar's vice chairman and Army Chief General Maung Aye which toured India for a whole week during November this year.
The benefits that accrued from this visit were manifold. A second border trade pot is scheduled to come up at Chehamphai in Mizoram: India's credit to Myanmar of $15 million makes us one of Myanmar's largest export markets: Myanmar's intelligence feedbacks to Indian security forces enable them to prevent infiltration as well as exfiltration by insurgents along the common border: a new transportation channel comprising road. river and sea modes will come up connecting Calcutta with Yangon through North-East India. This could very well become an adjunct to the Kunming Initiative taken by China during president K R Narayanan's visit there earlier in the year. Thus the proposed growth triangle consisting of North East India, Myanmar and Yunnan gains in viability
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