Re: [A-List] Myanmar

["Patrick Bond" <pbond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
As a final note, I would like to point out, also, that the policies
regarding "independence" of tribal groups are so strikingly similar
to those policies which in South Africa had led to the Bantustans
that it is quite a mystery for me _how is it that Patrick Bond, whose
standing against apartheid I can testify if it were necessary at all_
can't realize that the agreements between the central government and
the ethnic minorities shows the character of those "independentist"
movements.
I mean: while the Pretoria white-only regime fomented "independent"
Bantustans, in a policy already followed by Britain -some examples:
Lesotho, Swaziland, Nyassaland, even (outside Africa) Bhutan, etc.-
the Myanmar authorities arrive at agreements with the military
representatives of the involved populations.

***

PB: Nestor, what are you getting at? It's well known that the many ethnic
minorities fighting the junta have been divided and in some cases ruled,
especially along the Thai border. (Loss of the Shan was a particularly sore
defeat roughly a decade ago.) Some have gone over to Rangoon's side. When
Burma got independence it was exceedingly difficult to knit the ethnic
groups into a national project, which was Aung San's original vision (as a
nationalist and sometime communist). The strategy of the National League for
Democracy is to set up a secular state with protection of minority rights,
within a national entity - but no Bantustans. What would make you think
otherwise?


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