Foreign policy and Theravada Buddhism

The only five ‘ Theravada Buddhist Countries’ in the world having military strongmen as leaders is somewhat remarkable but not a thing for devout Buddhists to cry out ‘Sadhu-Sadhu’ in joyous piety when the standards of living of the people, their political freedoms, enjoyment of human rights and political stability are considered.

Consider Myanmar -- Burma, as it was known earlier -- that is in the news. Since a military junta led by Army Commander Min Aung Hliang staged a coup on February 1 and arrested National League for Democracy ( NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her cabinet ministers who were to be sworn into office on that very day, the country has gone up in flames and now civil conflicts with NLD’s civilian supporters are breaking out in many parts of the country.

Armed with outdated weapons, civilians are taking on the infantry and police on the ground while the junta air force is strafing from the air into crowded towns that have become pockets of resistance.

Last week, the UN Special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, called on the Junta Chief to immediately halt air and ground attacks that had been unleashed on the city of Loikaw and lift the blockade placed on it, allow access and provide aid and shelter.

Earlier UN Secretary General Antonio Gueterres called for an ‘urgent international response to prevent the crisis becoming a catastrophe in the heart of South East Asia and beyond’.

In a report to the UN General Assembly in October last year, he said the ‘military grip on power would become increasingly difficult to counter. The report cited g rave humanitarian implications including deterioration in the food situation, increasing mass displacements, a weakened public health system caused by the Covid 19 wave.

Some reports said that since the day of the coup (Feb 1) till the end of last year, hundreds of protestors have been tortured, over 900 arrested and about 190 killed. The civilian population that came on to streets en masse and openly opposed the junta take- over has been ruthlessly hunted down by the armed forces and police and large numbers have fled their homes into the jungles and joined border area armed ethnic rebels who have been fighting the army for decades. Homes, religious monasteries, churches and schools have been burnt down or destroyed according to reports cited by UN officials.

Meanwhile, no neighbouring Asian country that shares a common culture and religion with the 55 million people of Myanmar -- 78 percent Buddhist -has gone to the assistance of the suffering people, let alone condemning the brutality of the military regime.

Instead Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen appears to be attempting to give legitimacy to the regime. He had been fortunate to have the chair of the powerful 1O member ASEAN group pass on to him this year according to a periodically adopted practice among members. Last week the Cambodian strongman visited Napidaw the new capital of Myanmar to a red carpet welcome by Junta Chief Ming Aung Hlaing. This first visit to Myanmar by a foreign leader after the military coup resulted in widespread criticism in Myanmar and other ASEAN countries

Most ASEAN states had been critical of the coup d’etat from the start and had made the junta agree to a Five- Point Plan which involved the cessation of violence, and mediation by a special ASEAN envoy. The plan has been in tatters even before the Hun Sen visit, with Aung Suu Kyi being tried by a ‘military court’, while other party leaders and civilian protestors are being ruthlessly hunted down and killed.

Hun Sen, the new ASEAN Chair, is reported to have said he would as the chairman take a different approach to the Myanmar crisis than ASEAN leaders before him. However ASEAN leaders with greater political clout such as Indonesian President Joko Widodo, in a telephone call to the Cambodian leader had stressed the need for progress on the consensus reached in ASEAN with the Junta on a Five Point Plan. If there is no significant progress made on the Five- Point Consensus Plan, Myanmar could only be present at future ASEAN meetings at nonpolitical level, the Indonesian leader is reported to have said. Myanmar’s Junta head was not invited to the ASEAN Summit of last year which was held after the Coup.

Cambodia with 96.9 percent of the population being Buddhists and has Buddhism declared as its official religion in its constitution, has not expressed any sympathy with the people of Myanmar. Neither has neighbouring Thailand that has also gone under the military jackboot having thrown out the twice popularly elected Thaksin Shinawatra, the Thai millionaire and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra who was also elected Prime Minister.

The other neighbouring country on the border of Myanmar is Laos, a one party communist state. According to the World Bank it is deeply in debt half of which is owed to China. Laos has not extended any moral or diplomatic support to its troubled neighbour.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy and Theravada Buddhism

Sri Lanka differs from ‘ Theravada Buddhist’ countries under military strongmen cited earlier because its president Gotabaya Rajapaksa though an ex-military man -- a Lt Col (Retd) -was elected by a convincing majority and is supported by a parliament also freely elected.

This only ‘Theravada Buddhist’ country in South Asia, like other countries in South East Asia, has not shown concern about the plight of Buddhists in Myanmar under the military junta despite the strong historic and intimate ties between the two countries.

Although it is said that an axiom in the foreign policy of a country is that it is a projection of domestic interests, the regime of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s foreign policy does not seem to indicate such an inclination on Buddhism in the context of the crisis in Myanmar.

Protecting and safeguarding the interests of Buddhism is one of the main planks on which the Rajapaksa ‘ Pohottuwa’ party fought the presidential and parliamentary elections which were won convincingly with support from preponderantly Buddhist electorates. The Constitution declares that Buddhism is the foremost religion of the country. The leaders of the Rajapaksa party are shown particularly in the state owned media as devout Buddhists. But the Myanmar Buddhists are left to face their own ‘Karma’.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s foreign policy of ‘ Neutral Non Alignment’ it appears is adhering to the strict rule of noninterference in the internal affair sofa country, just as the countries cited earlier -and also China -- are doing while Western nations are taking positive steps such as imposition of sanctions on junta officials and pressurising investors from the West to call off their investments. Last week it was reported that Chevron- Total Energies pulled out of an ongoing gas project which was generating more than $ 1 billion year for the Junta.

The concepts of Non Alignment appear to differ much from the Non Alignment of Indira Gandhi and Sirima Bandaranaike that wanted superpower navies to keep out of the Indian Ocean and prevent its militarisation. At that time super power presence amounted to warships docking into Lanka’s harbours for a few days and pulling out. Today foreign powers are establishing permanent presence by being stakeholders in so called commercial ventures in the ports although the Sri Lanka government holds the majority of shares. To what extent these foreign powers will observe the niceties of the agreements in a threatened military conflict, is anybody’s guess.

Oil tanks in Trincomalee are to be given on a 50- year lease to India, it is reported. How the world would turn out to be in fifty years is a matter for astrologers, not geopolitical experts.

Perhaps, the importance of Trincomalee would be better appreciated reading what naval strategists said about it more than 200 years ago. The British Prime Minister, the Younger Pitt, told parliament in 1802 that its acquisition was ‘ to us the most valuable colonial possession on the globe as giving our Indian empire a security which it had not enjoyed from its first establishment’.

The Indians would obviously want Trincomalee oil tanks and harbour as long as India exists.

Meanwhile, a so-called representative of Myanmar has been featured in the Sri Lankan media presenting awards made by the Burmese sangha to high ranking Sri Lankan monks. Is he a representative of the post-coup Junta or the pre-coup government that now goes as the National Unity Government ( NUG)? The UN Security Council recognises the Permanent representative of NUG posted to the UN headquarters by the government of which Aung San Suu Kyi who was the de facto civilian leader. Which regime of Myanmar does the award presenting ‘ diplomat’ now in Colombo represent?