I’m against most of the 457 articles of the 2008 (also known as Nargis) constitution. I say most because there’s one article that I can almost always agree to:

Article 41. The Union practices independent and non-aligned foreign policy aimed at world peace and friendly relations with nations and upholds the principles of coexistence among nations. (P.11)

Since Burma is squeezed between at least 4 big countries active in the region, namely, China on the one hand and the United States, Japan and India on the other, I think that’s a sensible policy.

So, if there is going to be another referendum on the constitution and expatriates like me are allowed to participate, it’s one article I would vouch for to hang on.

Maybe, it would be better still if we can make this country not only non-aligned but also a neutral one, with all the rights and duties that come with it. There are, among others:

Most important right

• Territorial inviolability

Most important obligations

• Non-participation in war
• Self defense
• Impartiality toward belligerents (which concerns export of war material)
• No mercenaries for belligerents
• Denial of territory to belligerents

“Without strictly adhering to it, the confederation would have collapsed during the World Wars,” said an academic while I was in Switzerland in January. “Because the principal belligerents were French, Germans and Italians and we have all three as our principal nationalities, a partisan policy would have destroyed our unity.”

The same result will be for Burma if we are going to choose one of the two blocs. As it is, with a country like us, we can only be friends and “siblings” to both sides and no less to either one, if we really mean business on Naypyitaw’s three sacred causes that were agreed on 15 October: Non-disintegration of the Union, non-disintegration of national solidarity, and perpetuation of national sovereignty.

However, wanting to be a neutral country and being allowed to be one are different things, as the Laotian experience had shown.

In 1962, Laos, a land-locked country like Switzerland (and Shan State), applied for neutrality and 14 countries which included China, US, UK, Thailand, India, France and Burma had pledged to respect it.

The trouble, unfortunately, was that Laos was engaged in a civil war against its rebels who were allied to North Vietnam. Unable to go through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), then commonly known as the 17^th parallel, to send supplies and men to South Vietnam, a secret route (which later become known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail)was built by Hanoi engineers through Laos and Cambodia. The end result was the total breakdown of the Laotian neutrality.

The Laotian example certainly is a great lesson for peacemakers in Burma: As long as there are internal conflicts aided-and-abetted by outside powers, and the peace process goes nowhere, it would be extremely difficult to uphold one’s neutrality.

Which goes on to show that Burma’s peace process and its non-alignment claim can only succeed, if negotiations are conducted not only among internal opponents but also among and with external competitors too.

N.B  Difference between Neutrality and Non-alignment is explained by encyclopedia.com and quora.com as follows:

Neutrality   A legal condition in which a country “permanently” refrains from taking sides in any war between two or more belligerents.

On the other hand, it cannot rely on anyone else coming to its defense if it is attacked. (‘Neutral’ derives from the Latin ‘ne+uter’ which means ‘neither one nor the other’)

Non-alignment A state of non-commitment in the cold war, that between the great powers. When India was attacked by China in 1962, she asked both the US and the USSR for assistance, taking the position that her non-alignment was intact so long as she was willing to accept military assistance from both camps.

A nonaligned country     can also still fight a war by choice, as India did against Pakistan in 1971, the result of which was the birth of Bangladesh.

*Very hard  to understand, these strange terms. But I hope I’ll get around to learning them one of these days.

By SAI KHUENSAI / Director of Pyidaungsu Institute and Founder of Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N)

All views expressed are the author’s own