11:23 AM
Waa Haa Haa
April 2, 2012 -- Updated 1131 GMT (1931 HKT) ....
Supporters
pack a truck with the hope of seeing democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
on her visit to her constituency for the parliamentary elections April
1, 2012 in Myanmar.
- Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to Myanmar's parliament
- Her ability to take part in electoral politics is a sign of reform by the military leadership, authors say
- U.S. has a complex web of sanctions enacted over many years against military regime
- Authors: It's a good time to relax the sanctions to encourage economic growth, reform
Editor's note: Suzanne DiMaggio is vice president of global policy programs at the Asia Society (Follow her on Twitter). Priscilla Clapp is a retired minister-counselor in the U.S. Foreign Service and former Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma.
(CNN) -- Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's victory in Myanmar's by-elections on Sunday represents the nascent return of opposition politics to the country after nearly half a century of military rule. It also has created an opportunity for the United States to begin easing economic sanctions that are hindering reform.
Aung San Suu Kyi, kept under house arrest by the government for 15 years, won a seat in the parliament with a handy plurality.
Votes continue to be
tallied, but reports indicate that her National League for Democracy
(NLD) party captured most of the 45 seats up for grabs. The
military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) will
maintain its grip on the majority of the 662 seats in the Union
Parliament, but now opposition members will have a voice in lawmaking.
Suzanne DiMaggio
The international
community should take this moment to encourage Myanmar's moves toward
liberalization. For the United States, the time has come to seriously
address its myriad financial sanctions on Myanmar to ensure that they
are not working at cross-purposes with reform efforts.
Priscilla Clapp
The reformers in Myanmar
believe that popular support for the political transition can be
consolidated only if real improvements in the quality of life can be
delivered to the country's poverty-struck masses and struggling middle
class. They fear that if the country's economic decline is not arrested
and reversed relatively soon, it will lead to widespread dissatisfaction
and instability, threatening a return to harsh security measures.
The draconian application
of U.S. financial sanctions is having a serious negative impact on
legitimate economic actors in Myanmar who are struggling to institute
positive changes. They are also impeding Americans who are working to
assist in the reforms.
While those aspects of
the financial sanctions aimed at inhibiting corrupt economic activity
should be retained, they should be modified to ensure that they do not
prevent legitimate financial transactions essential to the development
of a vibrant private sector, that they allow wider assistance for
capacity building which Myanmar so urgently needs, and that they
contribute positively to the transformation of the country's banking and
financial system.
Gradually easing the
trade sanctions could help develop certain sectors of the economy as
they begin to expand. Investment sanctions should also be reduced as the
macroeconomic structures are reformed and anticorruption measures are
put in place.
The complex web of U.S. sanctions targeted at Myanmar
over the past 20 years includes five federal laws and four presidential
executive orders, all of which require different conditions to be met
for lifting.
Throughout the
sanctions-building process, very little thought was given to how to
unpack them if and when it was warranted. By necessity, this will be a
gradual process, enabling the United States to continue to test the
commitment of President Thein Sein's government to pursuing democratic
reforms, halting conflict in ethnic areas and seeking a genuine
political settlement and expanding individual freedoms and civic
activity.
Some of Myanmar's new
leaders are trying to move decisively in the direction of democracy,
free enterprise, and the protection of human rights, which the United
States has been advocating for decades.
To insist on solutions
to all of the country's problems before sanctions can be relieved at all
would be self-defeating. A more reliable measure of progress than the
by-elections will come in 2015, when Myanmar plans to hold its next
general elections.
By this time, the
civilian population should have a better idea of whether the government
is making sincere efforts to serve the public interest, whether it is
safe to run for office and engage openly in political activity, and
whether a new generation of socially responsible political and military
leaders is emerging.
The United States should do all it can to help Myanmar get to this point.
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