Myanmar's military ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, arrived in India on Sunday on a landmark six-day visit to strengthen economic and political ties with Indian President Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, two of the few friends his junta has in the world. It was the first such trip by a Burmese leader - the junta refers to the country as Myanmar - to India in nearly 25 years.
The visit, however, was ill-timed, as it came days after Shwe sacked Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, a reformist military intelligence chief who supported talks with detained pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Several hundred intelligence officers were also detained, while businesses under military-intelligence control, including the lucrative black markets on the borders, have been closed or taken over by the junta.
By inviting Shwe at this time and receiving him with all the pomp and circumstance merited for a head of state, India has undermined efforts to promote democratization in Burma.
Nyunt was instrumental in changing the outlook of the governing junta in Burma. Although no one would call him a liberal in the Western sense - he headed the military's intelligence service - diplomats from outside the world considered him shrewd, pragmatic and less xenophobic than Shwe.
Nyunt was pivotal in managing Burma's accession into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1997. Burma is even going to hold the organization's rotating chair in 2006. Nyunt also negotiated ceasefires with separatists and announced a "road map to democracy" that envisaged the first national elections since 1990 and a possible reconciliation with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Some analysts have even said that after Aung San Suu Kyi, Nyunt was the second most popular figure in Burma.
The removal of Nyunt indicates that the junta's moderates have lost power to the army faction in control not only of the military's narcotics and gem-smuggling operations but also of government policy. What Khin Nyunt's removal really demonstrates is that the only real threat to the junta's survival comes from within its own ranks.
India, which once openly supported Aung San Suu Kyi, has been quietly wooing the Burmese military leadership in recent years. Analysts say India is keen to engage Burma to offset China's influence in the region. Delhi has also pushed trade and investment initiatives with Burma since the 1990s as part of its "Look East" policy. India and Myanmar are currently discussing a range of issues including trade, counter-terrorism and security.
India wants cooperation from the Burmese regime to contain its insurgency problem in the northeast; some of the Indian separatist militants have well-known links to the Chin and Kachin ethnic groups in neighboring Burma, which allows them almost-free movement in the heavily forested border area. In the last few weeks alone, a string of explosions have killed scores of people in the Indian states of Assam, Mizoram and Nagaland.
On Saturday, about 150 protesters - mainly women and children - held a demonstration in Delhi against Than Shwe's visit. One poster indignantly claimed, "It's a national shame to roll out the red carpet for murder Than Shwe." Myind Aye, president of the All Burma Students' League of India, told reporters, "We are totally opposed to this visit."
While India has every right to hold bilateral talks with Myanmar - as other countries like Thailand and Japan have - the timing of the visit was detrimental to efforts of pro-democracy activists in Burma and abroad. Inviting Shwe right after the dismissal of Prime Minister Nyunt sends the wrong signals to the world community, especially since the Burmese junta attaches great significance to the visit because it is being hosted by the world's largest democracy, helping legitimize its position.
The danger, as former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes points out, is that "once the military regime gets international recognition, then it will be very difficult to restore democracy in Burma."
