Germany’s federal commissioner for human rights policy, Markus Loening, recently visited Burma and published an article in The Financial Times in which he called upon European Union member states to enter into an “intelligent dialogue with all groups in Burmese society.” This sounds reasonable enough, as long as this call is not what we have seen behind closed diplomatic doors in internal EU member states' consultations about right policies toward Burma. Calls for dialogue with “all groups in Burmese society” have unfortunately too often taken the form of an effort to undermine the role of Aung San Suu Kyi as the genuine leader of the Burmese democratic movement and as a legitimate representative of many of the aspirations of the vast majority in Burmese society.

That is exactly what the generals in power want to achieve—to marginalize and delegitimize Suu Kyi and her party, the National league for Democracy (NLD). From the generals' side, it is a logical and “intelligent” aspiration. They rightly see Suu Kyi and the NLD, as well as the ethnic parties that have been banned or were discouraged from taking part in last year's elections, as the real sociopolitical force that can challenge their grip on power. But EU diplomats should under no pretext assist the generals in achieving their goal of sidelining opposition forces.
Dialogue should not lure them into the trap of becoming useful idiots with good intentions who only end up serving the core interests of Burma's military strategists.

To know what the call for dialogue “with all groups in Burmese society” looks like in practice, one need only consider the fact that the European Heads of Missions in Myanmar meeting on March 14, which brought European ambassadors together to discuss their positions regarding the EU sanctions review, the German participant argued against mentioning Suu Kyi by name in official EU communications.

German Ambassador Julius Georg Luy and other German diplomats are among those who for months have been trying to put Suu Kyi at the same level as representatives of the small democratic parties that were allowed by the military regime to enter Parliament to give legitimacy to the results of the sham elections held last November. When EU ambassadors were planning to have a joint meeting and lunch with Suu Kyi, German diplomats argued that they should not meet the NLD leader separately, but only together with representatives of other opposition parties. The German ambassador, together with his Belgian and Spanish colleagues, argued that other democrats and ethnic forces might be offended if it became public that Suu Kyi was being afforded special treatment. It was the UK ambassador who  rightly pushed for a separate meeting with Suu Kyi, because she is still the undisputed leader of the democratic opposition—a fact that EU member states should not deny. But Germany still argued that the goal of such a meeting should be to seek a wide range of views from several interlocutors, without favoring anyone in particular.

By calling for “intelligent dialogue” with all groups in Burma, German diplomats are in reality helping the generals undermine Suu Kyi's legitimacy as the opposition leader. That is very different from what German Chancellor Angela Merkel did when she singled out Suu Kyi and talked with her by phone.

If Germany wants to be right in its intention to talk with “all groups,” then they should be a bit more cautious in defining who “all” is. With their experiences with the Stasi in East Germany, they should know that representation in authoritarian and totalitarian societies is a tricky issue. Germans and Europeans should not let the Burmese military define with whom they should talk and with whom they are not allowed to talk. The ruling party and the opposition parties in the “legal fold,” and the civil society players, both local and international, that have been allowed to operate in the country, simply do not represent the full spectrum of political views in Burma.

If German diplomats want to enter into an intelligent dialogue with all groups in Burmese society, then they should talk, for example, with the families of Min Ko Naing, Nilar Thein, U Gambira and other political prisoners. Such talks could have taken place at the German Embassy in Rangoon during the visit by the federal commissioner for human rights policy. In addition, German diplomats should talk with Kachin, Karen, Shan and other ethnic representatives—not just those who have been allowed into Parliament, but also those who have been barred from even competing. That would constitute a real “dialogue with all groups.” After meeting with them, Loening would probably have been a bit less hopeful but a bit better prepared to lead an intelligent dialogue with the Burmese government.

Let me conclude that I agree with Loening that sanctions should not be a self-serving instrument, but that they need to be “tuned.” If the Burmese government is serious about the advertised change and really wants sanctions to be lifted so that a flow of investment can begin to reduce poverty, then it has all the tools it needs to achieve this goal. All it needs to do is release political prisoners and take the first steps toward a genuine national dialogue that includes the ethnic and political opposition groups. By doing so, the Burmese government can achieve its goal of lifting sanctions within less than six months.

Suzanne Rott is a Burma observer based in Thailand.