Considering Myanmar

It’s depressing that Stanley Weiss (“A first step toward democracy?” Views, Feb. 23) suggests that democracy is what people of Myanmar need most.

No. The gifted Burmese are being deprived of quality education at all levels. Health services in rural areas are scarce or non-existent. Many of the vast number of the urban poor go hungry. Some crave for more freedom of information and expression — and much else.

Democracy has become an American shibboleth that does not do justice to that fractious country’s history nor to its present day realities.

Dirk-Meints Polter, Munich

The United States must not go on pretending it still has any leverage with the Myanmar authorities. Although Stanley Weiss says that the United States “should review its current sanctions policy,” he should have added that the nations of Asia — from China to India to Japan to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — do not support sanctions against Myanmar.

Sanctions on Myanmar have always been about Western hubris and a very cynical sop to Western public opinion. They have the unfortunate side effect also of damaging Western interests in an important region.

Source :http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/opinion/25iht-edlet.html

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