缅甸：番红花革命

Revolution in Myanmar

The saffron revolution

番红花革命

Sep 27th 2007

From The Economist print edition

If the world acts in concert, the violence should be the last spasm of a vicious regime in its death throes

如果全世界统一行动，此次暴行应该会是一个邪恶体制垂死挣扎的最后一记抽搐。

“FEAR”, the lady used to say, “is a habit.” This week, inspired in part by the lady herself, Aung San Suu Kyi, partly by the heroic example set by Buddhist monks, Myanmar's people kicked the addiction.

昂山素姬女士以前常常说：“恐惧是一种习惯。”然而本周，缅甸人民打破了这个习惯。原因之一是昂山素姬女士本人的激励，另一个原因是佛教僧侣树立的崇高榜样。

Defying the corrupt, inept, brutal generals who rule them, they took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands to demand democracy. They knew they were risking a bloody crackdown, like the one that put down a huge popular revolt in 1988, killing 3,000 people or more. In 1988 Burma's people were betrayed not just by the ruthlessness of their rulers, but also by the squabbling and opportunism of the outside world, which failed to produce a co-ordinated response and let the murderous regime get away with it. This time, soldiers are once again shooting and killing unarmed protesters (see article). Can the world avoid making the same mistake twice?

成千上万的缅甸人民走上街头，抗议腐败、无能和残忍的军权统治者。他们明白他们的行为很有可能遭到血腥镇压，就象镇压1988年的大规模反叛一样，3000人在那次事件中死亡，也许还不止这个数字。1988年的缅甸人民不仅仅是被他们冷酷的统治者出卖的，他们也是被争吵不休的、机会主义的外界世界各国所出卖，那些国家未能作出同步反应，致使杀人的政权得以侥幸逃脱惩罚。这一回，士兵们又一次朝手无寸铁的示威群众开枪了。世界能否避免两次犯同一个错误？

In New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Western leaders, led by George Bush, harangued the junta, and threatened yet more sanctions. They have probably already shot their bolt. Western sanctions have been tried and have failed, in part because Myanmar's neighbours have for years followed a different approach. Its fellow members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations waffled about “constructive engagement” while making economic hay in Myanmar from the West's withdrawal. India, too, anxious about China's growing influence, and hungry for oil and gas, has swallowed its democratic traditions and courted the generals.

布什所领导的西方国家领导人在联合国大会上针对军人集团发表了谴责性的长篇演说，并威胁说要给予更多的制裁。他们已经已尽了最大努力。但是部分地由于缅甸的邻国多年以来采取了不同的做法，所以西方的制裁经过检验证明是失败的。当东南亚国家联盟的伙伴成员国从西方国家的退却中谋取经济上的好处时，总是用动听的调子说成是“建设性接触”。由于对中国持续增长的影响力感到焦虑，并急于得到石油和天然气，印度已压制了其民主的传统同时向军政政府示好。

Comrades-in-arms 战友

China itself has built an ever-closer relationship. The two countries, after all, have a lot in common beyond a shared border. Since the 1980s a wave of “people-power” revolutions has swept aside tyrannies around the world. Mercifully few regimes, and few armies, are willing to kill large numbers of their own people to stay in power. Two big exceptions have been Myanmar and China, whose government in 1989 likewise stayed in power through a massacre.

中国自己倒是和缅甸建立了日益密切的关系。毕竟，这两个共享部分边界的国家有许多共同点。1980年代以来，一股“人民动力”的革命席卷了世界上的暴政统治。幸运的是，很少有政权或者军队愿意用杀死大量自己人民的方式去巩固政权。Two big exceptions have been Myanmar and China, whose government in 1989 likewise stayed in power through a massacre.

Yet it is China that now offers the best hope the outside world has of changing Myanmar for the better. Admittedly, it is a thin hope. There are plenty of reasons to doubt China's willingness to upset Myanmar's generals. China's traditional posture, heard again this week, is to oppose any “interference in the internal affairs of another country”. It trots out this formula so often when foreigners criticise its own behaviour that, even if it supports change, it is hard for it to utter more than platitudes, as it has this month, about the desirability of a “democracy process that is appropriate for the country”.

然而现在恰是中国给外界提供了一个使缅甸向好的方向发展的希望。诚然，这个希望渺茫。有许多理由可以质疑中国向缅甸军政施压的意愿。本周再次听到了中国的一贯态度，那就是反对任何“对其他国家内政的干涉”。当外界批评中国的行为时，它总是频繁地适用这个公式，即使它支持改变，也很难期望它改变那一套的陈词滥调，就像本月谈到到愿望时所说的那样“民主进程对这个国家来讲是适宜的”。

China has also been the chief beneficiary of the partial Western boycott. Myanmar offers two of the prizes China values most in its foreign friends: hydrocarbon resources and a friendly army, willing to give it access to facilities on its coast on the Bay of Bengal. China has become the junta's biggest commercial partner and diplomatic supporter.

中国是西方的局部制裁行动的最大受益人。缅甸提供了两项中国在其邻国中最重视的价值：油气能源以及友好的军队，它愿意向中国提供使用其孟加拉湾海岸线上的设施的权利。中国已经成为了这个军人集团的最大的贸易伙伴和政治支持者。

Nevertheless there are two reasons why China might now see its own interests as best served by assisting a peaceful transition in Myanmar. The first is that China wants stability on its borders, and it is becoming obvious that the junta cannot provide it. The generals' economic mismanagement has helped reduce a country blessed with rich resources to crippling poverty. Fleeing economic misery as much as political oppression, up to 2m migrants from Myanmar are in Thailand. And it was an economic grievance—a big, abrupt rise in fuel prices—that sparked the present unrest.

尽管如此，仍然有两个理由可以说明为什么中国现在可能会把协助缅甸向和平过渡 视为自己的利益。首先，中国希望其边界的稳定，显然军人集团不能提供这一点。军政政府经济上的管理不善给这个国家减少贫困的努力帮了倒忙，虽然它有得天独厚的资源优势。为逃离经济上的惨痛和政治上的镇压，多达2百万缅甸人移民到了泰国。这引发了经济上的抱怨——燃油价格的大幅度快速上升——也是激发当前动荡局势的原因。

The junta has at least succeeded in cobbling together ceasefire agreements with most of the two dozen armed insurgencies lining its borders. But the price has been lawless zones where banditry and illegal-drug production are rife. Myanmar's slice of the “Golden Triangle” on its Thai and Lao borders was for a while in the 1990s the world's dominant heroin producer. It has been largely priced out of that market by Afghan competition. But it has successfully diversified into methamphetamines. The business relies on precursor chemicals coming from China, but, just as heroin from Myanmar brought China addiction and, through shared needles, HIV and AIDS, so “ice” can wreak havoc. Nobody expects any transition to democracy to be trouble-free. But, Chinese leaders must be asking themselves, can it be any worse?

军人集团至少成功地同沿边界线分布的二十多个武装反叛军恢复了停战协议。但是代价是那些无法无天的地带：在那里抢劫和非法的毒品生产司空见惯。缅甸和泰国、老挝交界的“金三角”地带1990年代有一个时期是世界上主要的海洛因生产基地。虽然很大程度上它已在价格竞争上被对手阿富汗所击败。但是它已经成功地利用脱氧麻黄碱(俗名冰毒)实现了多元化经营。这个行当所依赖的原始化学药品来源于中国，但是，正象从缅甸来的海洛因使中国人上瘾，并且通过共用针头注射产生爱滋病感染者和爱滋病一样，“冰毒”也能带来严重破坏。没人指望向民主过渡能一帆风顺。但是，中国的领导人肯定要问自己，事情会不会变的更糟？

Appealing to the Olympic spirit呼吁奥林匹克精神

China must also be wondering nervously how all this will affect next year's Olympic games in Beijing. Already, protests about China's support for the government of Sudan, larded with comparisons to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, have shown that its foreign policy as well as its human-rights record at home is under scrutiny. Myanmar is justifiably a popular cause in the West. If China proves actively obstructive to international efforts to bring the junta to book, it may provoke calls for a boycott of the games.

中国肯定也会紧张地担心所有的这些情况会在多大程度上影响明年在北京举行的奥林匹克运动会。抗议中国支持苏丹政府的活动中充斥着把北京奥运会和1936年的柏林奥运会相提并论的比较，这已经表明中国的外交政策以及其在国内的人权记录都受到了审慎的关注。西方完全有正当的理由关心缅甸局势。如果中国在把军人集团拉回谈判桌前的国际努力上被证实提供了实际上的阻碍，这将会激起一场抵制奥运会的呼声。

It is of course wrong to assume that China can dictate to Myanmar. In the generals' deluded world-view, only they can preserve Myanmar's independence. They will take orders from no other country. China's role is crucial, nonetheless. It must not blunt the impact of measures taken by other countries and provide the junta with a shield to fend off demands to do what it should.

然而，设想中国能支配缅甸也当然是错误的。在军政将军们幻想的世界观里，只有他们能保持缅甸的独立。他们不会接受其他任何国家的命令。尽管如此，中国的作用还是至关重要的。绝对不要削弱其他国家采取的措施的影响力，并且不要向军人集团提供庇护以及避开自己被要求做的应该做的事。

That, at least, is easy to prescribe. It should stop shooting protesters; free all political prisoners, including Miss Suu Kyi; scrap the constitutional guidelines drawn up by its farcical “national convention”; and start serious talks with all groups, including Miss Suu Kyi and her party. The aim of those talks should also be clear: to arrange a transition to civilian, democratic rule. For their part, provided free and fair new elections are held, Miss Suu Kyi and her party should not insist on the results of the election they won in a landslide in 1990 being honoured. And, unpalatable as it is, they should offer the generals whatever incentive they need to go quietly. This all sounds a pipedream. It will certainly remain so if the outside world does not unite around a set of demands, and agree on the sticks and carrots that might make deaf old soldiers listen.

至少，那样就很容易开处方了。军政政府应该停止枪杀抗议者；释放包括昂山素姬女士在内的所有政治犯；废弃滑稽的“国民大会”草拟的宪法纲领；并且认真地和包括昂山素姬女士以及其政党在内的所有党派展开对话。这些对话的目的也应该很明确：协商向平民化的、民主的制度过渡。提供自由和公正的选举对他们来讲更为有利，昂山素姬女士和她的政党不应该坚持兑现他们感到自豪的1990年压倒性选举胜利的结果。并且，虽然有点让人不愉快，但是他们应该向将军们提供需要平静解决问题的任何一种动机。所有这些听起来象是在做白日梦。如果外部世界不团结在这一整套要求的周围，不使用能让老泰龙钟的士兵听话的胡罗卜和大棒政策促成他们之间达成协议，那么，这一切将的确仍然是白日梦。