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February 21st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda As one of the world’s most famous political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi, prepares for elections in Myanmar, Press TV has conducted an interview with her biographer, Justin Wintle, about the geo-strategic battle between China and the West.
The following is a transcription of the interview.
Press TV: The subject – Burma – which hasn’t been in the news for decades, it seems like. And then all of the sudden there it is in the headlines, the British foreign secretary, the US secretary of state. What is happening in Burma and why is it particularly important, geopolitically?
Wintle: I think it gets in the news quite often. Those are two separate questions, of course, what is happening and its geopolitical importance. Let me go into the latter of those two.
Situated between India and China, China’s been very interested in it because building a pipeline up through Burma into Guangxi which is a southwestern province of China…
Press TV: Not what the United States likes very much.
Wintle: Oil and gas. Now that means that to bring, say, oil in from Saudi Arabia, considerably shortens the journey and it’s also a security thing which is at the moment has to be shipped through the Malacca Strait. And that’s a longer journey. And the Malacca Strait can always be switched off very quickly so that is part of its strategic importance.
The other part of its strategic importance is that it is resource rich. I mean, it’s got gas fields and some oil, its got tungsten which is very important for making weapons, etc. It is strategically important.
It gets in the news…Aung San Suu Kyi stood up to a very harsh military regime. She is a sort of human rights angel, if you like. And periodically when something happens to her, when she’s released from house arrest, when she makes a speech, something like that, there is news about Burma.
In August last year, the new president who is called Thein Sein, who used to be a general but is now president, decided to meet Aung San Suu Kyi who’d recently been released from house arrest. He is a reformist.
There are various things that are happening. They obviously want to open up the economy, they want to be less dependent on China and the great fear was that they were becoming too dependent.
They’ve been under a lot of pressure from ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a trading block a bit like the EU.
And Burma Myanmar, which should be called Myanmar these days because that’s what it’s called in the United Nations, is due to chair ASEAN, of which it’s a member, in 2014. And I think there’s been a lot of pressure from other ASEAN countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc, to clean up its act.
Press TV: What does reformist mean?
Wintle: As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, nearly every political prisoner or prisoner of conscience has been released. The NLD, which is Aung San Suu Kyi’s party actually for democracy, is being allowed to stand in about – there are 40 bi-elections for technical reasons at the beginning of April to the national assembly – and they’re being allowed to stand.
Aung San Suu Kyi herself is being allowed to run as a candidate for constituency in Yangon (Rangoon).
Press TV: There are even rumors she might become a minister.
Wintle: Well, we can get into that a bit, bit later.
So there is political reform there. Prisoners have been released. What is equally important, the big story about Burma is that 40 percent of its population belongs to ethnic minorities and there have been countless insurgencies.
Historically, when the Burman people have been strong, they’ve tended to big-foot the minority peoples who include the Shan, the Karen, the Karenni, the Chin, the Kachin and the Muslim group the Rohingya.
When the majority Burman people have been weak, then the minorities have tended to express themselves.
And the net effect of that was to empower the army because only if the army was given more and more power could this insurgence, and this also communist insurgency, be kept at bay.
Press TV: And China watching over this all the time?
Wintle: Well, I can go back to that. But what that meant was that the army got stronger and stronger and stronger so that the coup, when it happened in 1962 under General Ne Win, there was a logic to it because the civilian government just couldn’t cope with all these insurgencies at that time.
To answer your question, yes, China was covertly supporting a communist insurgency.
Now, one of the great things that has happened in the last six months is that whereas there are a number of these ethnic insurgencies groups which had done a ceasefire with the government, there were still some that had not, noticeably the Karen.
The Karen national army has been waging a six year war basically. And suddenly there’s a ceasefire there.
And there’s only really one group now which there is no ceasefire.
But the tension between the majority people and the minority people explain so much of Burma’s not only recent history but entire history and that is if these ceasefires hold, it’s a massive first step forward.
What has to happen is that as the economy opens up, as the sanctions which the European Union, Britain and America have imposed in Burma as they are relaxed and I hope scrapped very quickly, they’ve got to be real economic opportunities for the minority people so that the minority people can feel that they are part of the new happiness, as it were.
And if that is done, then we’re indeed talking about happy days in the next ten years in Burma.
Press TV: Well there’s always a danger of playing off big superpowers or blocs in this way, I want to say daily average wages of USD 2.20 in Burma. When the British foreign secretary or the US secretary of state visits Burma and trade delegations start to arrive as the sanctions go, how confident are you that deals and contracts won’t be sewn up at very low prices as they hedge against China when it comes to what the Burmese think?
Wintle: Well, if you look at Cambodia for example, the big industry there and practically the only industry there apart from agriculture is the garment industry. There are some very well known high street names like Marks and Spencer have garment factories there. And Cambodia doesn’t really have any mineral sources to speak of.
Burma is a very different thing. They’ve got a huge amount of mineral sources; they’ve got a bigger population, a more varied population, etc. Of course, there will be Western countries which will seek to exploit a cheap labor force.
Press TV: Do you see this as part of a non-aligned movement or do you see it as changing very much towards the West? I mean, it’s the “bi-polarity” here that diplomats, I don’t know, behind you in MI5 or further down the river in MI6 is banking. Is that “bi-polarity”?
Wintle: The leaders in Myanmar are very busy making up their minds and they want to be the sort of newest dragon economy on the block. And good luck to them!
GMA/JR
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