Rebuilding Burma After decades of war and dictatorship, “The Lady” faces tough challenges

'Would there be a chance of blueberry cheesecake?” asked Aung San Suu Kyi with a weary smile. We were in the National League for Democracy's decrepit headquarters in Rangoon, Burma and I had just invited the Nobel Peace Laurate over for a family lunch with my wife Jane and our two sons. She clearly had had a rough week in the campaign to keep alive the last flickering hope for democracy in this Southeast Asian nation; the brutal military dictatorship appeared hellbent on snuffing it out.

Somehow Jane managed to come up with the fixing for blueberry cheesecake and we had a delightful family lunch with 'The Lady” (more commonly called Daw, or Aunt, Suu by her inner circle). Her father was Burma's assassinated independence leader and her mother served as ambassador to India when Aung San Suu Kyi was in high school. Our sons, Owen and Wyatt, swapped stories with her over lunch about being 'diplomatic kids” suddenly dragged by parents into strange countries and unknown cultures. The year was 2003 and we were in Burma thanks to my posting as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. A few months after our family lunch, Aung San Suu Kyi and a convoy of her supporters were viciously attacked by the junta's thugs - dozens were killed, scores were savagely beaten or raped, and she was imprisoned and later sentenced to another long term of house arrest. The flicker of hope seemed almost extinguished.

Fast forward to 2015 and we see an amazing political turnabout in the offing; the National League for Democracy (NLD) won last month's national elections by a landslide and the former generals, who had swapped their uniforms for mufti but continued to run the country, have conceded defeat. Decades of dictatorship in Burma may finally be over. Yet, Aung San Suu Kyi faces daunting tasks as she seeks to institute democracy and the rule of law while building an economy ravaged by decades of state socialism and civil war.

Below are four big challenges Aung San Suu Kyi will need to address in the months ahead as Burma undergoes this political sea change.

First, she must strengthen the National League for Democracy (NLD), which is really more an embodiment of hope than a fully functioning political organization. Aided by a knot of octogenarian party elders ('the Uncles”), Aung San Suu Kyi needs to turn the NLD into an effective ruling party despite its complete lack of experience in government. Most NLD members of parliament are political neophytes, many of whom are former political prisoners. The Lady is not a natural delegator and has involved herself in most decisions facing the party, however small. Before parliament chooses the new president in March, the NLD must select someone to serve as president who reflects the will of the people and will do Aung San Suu Kyi's bidding, as she is prohibited from becoming president (due to a junta-written constitutional provision specifically aimed at excluding her). She has announced that she will be 'above the president,” somehow, and will call the shots. A split chain of command, particularly when one element is formal and the other informal, is a recipe for confusion, if not disaster.

Second, Aung San Suu Kyi needs to establish a modus vivendi with the 400,000-strong military, given that the generals blatantly annulled the 1990 NLD electoral victory and continued their oppressive rule for another quarter century. While reformist general-cum-president Thein Sein allowed the 2015 elections to take place and seems to have accepted defeat, not all generals are happy about ceding their privileged positions. A coup d'état by disgruntled officers is not out of the question. Further, the military commands a 25 percent bloc of votes in parliament, enough to veto any change in the junta-written constitution. Many Burmese would be delighted to see junta members brought to justice for their horrific human rights abuses, but Aung San Suu Kyi has said her emphasis will be on national reconciliation rather than revenge.

Before going on to the third big challenge, I'd like to address the issue of 'Burma” versus 'Myanmar.” In 1989 the military dictatorship announced that henceforth in English we must call the country Myanmar rather than Burma. It would be as if a group of generals carried out a coup d'état in Berlin and then demanded we call their country, in English, Deutschland rather than Germany. Our reply might be a diplomatic, 'Up yours! You're an illegitimate regime and we already have a perfectly good name in English for your country, Germany.” Thus, the U.S. Government usually refers to the place as Burma, as does Aung San Suu Kyi when speaking in English. (Note: the last part of her name sounds like 'Chee.”) It will be interesting to see if this changes under an NLD-led government.

Third, Aung San Suu Kyi should build meaningful federal structures to give a measure of self-rule to the long-suffering ethnic minorities that ring Burma's mountainous borderlands. Dominated by the ethnic Burmans who comprise two-thirds of the country's population, the Kachin, Karen, Chin, Shan, and other peoples long for a say in their own destinies. Many have been fighting simmering guerrilla wars since the 1950s. In fact, it was separatist insurgencies that first prompted Burma's army to seize power in order to 'save the Union.” Some ethnic minorities are Christian, animist, or Muslims (such as the particularly oppressed Rohingyas), a complicating factor given that most Burmans are devout Buddhists, and a tiny but vocal faction militantly so. Democracy and federalism are a more promising way to stop civil conflict and to 'save the union” than the iron fist of dictatorship.

Finally, Burma under Aung San Suu Kyi's leadership will need to strike a balance between friendly relations with its neighbors and protecting its own national self-interests. Poor, weak Burma borders two powerful countries with over a billion people each - India and China. The generals' corrupt deals with resource-hungry China for Burma's timber, gems, and minerals enraged millions of Burmese. Burma also has a long border with military-ruled Thailand and touches on Bangladesh, a country with 147 million people shoehorned into a land area smaller than the state of Iowa. The United States should maintain its residual sanctions on Burma until after the new president is selected by parliament in March, then move quickly to facilitate increased trade, responsible investment, and a host of official and unofficial cultural and educational exchanges. A ramped up Peace Corps program, sizable Fulbright and other educational exchanges, and hundreds of voluntary, non-governmental projects to strengthen Burma's tiny civil society could help put Burma on the path to becoming a prosperous, healthy democracy.

' Ron McMullen, a native of Northwood, is a graduate of Drake University, served as a U.S. diplomat for 30 years, and now teaches at the University of Iowa.