This is odd.

Andrew Heyn as HM Ambassador to Burma has been writing in implausibly frank terms in the Guardian about Burma’s forthcoming elections. Or, should I say ‘elections’, as the form appears to exceed the substance in democratic terms?

Thus:

People here believe that the vote will somehow be fixed, just as the result of the constituitional referendum was widely alleged to have been in 2008. The only thing they are not sure about is how this will be done…

And this from an earlier piece:

Those democratic opposition parties that have chosen to participate must operate under the most difficult conditions. The Union Electoral Commission which is responsible for nearly all aspects of the election process is nominally independent. But its actions have demonstrated that it is anything but.

At a recent briefing for diplomats in the capital, Naypyitaw, for example, an election commission official facing a difficult question told his astounded audience that he would need to get instructions from the home ministry. It seems that even the pretence of independence has been abandoned.

This sort of language and the way it is being delivered goes well beyond anything I have seen ever before from any senior diplomat, with the lively exception of Sir E Clay in Kenya who in 2004 had something to say publicly on the issue of Kenyan government corruption:

… evidently the practitioners now in government have the arrogance, greed and perhaps a sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons. They may expect we shall not see, or will forgive them, a bit of gluttony because they profess to like Oxfam lunches.

But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our shoes…

And let’s not forget Craig Murray’s human rights speech in Uzbekistan.

This Burma case is rather different, an open attack on a ruling elite as an important election looms. It’s hard to imagine a more open – even illegitimate – example of ‘interference in the internal affairs of the host state’, or a way of doing so less likely to make a serious impact on the problem.

Remember Tony Brenton, HMA Moscow? He ended up speaking in comparatively decorous if still critical terms about Russia’s human rights record, and what real good did that do:

The problem is that one can get away with quite a lot of criticism of a host government as long as it is done quietly. But if an Ambassador is deemed to have stepped over the line and taken sides – however obliquely and politely – in domestic politics, his host government find it easy to justify their poor behaviour by piously adopting the highest tones of synthetic indignation, sniping away until the posting ends.

The Ambassador in other words becomes a ‘player’, not an informed spectator – and can be ruthlessly fouled.

That said, Western Ambassadors in Moscow face an unenviable problem – how to avoid giving the impression to democracy’s friends and foes alike that crass repression of Russia’s best democrats by the current authorities is acceptable, or at least tamely accepted?

So what is happening in this Burma case? Options include:

  • HMA’s posting is coming to an end, so the FCO has let him speak out in this unconventional way to get a message across before a ‘new start’ Ambassador arrives
  • HMA has burnt his personal bridges with the regime, has no local impact anyway and so the FCO has decided that UK policy has nothing to lose by letting him write these pieces
  • HMA/FCO believe that in fact the opposition will do well and so he is positioning himself to be the most popular Ambassador in town if they win
  • The whole thing is a crass stunt, not properly thought through

My feeling? As I have been writing on Craig Murray’s website (quite a good debate has unfolded there, as it happens – scroll down through the comments), diplomacy is all about making an impact, which means being credible locally and at HQ, and building up a nice bloc of allies.

I know next to nothing about Asia, but by openly challenging the regime in this way Andrew Heyn (whom I know and like) seems to me to be doing the diplomatic equivalent of slapping the Burmese leadership across the face with a dainty silk glove. They are unlikely to be appreciative.

It’s a very effective insult. But is it … dignified? Or wise?

Talking of post-colonial Burmese pith-helmets and high protocol etiquette, maybe the Burmese will reply to Andrew rather like this: