We went to the Intelligence Squared debate on Burma, the other night, the motion being:  Is it time to lift sanctions?  I had an  old friend speaking in favour of the motion, Thant Myint-U, and a new friend speaking against the motion, Brad Adams.

Thant has a very distinguished Burmese pedigree - his late grandfather was the former secretary-general of the United Nations, he has worked in the policy development side of the UN himself, and he has written a critically acclaimed history of Burma, called the River of Lost Footsteps.   He is photogenic, charming, funny, intelligent, with hundreds of friends on Facebook, and if this was a superhero Lego game of my son’s, he would be the one the Americans would be grooming to be the next president, come the revolution.  (I hope I didn’t just blow some top secret plan there..) (I tend to think of Aung San Suu Kyi as like Prince Charles, the natural monarch in waiting, the one who should accede to the throne, but in case they don’t ever allow her, Thant’s up next).

Brad works for Human Rights Watch, specialising in Asia.  I met him with my friend Anna when we attended a small talk he was giving about Burma for Human Rights Watch.  He is a great speaker, very engaging, and has that soft New York accent that makes you think of coffee shops and Woody Allen films.

There were some other speakers too - a retired ambassador, a director from Burma Campaign, an author and journalist, and a fantastic speaker who worked for Medicins Sans Frontieres Holland, and had spent years in Burma.  He made the point that with economic sanctions in place, governments are more reluctant to provide humanitarian aid.  It’s an unofficial stance, but it happens nonetheless, making it harder for organisations like his to help in times of crisis.

We had our own debate in the car on the way there, which resulted in that classic car argument of how to get there, and whose fault it was for not being able to find the way.  We got so lost we missed half the debate, and arrived to find a hushed theatre filled with intelligent squares lapping up every word.  Brad was wrapping up his speech, the wonderful Libby Purves was fielding questions from the floor, everyone asked, “is it working?” about their microphones and asked some well informed questions, to which they received precise answers.  It was like being at a Question Time debate without the annoying party politics.

In the end, Brad’s team won, but it was close.  I think they won more because the pro-lifting sanctions team didn’t seem to have any strong ideas as to what they would put in place of economic sanctions.  Brad’s team similarly, couldn’t really say what sanctions had actually achieved in Burma, and although they spoke of targeted sanctions they couldn’t offer any specific examples.

Or perhaps this all happened in the first half of the debate when we were driving along the embankment, over the bridge, round Waterloo or was it Vauxhall and back again.

I think it’s safe to say that I won that particular debate.

(safe because it’s MY blog, heh, heh, heh…)