Myanmar's Long Road to National Reconciliation (10 page)

¹
   As with
Nixon in China,
the operatic possibilities of the Myanmar situation invite a writer with greater creativity than a mere academic such as myself. Imagine the possibilities. You have the two queens held in palaces on opposite sides of a lake pining through lengthy arias for the lost imaginary worlds of their dead fathers. Their palaces are maintained by men in green who provide the operatic action as they scurry about on the stage making love and war with their colourful neighbours from the hills while trying to guess their master’s desires. One of them, a senior prince, even finds himself, in the penultimate act, detained like the princesses whom he incarcerated before, for his alleged dereliction of duty. A chorus of neighbours wishes the men in green well and provides friendly encouragement, but off in the distance large drums occasionally burst forth. These big noises toll for the inevitable doom and gloom they foretell if the men in green do not change their ways and realize that their true queen is locked up on the south side of the lake; meanwhile the bad queen from the north laments the fate of her sons and husband and the good queen waves her highly principled “democracy” wand, casting a spell over the big drummers. While the drama unfolds, the master of all meanwhile sits in splendid isolation pondering the instability and uncertainty of life. Subsequent liberal re-interpreters may even seek to remake the story of the detained prince, making him out to be the Prince Charming all had hoped for, but who only emerged after his neutering.

²
   The Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the ruling State Peace and Development Council, Senior General Than Shwe and Vice Senior General Maung Aye, are the only remaining members of the cadre of senior military officers that assumed power in 1988. All of their former colleagues have been replaced over the years, mainly by younger regional commanders.

³
   The name “State Peace and Development Council” (SPDC), was adopted by the regime in 1997. It had been known formerly as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC.

⁴
   The Convention initially met sporadically over three years from 1993 and drew up “six objectives” and “104 principles” to be followed in the subsequent writing of a constitution. The most important of the points agreed at the Convention assured a leading role for the army in any future government, including in the choice of head of state and the appointment of 25 per cent of members in the legislature from the military.

⁵
   For analyses of 2003, see Kyaw Yin Hlaing, “Myanmar in 2003: Frustration and Despair”,
Asian Survey,
Vol. 44, No. 1 (January–February 2004), pp. 87–92; and Robert H. Taylor, “Myanmar: Road Map to Where?”, in
Southeast Asian Affairs 2004
(Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004), pp. 171–84.

⁶
   Officially, Military Intelligence, or MI, was known as the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI).

⁷
   A
dah
is a knife with a large blade that is used by Myanmar farmers.

⁸
   In addition to Thailand and Myanmar, countries that attended the meeting were Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, and Singapore. Also present was the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Myanmar, Ambassador Tan Sri Razali Ismail of Malaysia.

⁹
   A second meeting, to have been held in April or May 2004, to which the original 13 participants were expected to be joined by Norway and Switzerland, lending further credibility to the Bangkok process, was cancelled at the request of the Myanmar government. Yangon was said to be too busy planning for the constitutional convention to attend. Critics of the regime suggested that the cancellation followed on from the fact that a statement by then Foreign Minister, U Win Aung, to the effect that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be released prior to the convention, was unlikely to eventuate. This had created a potentially embarrassing international situation best avoided. Senior figures in the SPDC may also have seen the “Bangkok process” as an attempt to internationalize what they perceive to be an internal matter.

¹⁰
  This is the view of the United States and United Kingdom governments as well as of the United Nations Secretary-General. See, for example, the Secretary-General’s report to the 59th session of the General Assembly, dated 16 August 2004, paper A/59/269.

¹¹
  See Martin Smith’s table in
Chapter 3
, also reproduced in “Ethnic Politics and Regional Development in Myanmar: The Need for New Approaches”, in
Myanmar: Beyond Politics to Societal Imperatives,
edited by Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Tin Maung Maung Than and Robert H. Taylor, pp. 78–80 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005).

¹²
  Previous KNU requests that third parties be involved in the talks and that they be held outside of Myanmar were abandoned. The terms which the SPDC offered were apparently similar to those made to other insurgent groups in the late 1980s, starting in the Shan and Kachin states. Earlier efforts, such as a unilateral ceasefire with the KNU in the early 1990s, failed to draw the organization into negotiations with the government.

¹³
  Campaigning groups such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide and the Free Burma Rangers.

¹⁴
  For example, in 1983, at the time of last national census in Myanmar, 830 village tracts were off-limits to Immigration and Manpower Department officials for “security reasons”, and another 120 were only partially enumerated in the census. It was estimated that nearly 1.2 million people then lived in villages to which the government had no access. These villages included 435 in the Shan State, 181 in Kachin State, 170 in Karen State, 34 in Sagaing Division, 8 in
Kayah State and 2 in Tanintharyi Division. See Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma, Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs, Immigration and Manpower Department,
Burma 1983 Census
(Yangon, 1986), Table A-1: Area Covered in 1983 Census by State and Division, pp. 1–12. Today there are relatively few places in the country where the writ of the government does not reach, though sometimes it is mediated through the leadership of a ceasefire group.

¹⁵
  The withdrawal of Chinese Communist Party support for the Burma Communist Party in 1989 led to the first round of ceasefires with groups in the Kachin and Shan States. Groups operating in Rakhine State are also finding their room for manoeuvre reduced as the governments of India and Bangladesh have increasingly cooperated with the Myanmar armed forces in controlling cross-border insurgent operations and cutting off supply lines to armed groups.

¹⁶
  The increased mobility of the armed forces as a consequence of the purchase of new equipment and increased recruitment achieved during the ceasefire period suggests that if one or more ceasefire groups were to return to arms, the capacity of the army to intervene is much greater now than prior to 1988. However, the terrain where these groups operate is very rugged and large areas do remain inaccessible by land for parts of the year.

¹⁷
  Both the statement by Chairman Aung Shwe and the NLD CEC statement are available on BurmaNet News, 14 May 2004.

¹⁸
  As that decision was made not long after then United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, the official media in Myanmar has from time to time contended that the withdrawal was done, if not at the behest of, then with the encouragement of, the United States.

¹⁹
  See, for example, Free Burma Coalition,
Common Problems, Shared Responsibilities: Citizens’ Quest for National Reconciliation in Burma/Myanmar,
October 2004.

²⁰
  Aung Shwe, 86; Than Tun, 83; Tin Oo, 77; Lwin, 80; Hla Pe, 77; Lun Tin, 83; Nyunt Wai, 78; Soe Myint, 81. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is now 60.

²¹
  Personal correspondence and discussions in October and November 2004.

²²
  The NLD apparently circulated in July 2004 a country-wide petition to demand the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Vice Chairman Tin Oo. For this they were accused by the government of “coercing” members of the public. In August 2004 the party also launched a suit in the Myanmar Supreme Court for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Vice Chairman Tin Oo and for the re-opening of the party’s branch offices. The suit was summarily dismissed as an “irrelevancy”.

²³
  An Inter Press Service report datelined New Delhi and Bangkok, 25 October 2004,
www.rebound88.net/04/oct/25.html
. Accessed 8 August 2005.

²⁴
  Though General Than Shwe was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence in the dying days of the regime, in July 1988.

²⁵
  The fact that this event occurred at approximately the same time as the Asian
economic crisis and the beginning of the negative investment consequences of United States economic sanctions tended to obscure the significance of what transpired.

²⁶
  There were rumours circulating earlier in the year that Military Intelligence officers were become concerned about their safety. Foreign Minister U Win Aung allegedly said that his Prime Minister “was in a very dangerous situation” and that the lives of both men were at risk. This is according to a report from Bangkok-based journalist Larry Jagan who reports he learned it from two sources who attended a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers and Ambassador Tan Sri Razali Ismail in June
(Bangkok Post,
18 September 2004). If indeed the Myanmar Foreign Minister were so indiscreet as to make this claim, even confidentially, another reason for his dismissal was produced. An “end game” situation had been created.

²⁷
  An alternative interpretation might lead to the opposite conclusion. That is, relieved of the need to balance the interests and perceptions of his two deputies, the Senior General and those close to him whom he has appointed over the past several years will be able to restore a vigour to the centre of government that has been missing in recent years. Time will tell, but even if this does prove to be the case, lower-level officers are likely to refer decisions that formerly, with General Khin Nyunt’s protection, they felt comfortable making, up the line for higher authority to act, thus slowing the decision-making process.

²⁸
  This General Tin Oo is not the same person as NLD Vice-Chairman General Tin Oo.

²⁹
  According to the Home Minister, Colonel Tin Hlaing, as quoted on 24 October 2004 by Associated Press. Colonel Tin Hlaing and the Minister for Labour and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, former Ambassador to the United States U Tin Winn, were the other senior members of the government removed following the detention of General Khin Nyunt. They retired on 5 November 2004. Colonel Tin Hlaing had overseen the government’s anti-drug programmes and had encouraged human rights training among the civil service and the police, as well as facilitating two visits by Amnesty International to Myanmar. His successor is Major General Maung Oo, a former regional commander. U Tin Winn, who had managed the consequences of the highly politicized campaign to get the International Labour Organization to impose sanctions on Myanmar, was replaced as Minister for Labour by U Thaung, who remained concurrently Minister for Science and Technology.
New Light of Myanmar,
6 November 2004. Colonel Tin Hlaing and U Tin Winn were Khin Nyunt loyalists and perhaps his closest confidants in the government.

³⁰
  A General Tha Kha had been appointed as General Tin Oo’s immediate successor but he was replaced by Colonel Khin Nyunt following the bombing episode.

³¹
  Ne Win’s mooted abandonment of one party socialism in 1987 reportedly followed threats by Japan to withhold additional economic assistance unless reforms were carried out.

³²
  Military Intelligence has been reformed as the Office of Military Affairs-Security or OMAS. It is under the command of Major General Myint Swe who also doubles as Yangon Commander. He is Number 4 in the hierarchy of the regime, as published in the official press accounts of events, and is immediately above the Prime Minister, Lieutenant General Soe Win. Local intelligence officers are presumably now under the command of regional commanders. Formerly they had a separate line of command to the Director of Defence Services Intelligence, General Khin Nyunt. On a day-to-day basis, DDSI was under the command of Major General Kyaw Win who has now retired from military service.

³³
  Alfred Stephan,
Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).

³⁴
 
New Light of Myanmar,
25 October 2004.

³⁵
  An alternative or additional explanation would be that the regime wanted to assure major investors of continuity in government policies and to warn them from indulging in corrupt activities with unworthy individuals.