The Dictator's Handbook (35 page)

About a week after the disaster, the army started entering the larger towns and villages of the delta. They were not there to help. They were there to
disperse
survivors who had congregated in schools and temples. Even though their numbers rarely exceeded a few hundred, survivors were expelled from their shelters and told to return home. It mattered little that, in most cases, their entire village had been destroyed and they had no food, water, clothing, or shelter to return to. Indeed, one report observed,

The government did not even attempt to answer these questions.

In the PBS documentary,
Eyes of the Storm
, a senior Burmese general is seen addressing a group of survivors.
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Starving and destitute, they ask for a handful of rice. The general tells them that he is here now (but still he makes no offer of assistance) and that they must go back to their village and “work hard.” While the army seized (and sold on the black market) the few relief supplies allowed in, the people were told they could eat frogs. Effectively the government told these survivors to go away and die quietly: inhumane in the extreme, but good small-coalition politics. Dead people cannot protest.

Earthquakes and other disasters shake up political systems. However, the nature of the shakeup is very different under different institutions. Democratic leaders are very sensitive to disaster-related casualties.
Allowing people to die reveals serious policy failure. Democrats need to deliver good public policy to reward their large number of backers. When they fail to do so, they are liable to be removed. Disaster-related deaths result in protest and in the removal of leaders in democracies.

To illustrate the difference in political responses to poor disaster relief in a non-democratic and democratic setting, we contrast Cyclone Nargis with Hurricane Katrina. Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast in August 2005. This was the most costly natural disaster in US history, with damages estimated at $81 billion. The death toll was 1,836.

The government, from President George W. Bush down to New Orleans's mayor, Ray Nagin, stood accused of mismanagement and lack of leadership. Nagin delayed the evacuation order for the city until nineteen hours before the storm struck. As a result many people became trapped. Then, once the New Orleans Superdome football stadium was set up as an emergency center, it became overwhelmed when 30,000 rather than the anticipated 800 people showed up. Federal disaster relief was slow in arriving. Many of the casualties were the sick and elderly who were overcome by heat and dehydration.

The tenure of US leaders was seriously jeopardized by the disaster. Many observers think Katrina contributed significantly to the Republican Party's midterm electoral losses in 2006 and their significant losses, including the presidency, in 2008. Yet, while it is clear that the situation could have been handled much better, it bears no resemblance to Cyclone Nargis. In contrast, despite having allowed at least 138,000 people to die, Than Shwe felt sufficiently well entrenched to allow a farcical election in 2010, which the government-backed parties won easily (at least according to official sources).

As seen in the cases of Mexico and Nicaragua, disasters can serve as rallying points in autocracies. Disasters can concentrate opponents of the regime, making it easier for them to coordinate. Yet the death toll from disasters has relatively little effect on a dictator's chance of staying in power. Indeed, if anything, large numbers of people dying in disasters actually enhance the political survival of autocratic leaders.

As we know, autocrats don't buy political support with efficient public policy. Resources spent saving the lives of the people cannot be spent on cronies. In addition, as we have seen, autocrats are skilled at
exploiting the international community. By letting more people die they may in fact be able to extract more relief assistance. The implications of these results are frightening. Small wonder, then, that far more people die in natural disasters in autocracies than in democracies.

Letting people die is good governance in autocracy, but it is disastrous for the tenure of democrats. Although a detailed statistical analysis of the relationship between disasters,
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deaths and leader tenure is complex, we compared what happens in a country when 200 or more people die in a magnitude 5+ earthquake, to what happens in the same size earthquake if fewer people die. In particular, we looked at the effect of such circumstances on the odds of a country's leader being removed from office within two years following the earthquake.

An earthquake alone does not threaten the survival of democrats. However, if there are more than 200 people killed by the quake then a democratic leader is almost certain to be removed from office. Under normal circumstances, any democrat has a 40 percent chance of being ousted from office in any two-year period. But for a democrat whose country suffered 200 or more deaths in an earthquake, those odds rise to 91 percent. We believe this is the case because democratic leaders are supposed to deliver effective public policies, and those effective policies include ensuring good building codes are enforced and excellent rescue and recovery is implemented following a natural disaster. The death of many in such a disaster is a signal to everyone else that the leadership has not done an adequate job of protecting the people and so out go the leaders.

Autocrats are less vulnerable to removal than democrats and earthquake related deaths have little effect on their hold on power. Over a typical two-year period, 22 percent of autocrats lose power. If their country suffers a magnitude 5 or greater earthquake in the first year of this two-year window, the dictator's risk of being removed goes up to 30 percent. However, the autocrat's risk of removal is reduced to 24 percent if the earthquake killed more than 200 people. Earthquakes pose a threat to autocratic leaders when people are forced into refugee camps and can organize against the regime. People dying from an earthquake can't organize and so they do not endanger a dictator's survival in office. As might be expected, given these facts and the incentives
they suggest, instances of 200 or more people dying in earthquakes is much more common in autocracies than democracies.
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Not all disasters are equal in the eyes of autocrats. Dictators are particularly wary of natural disasters when they occur in politically and economically important centers. Disaster management in China emphasizes this point. When an earthquake struck the remote province of Qinghai in 2010, the Chinese government's response was, at best, halfhearted. In contrast, its handling of disaster relief in the wake of a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan won the approval of much of the international community. The differences are stark and driven by politics. The Sichuan quake occurred in an economically and politically important center where a massed protest could potentially threaten the government. Qinghai is remote and of little political importance. Protest there would do little to threaten the government. The government did much less to assist people who could not threaten them.

Whether because of an unforeseen earthquake, a succession crisis, or a financial meltdown, the threat of rebellion can rise, striking a leader like a lightning bolt. What then is the right response to such a threat? History teaches us that some crack down hard on rebels; some succumb to them; and some reform on their own. The rules governing politics help us understand how different circumstances lead to different choices among these options.

Successful rebellions, mass movements, and revolutions are not commonplace, but neither are they extremely rare. Successful rebellions that turn into democracy are pretty rare but they do happen. What characterizes revolutions or revolutionaries who actually do what they promise: create a democracy to try to better the lives of the people? And what characterizes revolutions that don't take off or revolutionaries who don't democratize! We start with our old friend, General Than Shwe of Burma.

The Than Schwe government makes sure that the people of Burma are kept poor, isolated, and ignorant. There is no free press. The people are
not allowed to congregate. Few foreigners are allowed in, and those that are, are constantly watched by the police. All these actions are designed to make it hard for the people to coordinate and organize against the government. The people are desperate for change, but the government makes it virtually impossible for them to achieve it. In a telling 2005 account of how unhappy the people are, a journalist for the
Economist
magazine recalls how they were continually asking him how the United States could be prevailed upon to invade: “the prospect of a foreign invasion is a fond hope, not a fear.”
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The people of Burma want to be the next Iraq! With such demand for change, it is little wonder that Shwe is terrified of protest and that he focuses his attention on preventing it.

Than Shwe, like many others, takes the autocrat's preferred path to eliminating the threat from mass political movements. He suppresses the people. He doesn't need to buy them off because Burma is blessed, or cursed, depending upon your point of view, with natural resources. Burma is a huge exporter of natural gas, hardwood, gems, gold, copper, and iron.
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For instance, it is thought to earn about $345 million through the annual export of 1.4–1.6 million cubic meters of hardwood, much of it extremely valuable teak. We use the term “thought to” because it is hard to know the figures for sure. For instance, in 2001, China reported that it imported 514,000 cubic meters of wood from Burma, but Burma only records exports of 3,240 cubic meters. Presumably the income from the unaccounted-for hardwood lines the pockets of the generals, rather than funding the welfare of the people. It certainly does not fund infrastructure. Indeed, the timber industry's attempts to process its products before export have been nearly completely stymied by the absence of infrastructure. Of course the absence of roads makes it even more difficult for the people to assemble and threaten the government. This became particularly true after 2005, when the government moved the capital to a remote mountain location where few citizens are allowed to visit.

Burma is also the world's major producer of jade and rubies. Gem auctions in 2007 are thought to have earned the nation $370 million. Yet Burma's biggest export earner is natural gas. Currently the offshore natural gas fields generate between $1–1.5 billion. These earnings are likely to increase over the next few years with the development of additional fields and the opening of a pipeline to ship gas directly to
China. Little of this money makes its way into the government's economic accounts. The official exchange rate is 6 kyaks to the dollar. However, the real rate is around two hundred times higher. This means the regime can deposit all gas export earnings in government accounts at the official exchange rate and still keep 99.5 percent of the money for themselves.

Burma is poor. Than Shwe is rich! He is a fortunate leader. Since he does not rely on the labor of the people he can suppress them ruthlessly. This means that despite the miserable conditions they endure, the people cannot easily rebel. And if they do, Shwe has the resources to buy the army's loyalty and ensure that he stays on in power.

In February 2007, various newspapers reported on a minor demonstration in Burma. Fifteen people (or twenty-five, depending upon reports) congregated to protest. Their demands were for basic human rights. Within thirty minutes, many of them, along with a number of journalists covering the protest, were arrested. The regime perceives any kind of protest as a potential threat to its survival, and with good reason. General Ne Win seized power in a coup in 1962 and implemented a socialist agenda. Protests and riots erupted in 1988. On August 8, 1988 (8/8/1988—a lucky set of numbers in many Asian cultures), troops fired at demonstrators killing thousands. Protest over these atrocities forced Ne Win to resign and agree to elections scheduled for 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi's National Party for Democracy was the landslide winner, taking 58.7 percent of the popular vote and capturing 392 out of 492 seats. However, with demonstrations and protests under control, the military simply ignored the results and carried on ruling.

Than Shwe came to power in 1992. His regime stamped out the protest of February 2007 immediately. However, the junta's fear of protest was justified by events in August 2007. Following an announcement of fuel price increases, on August 19 about 500 protestors, led by many of the student protest leaders who had been active in 1988, took to the streets. These protests continued over a number of days. Participation soon dwindled to double digits as the army engaged in widespread arrests, but in September these protests reignited when several hundred monks marched. The army beat the monks. Two monks were chained to a lamppost and beaten. One allegedly died.

Monks are revered in Burma. The violence against them generated further protest. A government delegation was trapped for six hours by protesters. Across Burma monks took the symbolic act of overturning their alms bowls against the government, a ritual known as
thabeik hmauk
. Religious services were denied to all members of the military. Across the country groups of monks began to march. These protests grew daily. People began to talk of a Saffron Revolution, saffron being the color of the monk's robes. This was precisely what Than Shwe feared most.