Where Would Burma Be without Suu Kyi?
By Kyaw Zwa Moe
Let's imagine a situation: Burma without Aung San Suu Kyi. Undoubtedly, the ruling generals would see this as a dream come true. But for the majority of Burmese, it would come as a great disappointment to lose the leader of the country's pro-democracy movement.
Suu Kyi may be a prisoner, but she still has immense power. She strikes fear into the hearts of heavily armed men, while giving moral strength to the powerless. She is the hope of the people of Burma, who have struggled to survive under the boot of their military rulers for the past 46 years.
Her recent refusal to receive food deliveries raised serious concerns about her health and worries about the country's future without her.
According to her lawyer and her doctor—the only two people who were able to meet her during her month-long ordeal, which began in mid-August—Suu Kyi's protest against her continued unlawful detention had left her thin and malnourished.
It was the first time in two decades that Suu Kyi had subjected herself to a hunger strike. Soon after beginning her first period of house arrest in 1989, she refused food and demanded to be placed in prison alongside her colleagues. After several weeks, she won guarantees that her fellow pro-democracy activists would not be tortured, and ended her protest. Her weight had dropped from 48 kg (106 lbs) to just 40 kg (90 lbs), and she suffered hair loss, impaired vision and a weakened immune system.
At the time, Suu Kyi was still in her early forties. Now she is in her sixties, and the impact on her health has presumably been much greater, even if she merely restricted her intake of food to the barest requirements for survival.
What would happen if Suu Kyi died or became so unhealthy that she couldn't continue her role as the political leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement? It is something we need to ask in light of the fact that she has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest, without regular access to proper medical treatment and under immense psychological pressure.
Most people would prefer not to think of Burma's future without Suu Kyi. Her absence from politics would probably be a death blow to the already weakened democracy struggle, because she has no obvious successor as leader of the movement.
On the other hand, the ruling generals would probably see Suu Kyi's demise as an end to an era of trouble. After all, she is even now regarded as a threat to their hold on power.
From the generals' viewpoint, there are many reasons to believe that the future without Suu Kyi would be very bright indeed. For one thing, they would not have to fear a repeat of the non-violent confrontation that she initiated in early 1989, when she called on people to resist unlawful decrees imposed by the junta. The movement continued for months, until July 19, when the regime used an overwhelming show of force to stop a planned Martyrs' Day march. The next day, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for the first time.
Another reason the generals would be happy to see the back of Suu Kyi is that it would probably mean no more electoral upsets like the one the world witnessed in 1990. Despite the regime's efforts to ensure a victory for the pro-junta party, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy inflicted a stunning defeat, winning more than 80 percent of seats in parliament. It was Suu Kyi who urged her party to contest the election, despite the fact that she was still under house arrest at the time and not permitted to participate herself. Even within the confines of her home, she showed the generals that she could make life difficult for them.
It was also Suu Kyi who called for a boycott of the National Convention in 1995. She made this decision a few months after being released from six years of house arrest because she deemed the convention convened to draft a new constitution as undemocratic. The generals have never forgiven her for continuing to resist their plans even after they were good enough to give her back her freedom.
In 1998, Suu Kyi once again proved to be a thorn in the side of the generals. That was the year she spearheaded the creation of the Committee Representing the People's Parliament, a body that directly challenged the junta's right to rule. The generals wasted no time in arresting members of the newly formed group.
Since then, Suu Kyi has enjoyed a few brief interludes of relative freedom. Each time, she demonstrated that her immense appeal was in no way diminished by her long absence from the public eye. She campaigned around the country, drawing crowds of thousands eager to hear her speak.
Her engaging and courageous speeches inspired hope in the hearts of countless ordinary Burmese—and intense anger among the country's military rulers, who watched her every move and did everything they could to keep her away from her adoring audiences.
All of these episodes have only served to convince the generals that they need to keep her on a tight rein if they want to carry through their agenda. Last year, they finally succeeded in completing their constitution, which they will use to usher in a new era of military-dominated "democracy" that excludes a democratic opposition. It is doubtful that they would have been able to achieve this long-pursued goal if they hadn't kept Suu Kyi confined within the walls of her residential compound for the past five years.
Suu Kyi's reputation as a troublemaker within the military government's ruling circles has earned her a further—illegal—extension of her current period of house arrest. Although she should have been released in May under Section 10 (b) of the State Protection Act, which only allows for a maximum sentence of five years, she is still in detention.
The regime is now preparing for the next stage in its transition to quasi-civilian rule—the 2010 election, which is intended to undo the damage of the 1990 vote. But in order to reverse the tide of history, the generals know that Suu Kyi must remain detained and silenced.
If Suu Kyi's health were to fail prior to the election, it would probably deliver the regime the victory that has eluded it for the past two decades. Her death would not spell the end of the democracy movement, but it would leave it greatly weakened.
Although Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades almost completely cut off from the outside world, she is still Burma's single greatest hope for democratic change. She is also a leader who is widely trusted by people of every ethnicity in Burma, and one who is respected by the international community, which will have a major role to play in helping to restore the country's economy.
She has the rare ability to speak to the generals in a straightforward, unflinching manner. Indeed, her power derives almost entirely from what she calls "plain honesty in politics." Her courage, dedication and steadfast adherence to the truth have empowered her to speak for the people of Burma in a way that no one else can at this point in the country's history.
After 46 years under military rule, Burma is very lucky to have someone who can still command such immense power through the sheer force of her convictions. Without her, life would go on, but the country would be impoverished in a way that makes even its current circumstances seem tolerable by comparison.
This article appeared in the October issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
China watches over internet café customers in web crackdown
All visitors to internet cafés in Beijing are to be required to have their photographs taken in a stringent new control on the public use of cyberspace.
Hopes that the Olympic Games would usher in a relaxed approach to the internet had already been hit hard when the "Great Firewall of China" — the blocking of websites deemed subversive — was reimposed not long after foreign reporters left the country.
The temporary lifting of the firewall applied to only a few sites and Chinese citizens experienced few changes.
According to the latest rules, by mid-December all internet cafés in the main 14 city districts must install cameras to record the identities of their web surfers, who must by law be 18 or over. There are more than 250 million internet users in China, approximately ten times more than there were in 2000.
It has been several years since internet cafés were required to register users to ensure that customers were not under-age.
All photographs and scanned identity cards will be entered into a city-wide database run by the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce. The details will be available in any internet café.
At the Mingluo internet café in the Dongcheng district about 60 people were ensconced in front of terminals. Most were chatting online or watching films. The manager affected a lack of concern about the regulation, saying that he had introduced the policy a month ago. "I think most people don't mind. We explain to them that this will not have any impact on them," he said.
The Times searched for online comments on the rules but was unable to find any — often a sign that most commentary has been critical and has therefore been erased. However, a survey by the internet version of the People's Daily showed that 72 per cent of respondents were opposed to the measure, calling it an infringement of their rights. Just over 26 per cent supported the photographing because it would benefit children.
Today is the expiry date on one of the concessions to the greater freedom that came with the Olympics: permission for foreign reporters to travel the country unhindered. China had promised complete media freedom when it applied to host the Games.
While its propaganda mandarins issued a 21-point directive limiting the domestic media, officials lifted restrictions on travelling and reporting by foreign journalists.
The authorities indicated that some freedoms could be maintained. Qin Gang, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said: "The Chinese Government will continue to follow the opening-up policy and to facilitate the work of foreign media and journalists in China."
Sophie Richardson, of Human Rights Watch Asia, said that keeping the regulations and extending them to Chinese journalists "would be one of the most important legacies of the Games".
Watching the media
— The Foreign Correspondents' Club says authorities interfered with reporters more than 335 times since January 1 last year
— Police beat the ITN reporter John Ray at a Tibet protest near Beijing's main Olympic zone this August
— Zhang Jianhong, former editor-in-chief of the banned literary website Aegean Sea, was jailed for six years in March 2007 for "inciting subversion"
— Police arrested the web dissident Du Daobin in July for violating probation, after his 2004 jailing
— More than 18,000 blogs and websites were shut from April to September 2007
— In late May 2008 media ordered to reduce coverage of collapsed schools in the earthquake zone that killed thousands of pupils
Sources: www.hrw.org; www.pen.org; Times archives
Myanmar's chequered history
Story of the transformation of a peaceful country into a troubled state unable to respond to democratic aspirations
THE RIVER OF LOST FOOTSTEPS — Histories of Burma: Thant Myint-U; Faber and Faber, London, Penguin Books India Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 495.
V. Suryanarayan
The author's credentials to write a book on Myanmar are impeccable. Grandson of U Thant (the former Secretary-General of the United Nations), he was born to Burmese parents in the United States; as a student, he specialised in Burmese history, studied in Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Cambridge, worked for the United Nations in Phnom Penh and Sarajevo, while keeping in touch with the tumultuous developments in Burma, enriched by a short stay in a rebel camp. The cumulative result is a fascinating book on Myanmar, partly autobiographical, partly history, partly politics.
The transformation of Burma from an exotic peaceful Buddhist country to a "failed or failing state", unable to respond to the democratic aspirations of its citizens and unable to cope with the challenges of modernisation, nation building and development, are dealt with candour and rare sensitivity. Myanmar today has become a Pariah state for the West and an area of intense concern for the international community.
Turbulent years
Thant Myint-U provides interesting highlights about how Myanmar has come to such a sad predicament. It is not strictly a chronological account, the author begins with the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885, the fall of the Kingdom of Mandalay to the British; he then goes back to ancient times and links the past with the present and the future. The evolution of plural society, the repeated foreign invasions and intrigues, the impact of the Second World War, the rise of nationalism, the role of the Kuomintang and the Chinese communists, the turbulent years of early independence, the failure of parliamentary democracy and the long spell of military rule, the sufferings of the people and the brutality of the government — all these are analysed and explained.
From an Indian point of view, two comments made by the author deserve critical scrutiny. When General NeWin came to power in 1962, there were military regimes elsewhere in Asia. While the other military regimes "trusted the advice of the technocrats, presided over long periods of economic growth and allowed the development of civil society," the military regime in Burma became more and more repressive.
The author, in this connection, makes a special mention of Indonesia, which under General Suharto made remarkable progress. It soon became clear to discerning observers that behind the façade of apparent stability and progress, the Suharto regime concealed simmering political, economic and social discontent. And when the Asian Economic crisis engulfed the country, the political system could not withstand popular opposition; the regime collapsed and had to give way to popular government. What is happening in Pakistan is another illustration that international support and backing to military dictators is no panacea to democratic governments with popular mandate. Equally questionable is the author's assumption that the policy of "isolating one of the most isolated countries in the world is both counter productive and dangerous."
Political reform
He further argues that the opening up of space for civil society and gradual democratisation of the political system can take place only by constructively engaging with the present military regime. In fact, this assumption was the rationale behind admitting Myanmar in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and constructive engagement, which the ruling elites of ASEAN followed for many years. The end result was providing legitimacy and respectability to the military regime. If I may use an analogy, it was like giving liquor chocolate to an alcoholic.
As Amitav Acharya has recently pointed out, this was not constructive engagement. In essence, it was construction of hotels and factories in Burma by Thai, Singaporean and Malaysian companies, with no engagement or dialogue with the regime for political reform. Students of modern history are sensitive to the fact that temporary setbacks had been regular features of democratic movements throughout the world. Aung San Suu Kyi, as Vaclav Havel pointed out few years ago, "is an outstanding example of the power of the powerless."
India owes to itself and to the struggling people of Myanmar to immediately initiate steps to mobilise international opinion so that pressure is brought on the military junta to restore democracy and human rights.
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