The twentieth anniversary of the Burma
uprising of 8 August 1988 was marked with a degree of attention around the
world, but far less than might have been expected thanks to the coincidence of
the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing. In Burma itself, the intimidating
power of the military regime that suppressed the emerging democracy movement on
18 September 1988 prevented any public commemoration of the events of the time,
in which around 3,000 people were killed.
Joakim Kreutz teaches political
science at Uppsala University, Sweden.
His research Interests
include dynamics of conflict, political violence and diplomatic mediation in
contexts which include Colombia, the Horn of Africa and Burma
Also by Joakim Kreutz in openDemocracy:
"Burma:
protest, crackdown - and now?" (3 October 2007)
The fact that six weeks passed between the outpouring of protest in the
then-capital Rangoon and the bloody clampdown is a useful reminder that what
happened in Burma in 1988 was indeed part of a continuing process. For example,
after the August-September events the junta scheduled multi-party general
elections to be held by mid-December 1988; these were eventually held in May
1990, though the clear victory of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) was subsequently ignored by the junta.
Those in Burma and abroad who today remember
and seek to learn from the events of twenty years ago - and equally from the monks-led uprising of August-September 2007 - thus have many and not
just one reference-point. As the anniversaries continue, so do the continuities; this time round, for example, the draft constitution drafted by the junta stipulates
general elections in 2010. But the effect of these two decades in Burma
also poses new challenges, of which one of the most essential is to ask: what
are the real possibilities for political change, and where can that change come
from?
The military in
power
If anything, all signs suggest that the army
remains more firmly in control over governance in Burma than ever before. One
of the first policies of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
after it took power in 1988 was to oversee a massive expansion of the armed
forces - from around 200,000 troops in 1988 to the present strength of some
400,000. In addition, the military has been modernised through purchases of
modern weapons from China and India (and, allegedly, North Korea).
Even more important has been the restructuring
that has taken place within the state forces, which started with the expansion
of senior ranks and the creation of "civilian" organisations such as the Union
Solidarity and Development Assocation (USDA) and the Pyithu Swan Arr Shin (People's Power Group / PSAS). Such
organisations can be seen as descendants of the Burmese practice of tat: that is, the maintaining by
political leaders of personal armies, which contributed to much of the violence
at the time of independence in the late 1940s.
Also in openDemocracy on Burma:
Kyi May Kaung, "Burma's
struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi's role" (8 August 2006)
Kyi May Kaung, "A
reality-check in Burma" (10 November 2006)
Nick Cumming-Bruce, "Burma and the
ICRC: a people at risk" (15 December 2006)
Aung Zaw, "Burma's
question"
(12 September 2007)
Robert Semeniuk, "A chronic
emergency: on the Burma-Thailand border" (10 October 2007)
Aung Zaw, "Burma: the cyclone and the
referendum" (6 May 2008)
Wylie Bradford, "Burma: cyclone, aid and
sanctions" (27 May 2008)
Henry Brown, "Burma's rage" (8 August 2008)
Kyi May Kaung, "Burma: waiting for the dawn" (8 August 2008)
The development of these militias open up the
possibility that the formal military could retreat from political life while
the tat forces secure the position of
the generals in controlling the government. To secure the central role of the
generals in the future Burma, the military have also become increasingly involved
in the economic sector of the country. It should be noted that the first
military businesses were established by Ne Win as part of the Defence Services
Institute (DSI) as early as 1951, but the generals and their families
are presently involved in basically all sectors of the Burmese economy.
The regime's
internal politics
The calls for democracy in 1988 came in the
aftermath of - and were to a degree encouraged by - the apparent resignation of
Ne Win in July of that year. Few members of the public believed that his
retirement was genuine, and - even though Ne Win held no formal position in the
new junta - it quickly became clear that he remained influential behind the
scenes.
It was, for example, Ne Win's allegations of
corruption that led to the revamp of the junta in 1997, which gave the SLORC a
new name: the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Since then, power-struggles
among the ruling generals have become increasingly common. They included one
involving Ne Win's daughter in 2002, just a few months before Ne Win died; one which took the most high-profile
victim so far, then-prime minister Khin Nyunt in 2004; and one that led to a reshuffle of the junta's members in June 2008.
It is clear that some members of the army
leadership do not support recent decisions such as the use of force against the
monks-led demonstrations in August-September 2007 or
the reluctance to allow foreign-aid workers access to the victims of cyclone Nargis in May 2008. However, the main internal faction-fight
will start after the deaths of the aging senior-generals Than Shwe and Maung
Aye.
The internal
opposition
After the crackdown on the democracy movement in 1988, thousands of activists fled the
cities towards the border areas. Many of these, as well as many that had been
arrested in 1988, were willing to contribute to the grassroots mobilisation
needed by the National League for Democracy if it was to compete in the 1990 elections.
The NLD activists had withstood constant harassment throughout the 1980s, and
the very existence of such organised pro-democracy activists willing to
participate in protests was then and is now a threat to the government. The
reluctance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to accept exile and her symbolic importance
for these activists and the people of Burma cannot be underestimated.
The violent suppression of the protests and
the mismanagement of the victims of cyclone Nargis help to ensure that public
opinion in Burma continues to be firmly opposed to the military government. But
what is this public opinion in favour of? For if at present the unifying
sentiment for Burma's people is aversion to the regime, it is less clear what
or who they want to replace them.
There are some worrying indications that
popular opinion among the ethnic Burman population include communal and
religious sentiments that tend to characterise other ethnic groups in terms of
their complicity in the policies of the regime. An example is the circulation
of statements that the soldiers who suppressed the Rangoon protests in 2007
were ethnic Kachin who only knew one word of the Burmese
language: "shoot". Regardless of the truth or otherwise of such claims, the
fact that the ethnic identity of the solders was considered an important factor
may augur eventual divisions within the internal opposition.
The external
opposition
The exiled opposition to the government, such
as the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) and the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC), has developed in cooperation between ethnic
minorities and Burman activists. These, and a multitude of other groups, have contributed to making the opposition to
the Burmese junta a global phenomenon.
Many of these groups have produced plans
outlining how a transition to democracy could occur. If reforms were introduced
in Burma, however, it is difficult to know to what extent the opposition now
based outside Burma would be able to influence events. There is a risk that
public opinion inside the country would consider the exiles as too concerned
with principles, out of touch with the suffering of the population, and unfamiliar
with the need for economic (rather than political, or primarily political)
improvements in their lives.
The armed
opposition
Since the junta's internecine struggles in
2004 ousted Khin Nyunt and closed down the National
Intelligence Bureau (NIB), there have been no attempts at face-to-face
negotiations with the remaining active insurgents. The last few years have
instead seen military offensives accompanied by attempts to convince low-level
commanders to defect and their groups to accept ceasefires with the government.
Such tactics helped create yet another split within the Karen National Union (KNU) in 2007, leading
to the formation of the so-called KNU-Peace Council.
It is worth noting that even when a ceasefire
has been concluded with any armed opposition group, this has hardly ever been
accompanied either by any settlement of the underlying political grievances or
even a demobilisation of combatants. The groups that remain in open armed
opposition - in particular the KNU and the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) command - do not have the strength to defeat
the regime, but nevertheless seem able indefinitely to continue with guerrilla
attacks. The long history of these insurgencies and the governments' strategy
of deliberate targeting of civilians meant that it is unlikely that these
groups would be willing to accept any peace offer unless all government forces
were withdrawn from their territories.
The ceasefire
groups
The former armed insurgents that have
concluded ceasefires with the government may be the key actors to watch in the
coming years. Many of these groups sent representatives to the consultative
work on the new national constitution, though most professed disapproval at the
draft presented in 2007. These groups now need to decide whether they will
compete in the scheduled elections - in a context where discontent with some of
their leaderships (notably in Kachin state, where the Kachin Independence
Organisation [KIO] is frequently accused of responsibility for
the economic backwardness of the Kachin people).
If they do seek to participate - and if they
are allowed to - then it will be interesting to see what policies they will
promote as well as how many votes they will get. The junta's attempts to disarm
ceasefire groups have been fairly unsuccessful; some groups have resumed their
armed struggle, while the most militarily potent such group actually managed to
force a political concession into the new constitution. This was the United Wa
State Party (UWSP), which has refused to disarm and has
continued occasionally to clash with the government; yet the territory
controlled by the organization was designated an autonomous Wa area in the new
constitution. The message seems clear to both ceasefire groups and the
remaining armed opposition groups: and it is one that does not promote
negotiated compromises.
The world beyond
Burma
Burma in 1988 was a country that had lived in a self-imposed exile from the
international community ever since the military coup in 1962. As a consequence,
almost all external trade occurred on the black market, mainly controlled by
different armed insurgents and criminal groups.
Since then, the government has promoted an
increase in trade with (among other countries) countries such as Thailand,
China, India, Singapore, and Russia. This trade has limited the effect of
sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. For Burma's
people, however, the effects of these growing links to the outside world have
been marginal. Even before cyclone Nargis hit Burma on 2 May 2008, the World
Food Programme estimated that nearly 5 million Burmese (almost 10% of
the population) were suffering from food insecurity.
However, the awareness of the situation in
Burma of the rest of the world is an important factor in any future scenarios.
The sanctions regime could be more efficient, but the diplomatic pressures are
arguably more important than the economic effects. Indeed, the junta responded
with less wholesale violence against the 2007 protests than it had in 1988
not on moral grounds, but because the world was watching; and - most probably -
following the advice of China. Thus, the international community has an
opportunity to influence the future of Burma by promoting political change and
maintaining its interest in the development of the country.
The prospects for
change
The twenty years of rule by the SLORC or SPDC
junta in Burma have caused the tragic deaths of thousands of Burmese, either
directly through the use of armed force or indirectly as a result of the
junta's policies. In many ways, the situation in Burma today can be seen as
worse than it was before the protests in 1988. For Burma can be said to be
suffering from three different types of humanitarian emergencies that are
somewhat interlinked, but where actions aimed at improving one situation may
complicate the others:
* the need to help the survivors of cyclone Nargis rebuild their lives and prevent
the further spread of disease and starvation
* the need to distribute food and medicines to
the impoverished population throughout the country
* the need to replace the current regime with
a democratic government able to develop the country and settle the political
issues that have remained unsolved since independence in January 1948.
However, five positive developments also
suggest that there may be more prospects for change at present than in many
years.
First, the situation in Burma is a
high-profile issue internationally, and the continuous pressure on the junta is
creating a situation where at least part of the Burmese military is considering
compromise.
Second, the present senior leadership in Burma
has nothing to lose by continuing present policies and nothing to gain by
initiating change - but this is not true of younger members of the military.
Some of these have hinted that they would be willing to cooperate in a process
of change if they are provided with enough incentives in the form of economic
benefits for themselves as well as for the population.
Third, the debates among exiled opposition
leaders have created awareness of the need for compromise to settle all
problems in Burma, including the status and rights of ethnic minorities in a
future democratic state.
Fourth, ceasefire groups still hope that
cooperation with the government will both reinforce their claim to back Burma's
democratisation while winning more political and economic concessions. Most of
these organisations would support a new regime and could offer to guarantee the
stability needed while much of the army is peacefully demobilised. A similar
role can be envisaged for the remaining armed opposition groups, in a way that
could encourage the legal development of the resource-rich border areas.
Fifth, the most important factor for regime-change in Burma is the role of the
Burmese people and the resistance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The people rejected
military rule in 1990, and the junta has hardly become more popular in the
eighteen years that has passed. If the democracy movement and other opposition
organisations in Burma as well as in exile continue to show that there is an
alternative to military rule, the people can help convince the armed forces the
need for political reform.
It is unrealistic to believe that Burma will be able to change without
cooperating with the moderates within the military leadership. There seem to be
some opportunities for such a development to occur. The international community
can contribute by encouraging dialogue and be willing to commit resources that
could help develop a future democratic Union of Burma.
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