TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/061190/0611004.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 117 lines

                ╓ñê                                                          WORLD, Page 35

BURMA

Democracy's Latest Convert


Voters toss out the generals, but will they go?


    Lest any of Burma's 21 million eligible voters mistake the
military junta's decision to hold parliamentary elections as
an invitation for a democratic free-for-all, the government had
gone out of its way to hand every advantage to the army-backed
National Unity Party. The country's leading dissident, Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi, 44, was barred from running for office and kept
under house arrest. Other opposition politicians were similarly
disqualified and detained, and politicking was confined mostly
to private homes. The day before last week's election,
officials unexpectedly lifted martial law, which had been in
effect since September 1988, in parts of the country, but the
campaign of intimidation continued. Security officers
reportedly conducted random searches of houses, and in the
eastern state of Shan reports spread of men being dragooned
into the army to carry munitions into rebel-occupied areas.

    The military leaders in Rangoon seemed to have considered
every angle save one: if the country's first multiparty
balloting in 30 years was actually clean, the ruling powers
would be dealt a humiliating defeat. Early returns last week
indicated that Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League
for Democracy, took 392 of the new National Assembly's 485
contested seats. Although final results will not be available
for perhaps two weeks, the army-backed party has so far claimed
only nine seats. How the remaining parliamentary seats would be
apportioned among the other 91 parties was not clear, but it
seemed incidental. The future of Burma, renamed Myanmar last
June, belongs to the league, if the military leaders who have
ruled since 1962 are truly ready to abide by the results and
step aside.

    The government responded to the electoral rout with pledges
to transfer power to a civilian government. But the timing
remained vague, and the future role of the military was
anything but clear. Although junta leader General Saw Maung
announced that he would cede control "to the largest party,"
there were enough caveats to leave the opposition sleepless.
First a constitution must be drafted, a process that diplomats
warn could take as long as three years. And, Saw Maung
cautioned, whoever threatens the protection of "national unity
will not be tolerated."

    For the victorious league, one of the first orders of
business will be to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. She
alone has the moral stature to press for the end to
authoritarian rule and to halt the political factionalism that
brought the military to power 28 years ago. Like the
Philippines' Corazon Aquino, Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto and
Nicaragua's Violeta Chamorro, Aung San Suu Kyi's moral authority
stems from family history and political tragedy: her father,
Aung San, was a national hero who was assassinated in 1947, on
the eve of Burma's independence from Britain. But unlike some
of the others, who stepped into political vacuums only after
great coaxing, Aung San Suu Kyi wants to be Prime Minister. The
league's campaign paraphernalia included posters, T-shirts and
buttons that bore her picture and the words MY HEAD IS BLOODY
BUT UNBOWED.

    But first, Aung San Suu Kyi will need to get her own
political party in order. "There's no ruling out the
possibility that the National League for Democracy and the
opposition in general could succumb to the old Burmese disease
of factionalism," warns a Western diplomat based in Rangoon.
Excessive wrangling within the league would provide the
military junta with a convenient excuse to delay a transfer of
power.

    With or without Aung San Suu Kyi's release, her party must
move quickly to cement its mandate. Party leaders aim to call
the new National Assembly into session within 60 days after the
election. To forestall extensive negotiations over the drafting
of a new constitution, the league may resurrect the 1947
constitution, which was suspended in 1962. And it plans to
invite the junta to enter into talks on the transfer of power.
"We have to calm the present political anger and forget about
political reprisals," says Khin Nghwe, 48, who belongs to the
league's executive committee and won an assembly seat. As for
the military, Nghwe says, "the army should return to the
barracks and carry out the duties of ordinary soldiers."

    The junta's information committee announced last week that
the military would play no part in drafting or approving a new
constitution. Some Burmese take heart in the fact that the
National League for Democracy claimed victories even in
districts populated almost exclusively by military families,
including the home district of reclusive Ne Win, who resigned
his post as party chairman in 1988, but remains the most
powerful man in the country. Other observers are worried that
the slightest hint of civil disturbance may provoke the military
to repeat the butchery of 1988, which resulted in the massacre
of more than 3,000 demonstrators. The league can hope only that
the apparent longing for democracy displayed by soldiers at the
ballot box will translate into a public show of support for the
civilian leaders who stand poised to return Burma to the
civilized world.


By Jill Smolowe. Reported by William Stewart/Hong Kong, with
other bureaus.