TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082189/08218900.022

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.7 KB | 187 lines

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BURMA

A Country Under the Boot


One year after explosive riots, the regime cracks down on
pro-democracy activists








    In Burma's myriad pagodas, those words from the Buddhist
Okasa prayer are often on the lips of worshipers these days.
They are an incantation against the five enemies -- water, fire,
robbers, people who wish evil on others, and rulers. Down
through the centuries, it is the last category that has been
most feared. But rarely in living memory have the Burmese so
urgently believed they needed protection from their rulers.

    The despondency has grown out of 27 years of one-man
misrule. Under the authoritarian leadership of General Ne Win
and his military cohorts, the country has been beggared and its
people forced into silence. Last week, the first anniversary of
explosive antigovernment riots, Burmese were suffering through
a renewed campaign of repression. For the ruling junta, which
has changed the nation's name to Myanmar to reflect the
country's ethnic diversity, the main target is the National
League for Democracy, the first organized, broad-based movement
dedicated to democratic reform since Ne Win came to power in a
1962 military coup. In recent weeks, hundreds in the N.L.D.'s
upper echelons have been jailed. Its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,
is under house arrest, where she began a hunger strike on July
20 that reportedly ended just last week.

    She is an improbable liberator for backward Burma, though
perhaps born to the task. Her father was the national hero
General Aung San, who led the struggle for independence from
Britain only to be assassinated by a rival in July 1947, a mere
six months before colonial rule ended. Until just over a year
ago, Suu Kyi lived in England with her British husband Michael
Aris and her two sons. Her return to Burma in April 1988 was a
matter of happenstance: she came home to nurse her mother, who
died last January. But the explosive antigovernment protests
that gripped Burma swept Suu Kyi, 44, into her nation's turmoil,
from which she emerged as a clear, determined voice of
opposition. Says a Rangoon lawyer: "She is the only person in
our politics who is stainless."

    Her rise has been astonishing. As the daughter of Aung San,
she was met with great deference, but her courage, bearing and
oratory enabled her to build a following. The N.L.D., which she
helped found last year, has grown to some 2 million dues-paying
members in a country of 40 million people. During electrifying
tours of the countryside, she disregarded the army guns that
menaced her and her followers. And she has routinely flouted
martial-law regulations prohibiting gatherings of more than five
people. At one rally in Rangoon, soldiers aimed automatic
weapons at the crowd that gathered to listen to her. "We are
grateful to those who are giving the people practice in being
brave," she snapped. While an officer recited over a loudspeaker
the law prohibiting gatherings, Suu Kyi used her own microphone
to confront the intruders: "May I request that the loudspeakers
be quiet. I can control this crowd. You don't have to."

    Suu Kyi's self-possession and determination have prompted
obvious comparisons with Philippine President Corazon Aquino
and Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But in Burma the
obstacles to reaching power are, in Suu Kyi's words, "much
worse, much tougher." She did not inherit a large political
organization or support network, as Aquino and Bhutto did. Nor
has Burma, a hermit nation since 1962, been susceptible to the
kind of international pressure that helped force Ferdinand
Marcos out and ensured a fair election for Bhutto. No large
business class or organized church exists to throw its heft
behind one politician, only a military establishment set against
the entire society. Says a Western diplomat of the officers who
run the nation: "These are crude, uneducated, narrow-minded
people. They don't understand what democratic politics is all
about or what drives a modern economy."

    It is by no means clear that Suu Kyi understands what
drives a modern economy either. She seems to have given
relatively little thought to the kinds of economic issues that
would immediately confront her should she find herself in power.
Her views on trade and foreign investment remain vague. Instead
she has concentrated on a simple credo: to restore democracy to
Burma and bring "freedom from fear" to its people.

    Burma's current unrest has left thousands dead -- no
precise count is available -- since September 1987. It was then
that the regime sought to curb inflation by striking at an
immense black market. Without warning, the government declared
that all 25-, 35-and 75-kyat bank notes were invalid. (A dollar
then bought 6.6 kyats at the official rate and as many as 80
kyats on the black market.) The decree eliminated 60% of the
currency and with it the savings of rich and poor alike.

    In a country that has seen its per capita income sink from
$670 in 1960 to $200 today, the move was incendiary. Unrest
simmered for months, then exploded last August. Ne Win had
officially left office in July, but continuous riots brought
down two heads of state before a junta of 19 officers that
called itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council took
control in September. The chief of staff, General Saw Maung,
assumed the presidency. But student protests went on, and only
the council's pledge to hand over power after free multiparty
elections quelled the unrest.

    After making that promise, however, the government for a
long time balked at setting a date for the balloting, and many
doubt that it will occur by May 1990, as promised by the junta.
If the election were held today, the Burmese believe the N.L.D.
would capture 75% to 80% of the vote. But the current regime has
shown little inclination to allow genuinely reformist parties
to exist, much less hold power. Consequently, the likely rules
of the contest would prohibit the N.L.D. from taking part. That
would probably tip victory to opportunistic parties eager to do
the military's bidding. Says a European diplomat: "All the
obedient little parties will go along. You'll end up with a gang
of puppets willing to jump when the military pulls the strings."

    While many believe the promised election has become one of
the grand fictions of Burmese life, Suu Kyi refuses to release
the military from its commitment. The latest round of repression
came in response to her decision to attack Burma's other grand
fiction: the official retirement of Ne Win. General Saw Maung,
like both his short-lived predecessors, claims that Ne Win, 78,
is no longer involved in politics. But the populace and the
diplomatic community are convinced that the old strongman still
pulls the strings. Before she was put under house arrest, Suu
Kyi told TIME, "We decided, Enough of the shadowboxing; let's
get at the real enemy."

    Her boldness reached a peak at the end of June, when she
appealed to the military to overthrow the widely feared
strongman. "Ne Win is the one who caused this nation to suffer
for 26 years," she said. "Officials from the armed forces and
officials from the State Law and Order Restoration Council, I
call you all to be loyal to the state. Be loyal to the people.
You don't have to be loyal to Ne Win."

    In the following weeks, the regime stepped up harassment of
the N.L.D. On July 20, Suu Kyi was arrested in Rangoon with 42
other top N.L.D. leaders. The organization's offices all over
Burma were ransacked and files were seized. Reports of torture
by troops grew more frequent, and arrests mounted. The N.L.D.
estimates that 2,000 activists have been taken into detention.
The army has launched a campaign of intimidation throughout the
countryside. Said an underground activist in Taungyii: "Outside
Rangoon, it's just naked military power. The soldiers can do
what they like."

    Not only is the country's political situation bleak, but
its economy is also near failure. The Burmese Way to Socialism,
Ne Win's odd amalgam of Buddhism, socialism and isolationism,
proved a road to ruin. When Saw Maung took power, he declared
that the economy would be opened up, but central planning and
widespread corruption still discourage improvement. With foreign
debt at a mountainous $3.8 billion, 75% of all foreign-exchange
earnings are needed to service the loans.

    The numbers merely quantify the depth of the despair and
poverty that grip the nation. In conversations with TIME during
four weeks of recent travel in Burma, merchants, monks,
farmers, students, bureaucrats, police and political activists
confirmed not only growing fear of the junta but desperation
about the deterioration of daily life. Buildings seem to crumble
before one's eyes. Most homes are bamboo huts; electricity is
a rarity. Agriculture is a primitive matter of human hands and
muscle. Burma was long a bountiful land, but faith in the kyat
has sunk so low that rice traders are turning to export instead
of domestic markets. Shortfalls are already being felt in some
regions, and a nationwide man-made famine is not inconceivable.

    Economically and politically, the hand of Ne Win continues
to blight Burma. But a strong appetite exists for change, for
democratic institutions and a free market -- even if the means
of bringing it about appear remote. Some believe recovery will
come only with the death of Ne Win, who reportedly still plays
tennis at his lakeside villa in suburban Rangoon. Others feel
that that is only half the equation: Burma's best hope, they
suggest, languishes under house arrest in Rangoon.