ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK-WORLD BANK
Asia Regional Consultation on Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention
March
16-17, 2000
Manila
The Problems of Myanmar and Myanmar’s Problems
David I. Steinberg
Georgetown University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I Introduction:
The Contextuality of Social Cleavages
II Cohesion
and National Unity: Cleavages, Tensions, and Confrontations
1.
Nationalism and Ethnicity: The Unity of the Union of
Burma/Myanmar
2. The
Military-Civil Nexus
3.
Globalization and Nationalism
4.
Centralism and Pluralism
5. On
Orthodoxy
6.
Religious Tension
7.
Geo-Political Issues
III State-Sponsored
Attempts at Cohesion
1.
Nationalism
2. Burman
Control
3. Buddhism
4.
Socialism
5. The
Military
IV The Tatmadaw: Cohesion and Division?
V Past
Approaches to, and Perceptions of, the Myanmar Miasma
VI Possibilities
for Change
VII Lessons
Learned
VIII Possibilities
for Future Action
IX Coda
Appendices
The Problems of Myanmar and Myanmar’s Problems
David I. Steinberg
Georgetown University
I
Introduction–The Contextuality of Social
Cleavages
Myanmar
is an ‘imagined community’–a state that is not yet a cohesive nation, an entity
created sequentially through three 19th century wars evolving out of
colonial economic and geo-political interests. The internal bonds that seemed to cement that
country before independence in 1948 were based on the exercise of colonial
power, serving both to force an artificial internal cohesion while
simultaneously creating detached and separate ethnic groups, some of which were
governed under a different British administration. Governments since independence in 1948 have,
sometimes unintentionally, exacerbated existing cleavages and created new ones,
thus reducing national cohesiveness even as it was titularly
strengthened under a unitary state and creating divisive forces that will be
difficult to re-meld. The rhetoric of
national cohesion must be analytically
examined in the light of the reality of its attempted enforcement.
Although
this paper will focus on ethnic and religious cleavages, these issues cannot be
separated from a complex of other problems facing the societies, each of which
contributes to enhancing the intensity of the forces for divisiveness. The dilemmas facing the peoples of
Burma/Myanmar are multiple, as are those the state must address, as well as the
issues connected with the potential roles of foreign observers, analysts, and
potential donors.
The
cleavages within the country since independence have not been by class or rank,
contrary to those in other societies, for the Burman area of the state were
perhaps the only place in Asia where
pre-colonial elites did not re-emerge in some form after independence. Economic differences in Burman regions were
more a product of ethnic status and access to capital than inherited levels of
income or a rigid hierarchical structure of class or caste (which did not exist
in Burma except among Indian immigrants), and until recently income disparities
were probably less than in most Asian states, although data are lacking. State ownership of land under all regimes
since independence has to date eliminated the development of a landlord class,
as in the Philippines, although
the number of landless are said to be rapidly rising. Although gender issues have recently been
exacerbated through exploitation of refugees, economic migrants, and internally
displaced persons and corvee labor, traditionally the
status of Burman women in theory and practice has been high. In the nineteenth century, European observers
noted that their position was higher than women in Europe.
Since
independence in 1948, a series of cleavages have developed or become more acute
based on a complex of historical and attitudinal perceptions that profoundly
affect the present and future of the state.
The Union of Burma that was created in 1948 was politically highly
delicate. The fragility of the Union was evident from the beginning,
and was built into the compromise for the first constitution (in 1947) which
allowed the large Shan State and the smaller Kayah State (the latter having its
independence recognized by both the Burmese and the British in 1876) to secede
from the Union after a ten-year trial period and a plebiscite. This was an unrealistic option, but the
perceived threat that this might happen and that the Union of Burma might in
effect be partly dissolved was the excuse for the 1962 coup.
The tenuous
Union of Burma (later named the Socialist Republic of the
Union of Burma, and still later the Union of Myanmar, its present official
designation) was always contentious.
Pasted together in a compromise brought together less than a year before
independence by the charismatic General Aung San (assassinated in July 1947 and
the father of Aung San Suu Kyi), some form of union was necessary to satisfy
the British so that they would release power.
What evolved was a theoretical union with some local powers given to a
number of minority areas, and ethnic representation in a bicameral legislature,
but with essential power at the center lodged within the Burman majority of
two-thirds of the population.
Important
fissures developed in the civilian period.
Some were political, such as that between the government and the
above-ground and legal leftist-oriented party, the National Unity Front, and
two underground communist insurrections.
The left wing believed that the moderate socialism of the new regime was
insufficient to resolve the economic plight of the poor. Muslims in the Arakan and the Karen, perhaps
one-third of whom were Christian, were
soon in rebellion, and other minorities became restive because they felt that
they contributed more to the central government through the exploitation of
their extensive natural resources than they received in return, and the Burma
army often behaved with arrogance in those regions, a major problem that
continues.
Starting in
1962, this modest autonomy was demolished by the military junta that ruled
centrally by decree, and in 1974 was legalized and made permanent under a new
unitary state constitution run by the military with a single-party political
mobilization system reminiscent of some of the Eastern European nations. There was a fictive balance between the seven
minority ‘states’ (provinces) and the seven Burman ‘divisions’ (also
provinces). Power rested at the center titularly with the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP),
but actually with the military, whose high command was Burman, and which
controlled the party. That system was
again changed in 1988 after the third military coup (the first was in 1958 and
was constitutionally approved by the civilian government, and after eighteen
months governance was returned to civilian rule in a free election; the second
was in 1962 and ended with the third coup in 1988 to shore up the previous
collapsing military regime). Since 1988,
government has been by decree from the military high command–the State Law and
Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and its reincarnation in 1997, the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC), both military with the same top
leadership. Of the 52 years of Burmese
independence, 40 have been under military rule.
Ethnicity
was likely less important in the pre-colonial period than it is today; for as
state nationalism has developed so ethnic nationalism has arisen. The population then was sparse in an
extensive land, and an increased population of any ethnicity was desirable for
economic and political reasons as enhancing military capacity, the labor force,
and the tax base. Such expansionist
policies over diverse ethnic groups also demonstrated the political efficacy of
the ruler. Ethnic nationalism is a more
modern phenomenon.
All
colonial powers in Southeast Asia established strict administrative boundaries
where none previously existed, and extended the authority of the center out
laterally to the arbitrarily designated borders that ignored ethnicity,
language, cultural patterns and unities, sometimes watersheds or other
geographic features, and often complex systems of multiple tributary
relationships that were deemed under European dominance to have no place in the
modern world. The colonial power created
a Burmese state (first governed from Calcutta and then
from Delhi until
1937) that reflected traditional Burman domination of the central valleys of
the region for almost a millennium, and disparate hill areas inhabited by
diverse peoples. This arbitrary
arrangement had within it the seeds of discontent.
The indigenous
ethnic problems were exacerbated by the
British through induced and tolerated immigration. They encouraged (and sometimes subsidized)
immigration of Indians (all those from the subcontinent) to assist in
governance and in staffing some lower and intermediate professional positions
and certain occupations. Rangoon became
an Indian city, and the Burma Army until World War II was composed of only 13
percent Burmans, while 37 percent were Indians, the remainder recruited in
ethnically based regiments from the ‘martial [minority] races’ along the
periphery, on the model established by the British in India. Two groups of Chinese entered: one from Yunnan Province as a
result of the Panthay Muslim rebellion, and the other
by sea from south China. The economy was in British, Indian, and
Chinese hands, with the Burmans essentially relegated to rice agriculture, the
bazaars, and petty trading. By
instituting a monetized economy, they marginalized
much of traditional Burma, and deprived the Burmans of control over their own
economic fate, creating divisions and antipathies that still resonate in that
society. Chettyar
moneylenders from Madras had an
effective monopoly over non-institutional credit, and the Great Depression and
its aftermath forced the foreclosure and alienation of land to foreigners, or
greatly increased debt. The retrieval of
Burman domination of the economy has been a central, legitimizing theme of all
Burmese regimes.
II Cohesion
and National Unity: Cleavages, Tensions, and Confrontations
A variety
of cleavages have led to tensions and confrontations within this state that
affect its capacity to create national unity and the equitable sharing of the
fruits of development, should that opportunity arise. Indeed, the argument is circular, for these
very cleavages and tensions are among the major causes of the lack of
development and the continuing poverty that has become virtually the hallmark
of the modern Burmese state. Poor
economic policies have certainly retarded economic development; they have had a
profound effect on an entity that should have been the richest country in
mainland Southeast Asia.
Whatever dire consequences they may have caused, however, and they have been
numerous and severe and continue, they have been superficial compared to more
basic issues because they are more easily corrected and resolved.
For
analytical purposes, these cleavages, tensions, and confrontations are
separated into a series of broad categories, but in fact they intertwine in
complex patterns so that no single one can be separate from any other. Ironically, as these cleavages create
tensions for cohesion at a variety of different social and regional levels,
they also create a degree of commonality at
more restricted levels. As the
government stressed ‘Burmanization,’ thereby
splitting off the minorities, minority ethnic nationalism and identity has
increased. There have also been attempts
by the governments of Burma/Myanmar to create or foster forces for national
unity and cohesion as well (see Section III).
As the divisive forces have within themselves limited unifying themes,
the attempts to create unifying themes have also inherently within themselves
the elements of divisiveness. Thus, the
complexity of the social forces facing the state and its peoples are various
and profound.
More basic,
however, and complicating further the problems facing resolution of societal
ills is a more abstract and fundamental, but nonetheless critical, element in
considering social cohesion and conflict prevention: the concept of the finite
nature of power and its personalization. As in many traditional societies, power is
considered finite, not infinite, and personal--neither institutional nor
ideological. This reluctance to share
power occurs at governmental, institutional, and personal levels. Central governments are uneasy in
transferring authority to local or regional entities. Organizations are run from the top. From the Pagan period (1044-1298), loyalty
was personalized to focus on the individual monarch, not to the monarchy. Personal loyalties have remained the defining
characteristic of power in Burma/ Myanmar under all
political regimes. This inchoate concept
creates problems of the sharing of power, which then becomes a zero-sum game
with those who share always losing. Political and power-sharing compromises, and
even negotiations, become more difficult, but in extremis not impossible.
All of these create profound problems for social cohesion and conflict
resolution.
The
personalization of power then results in factionalism, with resulting
entourages around key leaders, which has been an obvious and continuous
component of Burmese politics and leadership in general. Factionalism within the ruling Anti-Fascist
People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), the coalition that governed Burma from 1948
to 1958, led to the first military (but constitutional) coup of 1958. The ultimate faction, however, was led by
General Ne Win (Commander of the Burma Army, President, Chairman of the BSPP,
etc., and the most important, if not efficacious, individual in contemporary
Burma), who appointed many former members of the unit he commanded, the 4th
Burma Rifles, to high positions of authority. Such attitudes toward power are capable of
change, no doubt, and no society is
static, but such evolution is likely to be slow, and politically and socially
painful.
The
cleavages and tensions within contemporary Myanmar may be
conceptualized as follows; Those:
1. Between Burman
nationalism and a relatively new and diverse ethnic nationalism, which is a
component of center-periphery issues and relates to the issue of national
unity;
2. Between civil and military sectors of the
society;
3. Between globalization and nationalism;
4. Between centralism and pluralism;
5. Between orthodoxy and competing views of the
role of state and society;
6. Among religious groups; and
7. New geo-political,
international rivalries that affect the
internal attitudes of those in authority.
The two
most critical issues related to social disharmony at the national level in the
contemporary period have been, and continue to be, first, ethnic relations, and
second, the rise of a dual society–the latter not the usual definition of the
dichotomy between a modern and traditional economy, but rather between the
military and civilian sectors of society. The latter has exacerbated the
former.
1.
Nationalism and Ethnicity: The Unity of the Union of
Burma/Myanmar
Since the
second military coup of 1962, the constant and overarching theme of the two
military administrations (the Burmese Socialist Programme Party, 1962-1988; the
SLORC and SPDC, 1988–present) has been national unity, a unity that the
military themselves feel is fragile and is under constant internal and external
threat. Only they, they believe, as the
most cohesive organization in the country, can hold the state together. The divisive forces are, in their view, first
ethnic, but exacerbated by foreign elements and states. The continuing, explicit goals of the
military include national unity and national sovereignty. These forces for
centrifugal change were real, and the military concentration on national unity
as their guiding goal was not irrational in the past, as there was ample
evidence of internal demands for independence by some ethnic minorities and
external support of ethnic and other insurrections designed either to split
from the center or take it over. Today,
such charges have become irrelevant as independence has been abandoned by all
minorities, although they persist and guide much of military thinking,
exacerbating some tensions already extant, and creating new ones.
Although
the ethnic problems are real, since 1962 the military have used the issue as a
means to delay or diminish the transfer of any form of state power to
peripheral groups, no matter how large.
The military government of Myanmar now claims that there are 135 ‘races’
in that country, although the previous military regime played down ethnicity in
international fora when it suited their
purposes. The figure purporting to list
‘races’ in fact is a British calculation from the 1930s of the number of
linguistic divisions within the state.
The number of ethnic or linguistic distinctions beyond dialectic
differences is far less–some two dozen or so languages (see appendix), although
this does not diminish the complexity of the problems facing the state in
attempting to forge national cohesion.
Ethnic diversity has been used by the military to perpetuate direct
rule.
The
present military junta and government, designated as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), has charged that the British divided and ruled,
destroying the cohesion that existed among various ethnic groups in the
pre-colonial period. Divided they were,
as the colonial authorities separated ‘Burma Proper’ (or Ministerial Burma,
governed directly by the British and composed of the heartland of the state of
Burmans and the Arakanese, Mon, and some Karen) from the highlands, which were
separately governed, some under local and traditional administrations.
Although
such charges are accurate, unarticulated are the policies of the governments of
the past two generations that have contributed to the decay of social and
ethnic cohesion and exacerbated conflicts.
Although the government probably sincerely believes in the need for
social cohesion, it is a cohesion that they have attempted to define in their
own interests, to forge under their own leadership, to coerce the population
into accepting, and that reinforces their own superior position in
society. These motives have gone
publicly unadmitted by all these regimes, and
although the coercive power of the state is probably the greatest it has been
since independence, the military has built into its approach the virus of
discontent and enmity. Instead, the tatmadaw (armed
forces) have claimed that they have acted toward the minorities with cetana (a
Buddhist concept of good will to which no proper-minded person could disagree),
and to demonstrate the efficacy of their own policies, the military have
claimed, by dubious techniques and with a major intellectual leap of faith,
that as early as the stone age in what is now Myanmar different ‘races’ lived
together in harmony, that this tradition was destroyed by the British, and that
only the military is capable of bringing the peoples together.
The single
most important and enduring problem facing Burma/Myanmar is that of the role of
minorities, which affects social cohesion, permeates conflicts, and is
destructive of dispute resolution. These
internal issues have been exacerbated by external involvement.
The history
of internal conflict and external collusion in some of those conflicts began
with independence and continues today on a reduced scale with a number of cease
fires established, but which may be ephemeral unless structural changes are
made in the distribution of power. On
and shortly after independence, two separate communist party rebellions (the
‘Red Flag’ and the ‘White Flag’) broke out, supplemented by the desertion of a
significant number of the militia (‘People’s Volunteer Organization’-PVO). A large number of the Karen armed forces and
ethnic group went into revolt; the result in the early 1950s was that the
appellation of the Rangoon government
was both figurative and literal. From
the 1960s, there was no major ethnic group that did not have a significant
number of its population in active revolt or in sympathy with some rebel group;
the government perhaps controlled forty percent of the countryside at night,
but 90 percent of the population.
The major
foreign powers aided and abetted some of these rebellions for their own
purposes. The People’s Republic of China supported
the Burma Communist Party,
Teng Hsiao-ping explicitly
claiming that party-to-party relations were different from those
state-to-state. The United States
covertly assisted the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang troops, which retreated
into Burma from the communists (as did troops of the Ming Dynasty fleeing the
new Ch’ing Dynasty forces in 1644), in the hope that
they might attack and regain the mainland.
Some British gave the Karen reason to believe they supported
independence for that group. Muslims in East Pakistan/Bangladesh (with
Middle Eastern funding) backed Muslims in the Arakan, while the Thai aided a
variety of the rebellions along their western littoral, in effect creating
buffer states between the perceived radical regime in Rangoon and the
conservative Bangkok government. The Indians assisted some of the Kachin, Naga, and Chin groups as well. Although all foreign governments have changed
their policies and wish to see the unity of Myanmar retained,
suspicions linger among the Burmese military that foreign states and
organizations are bent on the destruction of Burmese unity; these charges constantly
reappear in the state-controlled media.
2.
The Military-Civil Nexus
The
military in Myanmar have
become a state within a state. They are
in absolute control of all components of state power, and they have created
institutions that have effectively both isolated the military from the civilian
society and yet ironically created an institutions with such internal
perquisites that it attracts the sons and daughters of significant elements of
the civilian population to join to partake of these advantages. The military have their own schools and
health services, not to mention housing, not only for its members, but for
their dependents. While the civilian
population is forced to rely on fragmented, poor, and inadequate academic
opportunities and health facilities, those of the military are far superior.
As the
military has controlled power, it has controlled budgets as well. The real spending of the state on the
military is closely guarded, but the published figures of approximately
one-third of the budget are clearly understated, and observers believe that
perhaps half the annual government
budget is devoted to the military. In
the impoverished state, the social services are grossly underfunded,
and official figures of increases in spending in local currency in these
categories are misleading; they in fact are diminished expenditures considering
inflation and increases in population.
This situation is likely to become worse because the introduction of
higher technological military equipment from China and other
sources is likely to result in the demand for greater funding for maintenance
and training. As the military has
tripled its size from 1962, it has transformed the former multi-ethnic
leadership of the military into a Burman preserve, thus increasing ethnic
tension.
The military has assured itself of its
continuing control of a critical portion of the economy. Through military run corporations, such as
the Union of Myanmar Holding Corporation, a wholly-owned military group
initially capitalized at K. 10 billion (about US$1.4 billion, or about 20
percent of GNP at the time and at the unrealistic rate of exchange), they will
remain in economic control no matter what government comes to power. The military have commandeered much of the
foreign investment though joint ventures with military groups.
3.
Globalization and Nationalism
As
nationalism continues to be a pervasive force in the society (see below), the
need for foreign investment, trade, and tourism has created a major dilemma for
the regime. At the same time as they
appeal to nationalism to legitimate their government and criticize foreign
support to the opposition, they recognize the need to generate foreign
exchange, and have gone to extreme lengths to do so.
Vitriolic
attacks on foreigners have been prevalent in the controlled media. They concentrate on past injustices, present
support to the NLD, and charges that foreigners want to destroy Burmese
culture. This results in many potential
foreign investors rethinking their interests in that society, which remains
attractive because of low wages and a controlled labor force. Foreign investment approvals totaled over six
billion dollars (small compared to Vietnam which
opened at about the same time), but perhaps only one third has actually been
invested. The financial crisis has dried
up ASEAN investment, and today foreign direct investment has virtually
ceased. But no matter how much the
regime needs foreign exchange, to think that it will collapse may be a Western
assumption unwarranted in a society of some 65,000 self-sufficient villages.
The need
for foreign exchange has resulted in the realization that tourism could be an
important economic force. Extensive investments in hotels have produced
little compared to goals of ‘Visit Myanmar’ year (500,000 tourists a year, but
the actuality was about half that goal), but tourism, even on the modest scale
that has resulted, has brought with it social dislocations decried by the
state. The opposition NLD has decried
tourism and foreign investment as economically strengthening the military
regime.
4.
On Centralism and Pluralism
The state
in Burma has
conceptually been centrist, however much it was fragmented in reality. The Burmese monarchs controlled the operation
of the state, but never developed the administrative capacity, as did the
Chinese over a millennium ago, to evolve a professional civil service. The elite indigenous service first introduced
by the British was eliminated by the military, and replaced with officers who
regarded loyalty as more important than competence. The taut military command system has
reinforced the power of the center, but the development and rise in the
hierarchy of the regional military commanders to become a direct part of the
SPDC has resulted in a type of regional military warlordism
that, even as it strengthens the center, has elements of localism
included.
Yet it is
evident that minorities and even Burmans in local areas want a greater say in
their local affairs. Some local autonomy
will likely be introduced, but power will remain with the military–either at
the local level or at the center.
Pluralism
has been denied, not only administratively, but in civil society. The command structure brooks no independence
of administration or intellectual thought.
Yet at the same time the diverse nature of the state, the growth of
population, and the more complex economy means that this centralism is likely
to be both increasingly ineffective and eventually destructive of the very
goals intended.
5.
On Orthodoxy
Pluralism
of ideas or institutions in Myanmar has been
anathema to the military government. The
rigid control of all media and publishing, the suppression and elimination of
all elements of civil society, the incessant indoctrination courses that civil
servants and even professors must attend all indicate that the state is intent
on pursuing a ideological course from which there will be no tolerated
deviation. A board of censors controls
all publications, even of literature, and the import of any foreign books or
journals into the state. Debate in the
National Convention on the new constitution is carefully controlled and no
spontaneous questions have been permitted.
The
question of orthodoxy has developed to be an important aspect of the power struggle. As the military has demanded adherence to
their stated positions, the NLD has done the same. When some 25 members of the NLD were critical
of a decision by the leadership to create a new
opposition committee to act as a National Assembly, they were branded as
‘traitors.’ When some years earlier, an
insurgent student group charged that some members were informers or disloyal,
they were summarily executed. The
demands for ideological rigidity are related closely to the personalization of
power, where a leader’s decisions are not to be questioned. This has been apparent under the leadership
of General Ne Win, and is deeply rooted in the society.
6.
Religious Tension
There is
apparent religious toleration in Myanmar. Any visitor to the capital will note the
numbers of churches, mosques, and Hindu temples that abound. This is indeed the case. But in fact, the identification of
legitimacy, nationalism, and power with the Burman Buddhist population has
meant that under the military there are subtle pressures on other
religions. These pressures are related
to the issue of ethnicity, for although the Burman population is essentially
Buddhist, many of the minorities, such as the Karen, Kachin, and Chin have
substantial percentages of their populations who are Christian. These groups, especially the Karen, have been
charged as being pro-British, and thus unpatriotic in the past. A significant segment of that population is
still in rebellion. As the regional
military commanders have virtual complete autonomy of power over their
respective regions, some have been accused of forcibly discriminating against
Christian communities, , forcing them to build Buddhist pagodas. This is reported to be evident in the Chin State, and has
so been deported in the U.S. Department of State report on religious freedom.
The most
important religious issue, however, relates to the Muslim community, which is
extensive in the Arakan along the Bangladesh
border. There have been charges of
intimidation and worse among this population, and in harassment because of the
lack of identity cards, forcing about 200,00 to flee into Bangladesh in the
1970s, and again in the 1990s. Most have
returned under UN auspices, but the issues have not been resolved. There continues to be a strong anti-Muslim
prejudice in Myanmar, fostered
by some higher-level Burmans who spread scurrilous rumors of attempts to
infiltrate Burman society and seduce Burman women.
In the
past, as regimes have economically faltered, they have sometimes provoked anti-Muslim
rioting to take pressures of the government.
The possibility of this reoccurring (or being directed against an
increasingly obvious Chinese minority as in 1967) should not be dismissed.
7.
Geo-Political Issues
Although
social cohesion and conflict prevention would normally be seen to be internal
affairs of the state, they are affected in multiple ways by the foreign
community. These include both immediate
practical issues as well as longer-range conceptual ones. Conflict in Burma/ Myanmar has sent
hundreds of thousands of refugees to neighboring countries to escape the
ravages of war, exploitation, or harassment.
In both the 1970s and again in the 1990s, about 200,000 Muslim refugees
have fled into Bangladesh to escape
the Burma army. They have only been repatriated under UN
auspices, but some tens of thousands are still inside the Bangladesh
border. In Thailand there are
about 110,000 Karen, Kayah, and Mon refugees in camps close to the border, and
there are tens of thousands of Shan who wander through Northern
Thailand eking out livings in the most marginal jobs and
taking refuge in Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. There are no camps for the Shan. In addition, there are said to be one million
illegal workers in Thailand, of whom
about 700,000 are Burmese (with a total of 106,000 legal jobs for them,
according to the Thai authorities). They
found economic opportunities throughout the country during the Thai economic
boom because the Thai increasingly did not want to perform the menial jobs associated
with economic growth, and there were few economic opportunities within Myanmar. At the time of the Asian financial crisis in
July 1997, there were suggestions that these illegal workers would be forced
back across the border. Some have been
repatriated, but most remain. Pressures
for their return have lessened as the Thai economy stabilized and began to
recover, although the demands to deal with activist dissidents has increased
after the seizure of the Burmese Embassy by Burmese students in the fall of
1999, and the holding of hostages in the Thai hospital at Ratchaburi by ‘God’s
Army’ in January 2000. At the same time,
prostitution and drug trafficking, and a marked and dangerous increase in the
prevalence of AIDS/HIV infections, is
rampant along the borders of the state, and large numbers of the minorities in
Burma are involved in both as exploiters (in the drug trade) and exploited
(especially among women)..
In
addition, in Myanmar there are
said to be between one and three million internally displaced persons. Some have been resettled from urban areas
(several hundred thousand from Rangoon alone),
but many more to create ‘free fire’ zones for military operations in some of
the minority areas (in retribution for attacks on Burmese troops). In one case (among the Wa), there is an
officially sponsored movement of peoples to expand their ethnic boundaries
within the Shan State to create
a larger area that will qualify for some localized autonomy. This movement of peoples in the Shan State has been a
contributing factor in the flow of refugees to Thailand.
Myanmar has also
lost about one percent of its total population in addition to those in refugee
camps and the illegal workers aborad in Thailand, and it is
an educated one percent, through political repression, ethnic discrimination,
and a lack of economic opportunities.
These emigrating individuals created a brain drain where one did not
exist before. Burma before
1962 had no appreciable exodus of talent.
After 1962, surreptitious exits were necessary as the military
essentially cut off both exit and entry.
But after the student demonstrations of 1974 connected with the burial
of former UN Secretary General U Thant that resulted
in a large, unofficial number of student deaths, the government believed it
desirable to allow malcontents to leave, and later they recognized that
external labor flows brought back into Burma
considerable foreign exchange, and so
eased restrictions on work abroad.
At a more
abstract level, foreign contacts are still important. The Burman ethnic group is the only major
ethnic group that exists solely within the present borders of the state. All major
minorities have extensive populations in neighboring states. (There are,
for example, more Kachin in China than in
the Kachin State, the Shan
have a major autonomous area in China’s Yunnan
Province-Sipsong Banna.) This has meant that the Burmans feel the
minorities have greater contact with the outside world, and this creates
considerable apprehension among the Burmans.
That some of the minorities are Christian gives them an added
international connection and sympathetic supporters. It should also be remembered that the Shan
are close relatives of the Thai, that the Muslims in the Arakan have
co-religionists across the Naaf River in Bangladesh, and that
the Chin (Zo) and Naga
groups have been advocating greater autonomy in their own states in India. It is only the Burmans who are
internationally ethnically isolated, and thus their apprehension regarding
foreign intervention is increased.
To
complicate further the picture and increase the insecurity of the military
authorities purportedly caused by foreigners, the opposition National League
for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, has kept up an extensive and successful
campaign to solicit international sympathy for her democracy movement. As the military have attempted the slow
castration of the NLD, the NLD has responded by relying on foreign moral
support for their sustenance. Over the
past two years, the NLD has done this by creating a series of confrontations
with the military authorities. What
effect these have had internally is not clear to this writer, but it is evident
that the international press reports on them have garnered considerable
positive publicity for the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi, and have thus been
successful in those terms, and have kept the opposition alive in the world’s
view. The picture of a beleaguered,
intelligent, attractive woman standing up to military oppression has been an important
international rallying symbol for human rights and advocates of Burmese
liberalization. The military counter
that she is an ‘axe handle’ or tool of the foreign imperialists who are out to
split up the country and destroy Myanmar culture, and that the funding for her
party and for anti-military activities on Thai soil and in cross-border
activities has come from foreign sources.
Because she was married to a foreigner (who died in March 1999), and has
‘mixed blood’ children, she is considered both inappropriate (by the military)
as a Burman and ineligible for public office under rules that are likely to be
introduced by the military under a new constitution, which they are
interminably drafting under a National Convention that has not met in two years
but that started in 1993.
Foreign
influences are more than simply suspect.
They, and their internal supporters and external progenitors, have
systematically and constantly been vilified in the press at the same time that
foreign investment has been encouraged and tourists enticed. The tension in state policies between
nationalism, invoked to provide legitimacy for the military, and globalization,
is pronounced. This tension is
exacerbated because, should the government appear publicly to be supportive of
globalization and things foreign, their central argument against the NLD and
Aung San Suu Kyi is undercut, and indeed the NLD then acquires greater
legitimacy.
The
extended influence of China has
prompted concerns by India over being
outflanked on its eastern borders, and to Thailand as well,
which does not welcome a strong Chinese presence that both undercuts Thai trade
with Myanmar, and
raises security concerns as well.
III
State-Sponsored Attempts at Cohesion
Each
government directly and indirectly has advocated some form of ideological
focus–a common emotional and intellectual bond--by which to hold the state
together and create that sense of community. Such efforts not only attempt to create
cohesiveness when none existed before, but also to provide political legitimacy
for the regime in power, whether that be military or civilian. Some of these themes have been constant,
although their relative emphases may have shifted. These are:
1. Nationalism
2. Burman dominance
3. Buddhism
4. Socialism, and
5. The military.
Nationalism,
Burman control, and Buddhism have continued to be essential elements of
political legitimacy and the endeavor to create national identity under all
regimes.
1. Nationalism
All
governments have drawn upon strong nationalistic, or xenophobic, tendencies in
a Burman population that has continuously felt under siege internally and
externally, and that feels that its culture has been threatened. These themes are constantly replayed in the
media and have continuously struck a responsive chord among all Burmese
governments. The Burmese are constantly
reminded in the controlled media that foreigners do not ‘love’ them, and that
preoccupation with foreign ideas, clothes, dress, music, food, or other factors
is wrong and ‘un-Myanmar,’ Performers have been jailed for performing in too
Western a manner.
2. Burman Dominance
All
governments also since independence have been Burman dominated, and it is the
Burman ethnic group that has considered that they have the inherent right to
govern both because of historical precedent and because they number two-thirds
of the total population of 47 million. To succeed in Burma/Myanmar under any
government was to play by Burman rules, speaking Burmese (education in minority
languages has not been allowed in public schools) even if the constitutions
provided the fig leaf of ethnic cultural diversity rights as a cover for
internal Burman hegemonic power and cultural domination.
3. Buddhism
The support
of Buddhism has also been a critical element in political legitimacy, even if
its aggressiveness (or rather the aggressiveness of the state in fostering it
among non-Buddhist minority peoples)
fomented some rebellions along the borders, and no regime could long
survive that did not take into account the importance of that religion and make
proper obeisance to it and its sangha (monkhood). Prime Minister U Nu’s attempt to make it the
state religion in 1960 (it always had a special role, and all civilian heads of
state who rotated among ethnic groups had to be Buddhist) encouraged ethnic
rebellions among minorities that were heavily Christian or Muslim. It was not until 1980 that the military
succeeded in controlling and registering the Buddhist sangha, the official hierarchy of
which is firmly under military domination. Yet all leaders of Burma/Myanmar from the
monarchy to the present have adhered to Buddhist practices both because of
personal beliefs and to ensure political legitimacy. U Nu, General Ne Win, General Than Shwe have all
built important pagodas, and in1999 General Khin Nyunt (Secretary-1 of the SPDC
and head of intelligence) supervised the refurbishing of the most illustrious
Buddhist shrine in Burma, the Shwedagon Pagoda, with
a ton of new gold leaf. All leaders are pictured
in the press as paying obeisance to the monks, and Aung San Suu Kyi in April
1999 gave a Buddhist memorial service for her husband.
4. Socialism
Socialism,
under the auspices of the military-led BSPP, was for one-third of the
independence period the secular banner under which the state was to come
together. A moderate socialist policy
had been the hallmark of the previous civilian administration, but after 1962
it became virulent with the complete nationalization of most of the large and
small manufacturing base. This ill-conceived effort failed because of
an incompetent administration that had been so weakened by the military that it
could not be effective, as the military replaced professionals with military
officers who had enthusiasm and loyalty but not the required skills to manage
even a rather simple socialist economy. Very highly placed authorities of that
period have confided that they believed it was not socialism as an economic
concept that failed; rather, it was an inoperable and elaborate feedback system
under which local complaints and problems could (theoretically) be brought up
the chain of political command to the top authorities for resolution. This system, according to commentators, did
not work because of the climate of fear in the society–a fear that has been and
still is endemic, with civilians fearing the military, and lower-level military
fearing the high command, and even those in the cabinet fearing the top
leaders. Chairman of the BSPP Ne Win in
1987 publicly recognized the problem, stating that the regime had to stop lying
with statistics to please those in authority.
It did not work. Even the modest
economic reforms proposed by the World Bank in the 1970s and 1980s that were
designed to give the State Economic Enterprises (the public sector) more
authority to set prices and hire and fire personnel also failed because lower
level officials were afraid to invoke the wrath of the higher authorities by
making local decisions and being innovative.
It was the
Japanese in 1988 that prompted the military in the last days of the BSPP to
reform their economic system and abandon socialist ideology and open the state
to a more market, although still highly dirigiste,
economy. Under the SLORC, the foreign
and indigenous private sectors were encouraged, although the military has
retained direct and indirect control over substantial portions of the the economy.
5. The Military
Finally, under the present military
administration, socialism has been replaced not with capitalism, but with the adulation of the military as the
only cohesive force in the country, as the savior of the state, and as the
idealistic force fighting for the common good.
A new mythology has selectively been instituted, new revisionist books
written, and institutions created (historical commissions and museums) designed
to perpetuate the new orthodoxy.
Although the private sector is encouraged within bounds, capitalism has
not been seen to be in harmony with some Buddhist ideals. But Buddhism, nationalism, and anti-foreign
sentiment (even as the state encourages foreign investment and tourism) are
constantly put in the service of the state’s extensive propaganda mechanisms
that are ubiquitous under the stringent control by the military of all media,
publishing, and distribution of information.
This pervasive emphasis on the military in its present ‘efficacious’
role and past ‘accomplishments’ is a marked change from previous ideological
formulations around which the population was supposed to rally. Now, instead, it is the military itself that
is the focus for legitimacy, efficacy, honor, and prestige, relegating to the
civilian population (and to the minorities who no longer hold high military
positions) secondary status and exacerbating the problem of social
fragmentation.
This focus
on the military itself creates obvious problems for amelioration of social and
political cleavages, for one party (the military) holds itself up as the
ultimate unifying force, thus denying to the other party (the opposition) in
any potential negotiations any legitimacy and any neutral ground that could
provide a common basis for compromise.
IV The Tatmadaw: Cohesion and Division?
The Tatmadaw (armed forces) of Myanmar claim to
be the force for social cohesion in the society. Through their vigilance, they
believe, the state has been kept intact and foreign and internal fissiparous
elements held at bay. They claim to have
done so through a variety of actions, and to represent the whole country. They have negotiated a dozen and a half or so
cease fires with insurgent minority groups since 1988 (see Appendix). They have destroyed the power of the Burma
Communist Party in rebellion along the China frontier,
or more accurately the party collapsed under factional disputes. They have mobilized the society under their
banner through the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a mass
mobilization organization of over 11 million members (about one-third of the
adult population) designed to serve the military’s goals and under their
direction, and even to act as a para-military or
control force that will receive some military training and education in the use
of arms. It has been used to harass the NLD, and to
demonstrate in mass meetings against it.
Their intelligence networks permeate every element of the state that
they control.
In
addition, they have formed a unitary state which creates the administrative
fact of cohesion even as it fosters the elements conducive to its own
destruction. First, the military ruled
by decree from 1962 to 1974; then they created a unitary state with all power
in the army and the center through the BSPP, which was a single-party,
military-dominated, mobilization system.
Then, following the coup of 1988, they have again ruled by decree until
the present, and the future system they are likely to install under a new
constitution will be one in which power will still reside in military
hands. It is apparent that the military
have no intention of giving up essential power under the multi-party political
system that they claim will be ‘democratic’ or a kind of ‘disciplined
democracy’ toward which they continuously say to be moving, although the pace
is glacial.
They will point to many of these
accomplishments with pride, including major road, bridge, and infrastructure
construction (many of the major undertakings with Chinese assistance), claiming
that all of these actions induce national cohesion. In a sense this is accurate, but it is a
cohesion that is forced on a society reluctant to be so subjugated, and this
cohesion is likely to be unstable. At the same time they have built a
bifurcated society–military and civilian-- in which separate is not equal.
Burma was once a
highly mobile society through four avenues in the civilian period. Advancement was through a free,
Burman-dominated education system, which did reach the poor and remote
areas. One might also rise from poverty
through a university-level Buddhist education, in the sangha and leave at will with
enhanced respect. The military was a
desired career, and in spite of a universal draft law for men and women (passed
in1959 on an Israeli model) it was never implemented because volunteers
outpaced needs until the vast expansion of the military. From an armed force of 125,000 at the time of
the 1962 coup, the military grew to 186,000 in 1988, and since then has more
than doubled. One could, in addition,
rise through the political mass organizations that proliferated in the civilian
period. And even the minorities were in positions of some prominence and
power–in the cabinet and in the upper reaches of the armed forces.
All this
has changed. Two societies have been
created–military and civilian, and even the civilian society is controlled by
the military. The military now dominate
all avenues to mobility and advancement– not only through the military itself,
but through control of higher education, the Buddhist sangha hierarchy, and through
mass organizations all of which are under military sponsorship and domination.
The military is still a desired career.
With it comes the access to schools and medical facilities (properly
equipped and of a much higher standard) when these are closed or not available
to the civilian population. They also
have access to the necessities of living through their commissaries and other
shops that sell goods at reduced prices, and receive rations that means that
their modest incomes go further. They
have access to power, and mistrust the civilian bureaucrats. Perhaps half the government’s budget is
surreptitiously devoted to the military (about one-third is overt), and in
addition at local levels the military units often live off neighborhood
villages, increasing the already widespread poverty and further marginalizing
the peasantry.
The dominant
role of the military and the opening of the economy to the indigenous and
foreign private sectors after the coup of 1988, a move that might have been the
most important reform in the state since 1962, has created a further dichotomy. This is the possibility of corruption, which
was once rampant but at a relatively low and inconspicuous level, but has since
mushroomed. State salaries are so low (a
director-general of a ministry makes about $400 per month at the official, but
unrealistic, rate of exchange, or about $8 at the curb market rate) that
virtually no one in the public sector can live on their salaries. This not only invites, but demands,
corruption in a number of forms and multiple sources of family income. Thus there is an increasing discrepancy in
incomes between those who are poor, and about 50 percent of the population are
either below the poverty line or just above it), and those who have access to
either power or capital. Income
differentials are rapidly expanding. The
domineering role of the Chinese, who now are seen to control a major portion of
the economy of Northern Burma, creates
another area of potential conflict. In
1967, the military redirected economic and political frustration from
themselves against the Chinese community, resulting in mass looting of shops
and a number of deaths. Should the
economy seem once again to be slipping out of Burman hands, spontaneous or
directed anti-Chinese riots (or those against other minorities, such as the
Muslim community) could be possible.
The
minorities have been cut off from access to power. They are no longer in the upper reaches of
the military, nor in the higher levels of the subordinate civilian
bureaucracy. As they are on the
geographic periphery, they are have been relegated to the power periphery, and
under present military plans are likely to remain in this position.
The
dichotomy facing the state has been exacerbated because of the lack of
meaningful dialogue between a military that is intent on remaining in power,
and a civilian opposition, led by the NLD (one of 10 legal parties, but the
others are inconsequential), that has been denied power even though they
overwhelmingly won the elections of May 1990.
In Burma, because
loyalties are so personalized, a ‘loyal opposition’ is an oxymoron; thus
negotiations between such groups are more difficult than in some other
societies.
As a
condition for the cease fires along the periphery, the minority groups and
armies are allowed to keep their arms and engage in their traditional agricultural
pursuits. The administration is supposed to deliver to
them increased educational opportunities, better health care, and improved
agricultural facilities. The military
will likely be hard pressed, given the state of the economy, to do so. The crisis may occur when, as the military
demand, all arms be turned in after a new constitution is promulgated and
before elections take place. It is
unlikely that the minorities will be willing to do so. The problem is further complicated by the
issue of opium production. The central
government may be trying to eliminate opium production and the resultant heroin
and related narcotics that flow from that practice. The state’s interest in this is disputed by
others, but in any case it is predictable that the lucrative trade is so
important that there will be tensions between any central government bent on
opium eradication and local producers who yet have no economically viable other
way to earn incomes beyond subsistence, and local officials (military or
otherwise) who can ‘tax’ the narcotics trade or otherwise profit from its
continuation. In the past the government
could claim a lack of responsibility for this production because they did not
control these regions, but with the cease fires this will no longer be
possible.
This paper,
as a matter of rhetorical convenience rather than as an analytical fact,
discusses the military in the singular.
Although the military is more cohesive than other institutions, it has
elements of possible fission built into its current organization and size. The expansion of the military under the BSPP
and the SLORC-SPDC regimes has created a duality within the military of line
officers who are involved in either fighting or managing the peripheral areas,
and those who are more administrative.
The change from the SLORC to the SPDC may not have changed policies, for
the four top military figures held their posts, but the SPDC added all the
regional military commanders who now have assumed a greater role than
heretofore. They were virtual warlords
over their regional areas, especially those far removed from the Burman centers
of population, but they now also have authority in the critical arena of
decision-making. There are also said to
be personal and policy differences between the commander of the army, General
Maung Aye, and the head of intelligence, General Khin Nyunt. No overt split is yet apparent, and there are
a number of reasons why the military would want to appear to have a united
front, not the least of which is the fear of what might happen if the military
should split. Should the military leave
power, the fears of retribution are real, and the example of General Pinochet
of Chile probably
did not go unnoticed. We will return to
this issue later.
One of the
central cleavages that has developed between many of the minorities and the
Burman population is because the Burma Army has acted like, and been perceived
to be, an almost foreign military force occupying a subjugated area. Until there are reforms of the military
occupation performance, these antipathies are likely to continue, increasing
ethnic tension.
V Past
Approaches to, and Perceptions of, the Myanmar Miasma
It is a
tautology to say that Burmese problems must be resolved by the Burmese themselves
and bama-lo, in a Burmese manner. Yet the
foreign community has numerous roles to play in assisting a process by which
resolution may be accomplished. One of
the most important, to be played by the multilateral aid agencies and the
academic community, is the development of analyses that will present
alternative perspectives and scenarios on the situation and its amelioration,
and to break though the cloud of partisan cant that now epitomizes the
polarized statements emanating from various sources within and without the
country. The climate of fear that is so pervasive within Myanmar often
prevents alternatives from reaching those who hold the ultimate decision-making
responsibility; thus foreign roles in suggesting alternatives and providing
analyses are important.
If we are
so concerned with the current, dire situation in Myanmar, as indeed
we should be, then we should be asking ourselves why we were not concerned with
the military regime under the Burma Socialist Programme Party (1962-1988)? That was a militarized government perhaps
even more authoritarian than the present military, where there was a single
party mobilization regime that did not even allow a titular opposition, where
the military were in command, where intelligence agencies were ubiquitous, and
where the minorities were in even a greater state of rebellion, and social
cohesion equally threatened. Yet that
regime received foreign assistance (approximately $400 million annually toward
its close) from all multilateral and bilateral donors, under a closed economic
system that was even more disastrous than the present, partly open, one.
A variety
of forces have created what seem to be a new set of lenses for our focus on Myanmar. These include: a ‘wave’ of Asian
liberalization, beginning with the people’s revolution in the Philippines in
1986 and the Korean liberalization of June 1987; the massive killings of 1988
in which thousands died–a situation although not on Western television that was
more brutal and severe than Tienanmen in Beijing a
year later; the elections of May 1990
that the military has ignored (although this is not unique in world politics);
the greater emphasis on human rights and the enhanced administrative capacities
of public and private organizations worldwide to monitor those situations; the
increase in communications technology allowing foreign groups to mobilize in
support of or against regime practices; the lure of markets, and a low-paid
literate, controlled labor force; potential access to the extensive raw materials
of Myanmar as foreign investment is encouraged; strategic concerns over the
dominant economic position of China in the Burmese economy and the Burmese
reliance on Chinese military materiel; and the symbol of Aung San Suu Kyi who
is seen to encapsulate the democratic spirit and resistance to authoritarian
rule.
If the
reality of a lack of freedom within Myanmar has not
changed from its Burma days, the
external environment has evolved to make observers more sensitive to human
rights issues, even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
most countries have signed, dates from 1948.
If one single event were to be pinpointed as the genesis of the intense
international reaction against the Burmese regime, it was probably not the
killings of 1988, as horrible as they were, nor was it the continuing plight of
some of the minorities, some of whom had been in rebellion for two
generations. It was also not the falling
standard of living, one of the lowest of the major Asian states. Simply put, it was the regime’s ignoring of
the May 1990 elections, which hardened positions both internally toward the
distribution of power, and externally toward the leaders of the state.
There is
evidence that before the election the military did not see themselves as
remaining in direct power for a long period, although it is my belief that they
would have retained power behind the scenes for the indefinite future. They specifically eschewed longer term
economic planning because they viewed themselves as a transitional government
(although not perhaps the military as transitional). There are even suggestions that if the
election had not been so lopsidedly won by the NLD, the military might have
been willing to deal with a divided opposition they believed they could manipulate
or control. But with their ignominious
defeat, or that of the party they quietly backed, they began to make long-range
plans to control the political process and remain in power. Thus, longer-term economic planning was
instituted, preparations for a new constitution were begun, and the formation
of a mass mobilization organization among the population as a whole inaugurated
that would service the military’s efforts for control.
The NLD,
for its part, became firmly entrenched and not willing to compromise, believing
that by the modern criteria of elections they had the legal mandate to govern,
while the military constantly played up their adherence to Burmese culture,
tradition, and values. When the military
appeared intransigent, the NLD held a rump session of their elected delegates
in Mandalay, and
secretly sent off a group overseas to become the new National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB)–essentially a
government-in-exile.
Foreign
governments, especially the United States, which previously had called for the
opening of Myanmar and the participation of that state in international fora to enlighten a regime that had for too many years been
isolated, hardened its attitude, prompting the imposition of sanctions on all
new U.S. investments, denying the appointment of a new ambassador (but having
the U.S. Embassy run by a charge’), and attempting, unsuccessfully, to keep
Myanmar out of ASEAN.
At present,
various governments and organizations have approached Myanmar through the
full spectrum from engagement to isolation.
The United States has called
for the isolation of the regime until it recognizes the results of the May 1990
elections and allows the NLD to take power. This is tantamount to arguing that a regime
should give up power and then there would be negotiations. The European Community, along with the United
States, has prohibited the travel of
high-ranking government officials to their areas. Japan, on the
other hand and in a quiet policy dispute with the United
States, has indicated its interest in
restarting its aid program in a rather major way if there are some (perhaps
cosmetic) concessions made toward liberalization and democracy, which are part
of the Japanese aid charter. The
Japanese government is under pressure from the economic ministries and
Keidanren to resume Japanese programs because of the extensive economic,
emotional, and strategic interests in Myanmar. ASEAN began its relationship with Myanmar by calling
for ‘constructive engagement,’ which, to the cynical outsider, seemed to be
little more than a screen for foreign investment and the exploitation of
Burmese natural resources. More
recently, as there have been no signs of political progress and as the economic
situation in Myanmar seemed to decline, they have turned to ‘active
engagement,’ which means the possibility of commenting on the internal
political affairs within the ASEAN states, something that was anathema in ASEAN
before. International NGOs have been providing some humanitarian assistance,
and about seventeen now are resident within Myanmar.
None of
these tactics has worked. Myanmar’s
isolation has not affected the political process in that country, and the
economic impact of sanctions is questionable since instability, incompetence,
perceived insecurity of investments, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 all
may have played a more important role in drying up foreign investment. Engagement in ASEAN has produced no effects
to date. The ‘collapse’ of the economy,
as some Westerners refer to its decline, is a misnomer because most of the
country is at subsistence levels and can continue to exist at marginal rates of
growth, or even decline, for substantial periods.
The
question then must be asked: why have none of these tactics induced
change? And the answer is complex and
disconcerting to those who hope for reform and progress. Although some of the activists promoting
liberalization have invoked the analogy of South
Africa as the model for dealing with Myanmar (i.e.,
isolation and sanctions), this is not apt.
All the nations surrounding South
Africa supported sanctions, and the South
African elite and economy were oriented toward the West. None of these conditions apply in the case of
Myanmar, while the
only comparable relationship is that of two attractive, charismatic Nobel Peace
laureates.
This writer
believes that there are fundamental aspects of the structure of power and
attitudes toward power that must be understood if we are to consider
appropriate paths. These attitudes shape negotiations, exacerbate tensions,
create confrontations, and diminish the possibilities of conflict
prevention. These are as follows:
These
elite, strongly held military views that affect negotiations may be divided
into those internally and externally focused.
Burmese
military views--Internal Assumptions:
* The military believe that they are the only present and
future institution capable of keeping Myanmar
united as a single country, and that pluralism is destructive of national unity. This assumption is true at present because
they have effectively destroyed every other institution that might have played
that role. It will be true in the future
insofar as the military prevents the rise of pluralism within the governmental
structure and the growth of civil society.
This is why they have essentially replaced earlier state ideologies
(including socialism under the military-led BSPP regime and Buddhism under U
Nu) with an ideology that effectively focuses on the military itself and its comprehensive
societal role and, in part, on its mythic history. Where under the military's Burma
Socialist Programme Party period (1962-1988) the military were portrayed as the
keepers of the socialist flame, today it is the military itself that is the ideological
nexus of society.
* The tatmadaw
consider past political leaders as venal, corrupt, ineffective, and incapable
of running the state and assuring its unity.
* The military believe that the
minorities are inherently inferior (culturally/socially) and would split from
Burman authority if given the chance.
The military also believe the minorities are distrustful of the Burman
majority (including the military) and fear Burman domination. They provide only lip-service respect for
minority culture through ritualized holidays and propaganda efforts. They equate Burman Buddhist culture with the
state and want some form of central (Burman) control. Advocacy of Buddhism, association with the sangha, building or repairing of Buddhist
shrines (including adding one ton of gold to the Shwedagon
Pagoda in 1999), are part of the search both for political legitimacy and
personal religious merit. The state goes
to great and continuous lengths to demonstrate its reverence for the sangha, and the
leadership is continuously depicted in the media as supportive of
Buddhism. Buddhism is intimately
associated with political legitimacy.
* The military view economic progress, reform, or
liberalization as secondary to maintenance of political control, or indeed as a
means to such control. The primary
function of an improved economy is greater military power, general political
acquiescence of the population to military control through military delivery of
greater economic rewards for loyalty, and improved political legitimacy, and
not directly the betterment of the human condition. To this end, the military believe they must
control the economy and have set up direct (Myanmar Economic Holdings Co.,
military-run factories, Myanmar Economic Corporation, etc.) and many indirect
mechanisms (‘private’ banks, USDA businesses, etc.) to do so.
* The military view any form of pluralism
within the administration at any level, in the dissemination of information,
and among non-governmental organizations as a threat to the state and their
control.
* The military have no intention of giving up essential
power even though a civilian facade for their control is likely eventually to
be established.
* The military have no intention of
granting to minority groups any significant degree of power at the national
level, although some modest local self-government will be given to some groups
with which cease fires have been arranged.
* The military (at least as long as Ne
Win is alive) have no intention of allowing Aung San Suu Kyi to play any
significant role in any new government.
Burmese
Military views--External Assumptions:
* The Burmese regime believes that the country is surrounded
by enemies–real and potential. These
threats no longer take the form of territorial aggrandizement, but economic
domination and the possibility of encouraging minority separatism. This fear is based on a reality once extant,
but now completely outmoded. These past
instances of such foreign support are well documented, and include American
assistance to KMT forces in Burma, Pakistani-Bangladeshi support for Muslim
insurgents, Thai help to a variety of insurgent groups (both ethnic and
Burman), Indian backing of anti-SLORC groups, some British support for the
Karen, Chinese aid to the Burma Communist Party, the inclusion of northen Burma in early KMT and PRC Chinese maps, and a
general perception that Christian minorities have closer support and contact
with foreigners than do the Burman Buddhist minority.
* These fears include China
as potentially (or perhaps even presently) having undue influence in Burma.
* The military regard the United States as highly
significant to them because of its international influence, but distrust U.S.
motives and influence, believing that if sufficiently provoked the U.S. might
intervene militarily in Burma.
* Foreign public criticism of the SPDC simply forces a
nationalistic response, and foreign pressures for reform are viewed as
infringements of Burmese sovereignty, and foreign support for the NLD undercuts
the NLD’s potential legitimacy (in their view).
NLD
Assumptions
* The military is out to destroy the
party.
* The military is intent on splitting
Aung San Suu Kyi from the party.
* There is a potential role for the
military under a truly civilian (NLD) government, but one under civilian
control and review.
* The
immediate needs are to maintain the NLD as an entity and seek to continue
international support, including sanctions.
* Deny the military any possible avenues
leading to increasing their public legitimacy internally or externally. This includes opposing any humanitarian
assistance that benefits the SPDC or its agencies (e.g., USDA), and the
operations of foreign NGOs in Myanmar, as well as denying to the government the
foreign exchange generated by business, investment, or tourism.
Because
of the world role of the United States, its influence with other potential
bilateral donors, and with the multilateral institutions of the World Bank, the
Asian Development Bank, and the IMF, it is important to consider under what
assumptions and constraints it operates, as well as its policies toward Burma.
* Burma
is low on the list of U.S.
priority foreign policy concerns even though the Secretary of State has taken a
personal interest in the human rights and political problems in that society.
* The
U.S.
has residual anti-narcotics interests that are important but not sufficient
alone to drive policy change. Although
anti-narcotics priorities were more important to the U.S. in the BSPP period,
when considerable U.S. assistance was provided, since the SLORC/SPDC period,
and largely in response to internal U.S. public pressures, human rights have
become more significant in policy formulation than anti-narcotics activities.
* There
is a significant lobby within the Congress and in the U.S./international
non-governmental community insisting (minimally) on greater political and civil
rights, and more comprehensively that the military relinquish its authority as a
result of the May 1990 elections and for Aung San Suu Kyi to assume the reins
of government.
* The Executive Branch in the U.S.
in the year 2000 is domestically weak because it is ending its tenure and
preoccupied with elections. In foreign
policy, the U.S.
is absorbed with the Balkans, the Middle
East, China,
North Korea,
and with Japan. Little attention will be paid to Myanmar.
* Although
the executive and legislative branches are in formal agreement at this
juncture, should this administration desire to shift its present policies, it
will not be prepared to use up any political capital it still might have on
confronting the Congress, or individual legislators, on Burma issues.
* U.S.
policy--including lifting sanctions, the presence of a U.S.
ambassador, etc. --is unlikely to change to any considerable degree without
major internal reforms in Burma
because it would be seen as a reward and be politically indefensible within the
U.S.
* This
policy will limit the capacity of any U.S. administration in the near future in
agreeing to multilateral donor assistance beyond most humanitarian aid to Burma
without clear quid pro quos.
* If
such amelioration were to take place in the near term, it would be opposed by
Aung San Suu Kyi unless it were
accompanied by the release of political prisoners and the freedom of the NLD to
operate as a real political party.
* Other more important policy issues with China
(trade, human rights, influence on North
Korea, etc.)
mean that Myanmar
is low on the priority list for U.S.-China bilateral discussions. The same applies in Japanese-U.S.
relations. Yet both are important for Myanmar
dialogue.
* Individual congressmen or women believe they cannot be
seen to be supporting a pariah regime, and thus will follow a minority strongly
opposed to amelioration of present U.S.
policies.
* At the same time, there is a significant body of
businessmen or women who, perhaps for either intellectual or financial reasons,
believe that private sector activity will bring (perhaps eventually) democracy.
* Japan
desires to resume major foreign assistance and has only been prevented from
doing so by U.S.,
pressure. It is likely that they will
restart at least a portion of their program.
* Japanese potential assistance is important to the
country. Its past role has been
essential to survival of previous Burmese governments and it has strongly
influenced positive change (the shift to the private sector) in the past.
* China
could be influential in influencing change if it were convinced to play such a
role, in spite of Burmese concerns about their already considerably exposed
position. China believes that a stable, friendly, pliant regime in Rangoon is
in its national interests, and China
would support the present government in the face of induced change. China is, however, concerned about increased
narcotics activities and AIDS/HIV rates in Yunnan
but emanating from Myanmar.
* Although
Indian relations with the Burmese regime have improved since Rajiv Gandhi, India views with suspicion a Chinese presence
and influence on its undemarcated northeast frontier,
which was the scene of fighting in the Sino-Indian War of 1962, as outflanking
its unstable northeastern states, and Chinese access to the Bay of Bengal.
VI
Possibilities for Change
The
prospects for alleviation of the present political stasis seem bleak. That does not mean, however, that change is
impossible. What are possible avenues or
opportunities for change?
It is, of
course, conceivable that the economic distress in which the country is mired
may cause the state to agree to make more than superficial accommodations in
both the economic and political sectors.
Since, however, economics has been considered as subordinate to
political issues, it seems unlikely that the regime would agree to more than
cosmetic changes that would affect the structure of power in the society and
heal social and political cleavages.
A highly
controversial question is whether the military would remain relatively solid upon
the death of General Ne Win, who is now 89.
There are those, including this author, who believe he has been an
important glue holding the military together through the force of his
personality and history even after he retired as chairman of the BSPP in July
1988. He became, in the view of this
author, the Burmese equivalent of a Cardinal Richelieu, operating behinds the
scenes on only important policy issues, but out of the direct, prosaic power
line. When he passes to his karmic
reward, will this change? Will the fragmentation of the military occur based on
personal power issues rather than ideology?
This cannot be definitively answered, but it is a distinct possibility
that should not be ignored. If this were
to happen, then we might find one element of the military seeking political
accommodations with the opposition or with some minorities that might allow
reform to take place under various guarantees for military security and the
unity of the state. Now, fears of
retribution may be a critical force in ostensible military cohesiveness.
Will the
cease fires with the minorities hold? If
they do, the center is strengthened. If
not, then there could be further divisions within the state and the military. What about the younger military themselves. Are they in agreement with the senior
commanders, and could they rise against their own military colleagues who
perhaps appear to be corrupt or destructive of the prestige of the military? This is a possibility, but it does not seem
likely in the near term. The military
educational institutions are in large part catering to the sons of those in, or
retired from, the military.
And what
about the people? Could they rise once
again and try to complete the people’s revolution that almost succeeded in 1988
but eventually failed? All evidence at
the present time is that this seems
unlikely, although not impossible.
Authoritarian regimes often have had some of their lower functionaries
make mistakes while trying to please their higher command, and it is possible
that some egregious act might set forth a revolution. The price of rice, the surrogate indicator of
well being in the region, is an important indicator to watch, as are other
prices of necessities, such as cooking oil.
What will
the NLD do now that there is this concerted, quiet, governmental effort to
marginalize it and its leadership? Can
it hold together over time? In the
shorter term, time seems on the side of the military, but over the longer
period regime change and liberalization seems inevitable. The military have attempted to picture the
NLD as rigid and uncaring, as well as foreign controlled. How effective this is within Myanmar is
unclear, but it is a constant theme. The
initial stance of the NLD against humanitarian assistance and foreign NGO
activities, which try to alleviate poverty, because such actions tended both to
legitimate the government and would be used to benefit it, has been modified
somewhat because the military played up the NLD intransigence as against the
well being of the people.
In
additional to fundamental issues connected with internal political dynamics,
discussed above, the new World Bank report on Myanmar of 1999, sets forth a set
of problems and priorities and requested a written response from Myanmar
authorities on whether the government was interested in serious negotiations on
any of these issues. It links economic
reforms to political changes, but does not specify the latter. The Burmese government has now responded, but
the reply lacked the specificity that the Bank had stipulated.
There
are at present a number of basic possibilities for change assuming at this
stage the singularity of today’s Burmese military leadership. At one end of the potential spectrum is that the military will be intransigent and will
make no moves to satisfy the World Bank or potential bilateral donors, such as
the Japanese, on either fundamental economic restructuring or major political
reforms. At the other end, the military
will agree to both reform of the political power structure and major economic
restructuring. The former option seems
the most likely response at the present time, and the latter the least likely.
But
there are intermediate possibilities: the military might agree to major economic reforms in accordance
with the World Bank recommendations, or some minor economic reforms (such as
those connected with certain public sector industries) but no essential
political liberalization. It is unlikely
that they would agree to political reforms while neglecting the economic
issues, if the analysis is correct that politics, not economics, are in
command. There is the possibility that
the tatmadaw
might pursue political dialogue with the NLD as a cosmetic move to placate the
foreign community with no real intention of moderating their position on
essential power.
Even
remembering that Dante said that soothsayers go to a lower circle of hell, let
me hazard the following possibilities:
·
It is least likely that the
military will agree with comprehensive political and economic reform–unless
there is a change in present command positions.
·
The next least likely
possibility is major political reforms but not major economic reforms. I believe the military view economics as an
integral part of political power, and thus do not envisage economic reforms
unless they are perceived to be supportive of their conception of power
politics.
·
The possibility of major
economic reforms but no political change seems marginally plausible, but still
unlikely, but modest economic changes but no political changes is more possible, if not probable.
The
most likely eventuality is for the military in effect to deny major political
or economic changes. They may do so
believing that the donors will block assistance without substantial changes
which might threaten the power base of the government. If it is true that the regional commanders
play a greater role than heretofore, their insulation from the outside world
may seem to make the option of ‘going it alone’ more plausible. If this were to be true, then the donors
options might concentrate on the slow building of civil society and pluralism,
together with training of a future bureaucratic and business class for some,
one hopes, more liberal future regime, through non-threatening humanitarian
assistance and the operation of NGOs. This may be about all that can be done by
external powers under these circumstances.
This approach, the building of civil society, has been denounced by the
National Coalition Government of the Union
of Burma
as being ‘well meaning’ but essentially misguided. Yet the other alternatives appear to be more
bleak.
These
predictions, which are art, not science (and we all know what we like in art
but on which there will be fundamental disagreements), are based on my
perceptions of how the military view their own position in the society. That is:
·
The present military
(again, assuming they are in the singular at the present time because to assume
otherwise would be imprudent without more evidence, but noting that this
situation is likely not to hold over time) have no intention of giving up
effective power.
·
They view economic change
as subordinate to political power.
·
They may be ready to engage
in cosmetic changes, such as political dialogue, but with no intention of
letting that dialogue change the structure of power. They would do this to placate the Japanese
and ASEAN, with the goal of inducing Japanese aid and rejuvenating ASEAN
investment.
·
The military have no
intention of engaging in any sort of dialogue with the minorities that would
produce a federal system, although they will allow a degree of local autonomy
for selected groups (Wa, etc.) but without national power.
·
The military fundamentally
distrust all foreign countries and organizations, and thus would only agree to
foreign-induced changes or programs if they felt such changes, support, or
funding could be manipulated in their own interests. This they were able to do in the 1970s and
1980s. Thus any foreign aid plans should
consider what in foreign assistance are called the ‘unintended
consequences’–that is, what happens if foreign plans produce results other than
what was anticipated; e.g., a strengthening of a repressive regime through the
building up of certain institutions or individuals, etc., rather than growing
economic capacity to assist the poor, or minorities, or pluralism. The military have demonstrated a capacity to
underestimate the possibility of reforms through indirect channels, such as the
building of civil society, so there may be opportunities for modest progress
there.
VII Lessons
Learned
The past
dozen of years since the coup of 1988 were not created de novo. Much of what has
transpired have their precedents, if not their origins, in previous actions of
the earlier military governments, some in the civilian period, and some are
ingrained from pre-colonial times.
We should
have learned that coercion will not work.
It creates a backlash based on nationalism and xenophobia that instead
of accomplishing the goals set by foreigners, in fact reinforces the policy
positions of those whom we hope to change, and also increases their legitimacy
in the eyes of their own people and will be employed by the regime to do just
this. Further, we should note from the 1970s
and 1980s that the simple provision of economic or other assistance in the hope
that this will bring changes in attitudes and policies is erroneous. Indiscriminate giving just reinforces the
status quo and is destructive of reform.
We should know by now that assistance must have strings attached, but
they must be appropriate strings.
It is also
evident that negotiations with the Burmese authorities since independence are
better carried out in private, avoiding the media. Statements for the foreign press will be
countered with statements from the controlled indigenous press. Negotiations of a serious nature should be
held in private. Whether democratic
regimes operating under conditions of relative transparency are capable of such
quiet negotiations is another, important question, but it is subordinate to the
need to allow the other party to the negotiations to retain the dignity of an
equal, no matter what economic or military disparities may exist. Dangling money in front of the regime alone
will not work, for they will respond that they cannot be bought (as they have
said).
Recognize
as well that the attention span of the Burmese in dealing with issues within
their own boundaries is going to be far longer than that of foreigners. Foreign governments and even NGOs will be
redirected to other crises while the Burmese authorities will hunker down to
protect what they regard as their rights.
It seems evident to this observer that this is what is presently
occurring in Myanmar. The authorities at the highest level are
newly stressing import-substitution industries and rice self-sufficiency and
the ability of ‘going it alone,’ at which in the past they have been quite
successful no matter how much the people may have suffered. They seem prepared to emasculate slowly the
NLD and marginalize Daw Suu Kyi, and then move to approve a new constitution
that will enfief them for an indefinite period.
It also
seems evident that the threat of retribution at very high levels if they
relinquish control is probably an important reason for the military to want
continued power. Any accommodation with
the military must somehow take this into account and establish rules under
which any future government will operate.
This is likely to be a contentious issue, as it evident in Latin
America, South
Africa, and other places. It is not, however, insolvable.
VIII
Possibilities for Future Actions
The
alternatives for foreigner well-wishers of the state and its people are
limited. It may be necessary to
recognize that the military will be there, will be important, and must somehow
become a part of both the negotiating
process and the end product. This was
true in the civilian period as well as at the present time, although this is
sometimes overlooked. It should be
completely clear that this in no way endorses the concepts of ‘Asian values,’
which have been patently used to subordinate populations to governments less
than democratic. They have been so used
in Myanmar as well as
elsewhere.
Democracy
may be an ultimate goal, but it may be important not to push for the ultimate
change (democracy, however defined), but incremental changes (pluralism, the
building of civil society, etc.) that would be less threatening, but in the
long run accomplish more than the strident stance that may be as morally satisfying
as it is ineffective. It may be better
to move toward liberalization and pluralism that to demand a full-blown
democracy born from the forehead of a
military Zeus.
In a sense,
the status quo as perceived by outsiders may not be perceived that same way
inside Myanmar. It might be useful, for example, to have the
surrounding states of Myanmar specifically support the unity of the Burmese
state, as the military goals have stipulated, and reaffirm the territorial
integrity of Myanmar, and indicating that they would not countenance any
attempts to form independent states along the Burmese littorals. At the same time, the Burmese military could
be assured that they would support the improvement in the socio-economic
conditions within these areas in their own interests–to discourage refugee
movements or illegal labor migration. On
their part, the military would have to make efforts to stop acting as an
occupying army in enemy territory. The
regional military commanders, who now wield significant power both in their
areas and in Rangoon, need to
become part of the effort and to perceive that it is in their own interests.
At this
time, the resumption of traditional foreign assistance programs (beyond
humanitarian aid) would accomplish little, and could even have negative effects
on the population, although such effects might be positive for the military.
There are
dangers to the state, to the military, and to the people that privately the
military might be made to recognize.
Although they deny, for example, that there is an AIDS/HIV crisis,
neutral observers agree that this is the case, and no matter how many times the
authorities stridently maintain that such a crisis is impossible in Myanmar because of
‘traditional Myanmar values,’
this is patently false. It is also
evident that should the authorities recognize that they have a crisis, they
neither have the technical training nor the funds to carry out an educational
program against the spread of the disease.
Thailand, which has
stopped the epidemic spread of AIDS (not
cured it) spends about $200 million annually to do so; Myanmar spends $2
million. If the case quietly could be
made to the military that AIDS is decimating the military (as seems to be the
case), and that the costs to the state will be enormous, perhaps it is possible
for the SPDC and the NLD to agree to a joint education program funded from
foreign sources, both to stop the epidemic and as a ‘confidence-building
measure.’ Both would claim that such a
program would legitimate and strengthen the other, which is true for both, but
it is an approach that might be essayed.
Could a
counter-narcotics program contribute to alleviating some of the tensions in the
society and lead to more cohesion?
Certainly the narcotics issue has to be addressed. The experience in the region, however, has
not been effective. Previous support for
anti-narcotics activities by the U.S. were more
effective as theater than reality. The
important areas were those the state did not control. Now, however, there are some changes, with
the Rangoon regime in
titular authority through the cease fires.
But to expect that the central government has effective control (the
minorities still hold their guns), and that the lucrative trade will disappear
with the usual crop-substitution programs is unrealistic. In Thailand, it was
the creation of new infrastructure, markets, employment opportunities,
education and other factors that all eventually contributed to control of opium
production. But that took about a
generation to succeed. An important
change in Myanmar has been
the shift to chemically based narcotics production, which has become highly
significant and will not be affected by crop substitution programs.
It was once
argued that anti-narcotics programs put the foreign advisors in close contact
with segments of the Burmese military with whom contacts were otherwise
difficult. This is unlikely to be a
sufficient justification for such a program.
But it raises a further important consideration: if engagement with the
regime is appropriate, then is engagement with the military appropriate? Is
military training something that should be considered? Would such training and exposure to more
humane and responsible military establishments be effective, or would such
efforts further legitimate the regime?
Although there is a theoretical argument in favor of increasing the
contacts of the military with the outside world, the U.S. experience
does not make one sanguine that it would be effective. In the balance it would likely be viewed as
too great support for an oppressive government, even though training did take
place in the BSPP period, and in Indonesia, for
example.
IX Coda
The outlook
for improvement in Myanmar seems
bleak. All parties now seem to have too
much to lose to compromise, which in the political culture of Burma is complex
at best. Egos, even legitimacy, are at stake. The foreign role is limited, and funds alone
are not the only, or main, issue. Each
side looks on the situation in terms of its own survival. The NLD has elements that want compromise,
although Daw Suu Kyi has not agreed to do so.
The military may envision the Pinochet syndrome, so to speak, and fear
retribution. The situation is not helped
by proponents on either side; some opposition supporters want the military
reduced to one-tenth of its present size and want officials tried for
crimes. Under those circumstances, the
military will attempt to continue domination of power in the state. Some among the military probably want the NLD
dissolved and Aung San Suu Kyi exiled or worse.
This dichotomy is difficult to bridge as long as the propaganda and cant
on both sides is conveyed to the public.
These political difficulties negatively affect the interest and
capacities of any of the actors in fostering social cohesion and preventing
conflict.
The
multilateral donor community should insist that if they are to be involved in
anything more than technical training for some new, unknown, and more liberal
government, that some economic reforms are essential, and some political
moderation and compromise are required.
The alternative, so that the poor in Myanmar are not abandoned both by
their own government and the outside world, is for the international NGO
community to proffer limited humanitarian
assistance if they are allowed to conduct legitimate humanitarian programs in
accordance with their charters and that they would have the responsibility for
careful monitoring and evaluation of their assistance. The
outlook is still dim, but it seems imperative to attempt to influence
positively changes for the well-being of the diverse peoples of Burma/Myanmar,
and to begin the slow process of minimizing and then eliminating the cleavages
so evident and disastrous for the society.
Bethesda, Maryland
The writer
is Director of Asian Studies, Georgetown University, and a
Senior Consultant to The Asia Foundation.
Appendix A
Linguistic Groups of Burma/Myanmar
Sinitic
Chinese
Panthay
Haw
Tibeto-Burman
Lutzu
Nakhi (Moso)
Kachin (Chingpaw), including Atsi, Lashi, Maru, etc.
Achang
Hpon
Kadu
Lahu
Rawang
Akha
Nung
Burmese
Naga (divided into many subgroups)
Karen
(including Pwo, Sgaw, Bre, Karenni, Padaung, Pa-O)
Malayo-Polynesian: Malay
Selon
Miao-Yao
Yao
Miao (Hmong)
Mon-Khmer
Mon
Palaung
Wa
Tai
Shan
Hkamti Shan
Appendix B
Ethnically Related Rebel Groups in Burma (1983-84)
Abi Group (Lahu)
Arakan
Liberation Party (Rakhine Liberation Army)
Arakan
National Liberation Party (Rakhine Muslim Liberation
Party, Mujahids)
Kachin
National Union (successor to the Karen National Defense Organization)
Karen
Liberation Army
Karenni
National progressive Party
Karenni State
Nationalities Liberation Front
Kayah New
Land Revolutionary Council
Lahu National Unity Party
National
Democratic Front (umbrella organization)
Muslim
Liberation Front
National
Socialist Council of Nagaland
New Mon State Party
Palaung Patriotic Army
Palaung State Liberation organization
Pa-O
National Organization
Rohingya
Patriotic Front
Shan State Army
Shan State
Nationalities Liberation Group
Shan State
Volunteer organization
Shan United
Army
Shan United
Revolutionary Army
Wa National
Army
(unnamed)
Chin group
Other Rebel Organizations
Burma Communist
Party
Arakanese
Communist Party (Rakhine Communist Party)
Yang Hwe-Kang group (Chinese Irregular Forces)
Appendix C
Ethnic Cease Fires (July 1998)
Main Cease Fire Organizations Date
Myanmar National
Democratic Alliance Party 1989
United Wa
State Party (or Myanmar National
Solidarity Party) 1989
National Democratic
Alliance Party 1989
Shan State
Army/Shan State progress Party 1989
New
Democratic Army 1989
Kachin
Defence Army (KIO 4th Brigade)
1991
Pao National Organization 1991
Palaung State Liberation
Party 1991
Kayan National Guard
1992
Kachin Independence
Organization 1994
Karenni State
Nationalities Liberation Front 1994
Kayan New Land Party
1994
Shan State
Nationalities Liberation Organization 1994
New Mon
State Party 1995
Other Cease Fire Forces
Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army 1995
Mongko Region Defence Army 1995
Shan State
National Army 1995
Mong Tai
Army 1996
Karenni
National Defence Army 1996
Karen Peace
Force (ex-KNU, 16th Battalion) 1997
Communist
Party of Burma (Arakan Province) 1997
Mergui Mon Army 1997
Appendix D
Forces in Revolt (July 1998)
Arakan
Liberation Party
Chin
National Front
Karen
National Union (1995-96 talks broke down)
Karen
National progressive Party (1995 cease fire broke down)
Lahu National Organization
Mergui-Tavoy United Front (ex-BCP)
National
Socialist Council of Nagaland
East
Main
Faction
National
Unity Party (Front) of Arakan
Rohingya
National Alliance
Arakan
Rohingya Islamic Front
Rohingya
Solidarity Organization
Shan United
Revolutionary Army (reformed 1996)
Wa National
Organization (1997 talks broke down)
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. The use of
the name of the state, ‘Myanmar’ or ‘Burma,’ with the military government
mandating ‘Myanmar’ for all of of that country’s
history and the opposition insisting on ‘Burma,’ indicates more than political alignment,
although that is immediately evident as well. This country may be the only such
one in the world today where even its name places one in a political camp. But the disputes over changes in names, and
the military designation of ‘Bamar’ for the principal
ethnic group, are dramatically indicative of the lack of social and ethnic
cohesion within the state, the present military government stating that the
name change increases inter-ethnic cooperation while the opposition disagrees. The uses of the names in this paper implies
no political bias– ‘Myanmar’ will be used for the regime since 1988 (the name
was changed in 1989), ‘Burma’ for the earlier period, both together to indicate
historical continuity, ‘Burman’ for a member of the major ethnic group,
‘Burmese’ for a citizen of that country, and as an adjective and for the
language of the majority ethnic entity.
The term
‘imagined community’ comes from Anderson,
Benedict, R. O'G. Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London:
Verso, 1991.
. ‘Burmese
women are not only among the freest in Asia, but until
the relatively recent emancipation of women in the West, they enjoyed much
greater freedom and equality with men than did Western women. Today, as we shall see, they control not only
the family economy but most of the retail trade as well–village hawkers–and the
proprietors of the stalls and shops in the town and city bazaars are
predominantly women. Women are well
represented, too, in large business enterprises. Moreover, except for engineering, women are
liberally represented in the professions.
In the villages, women participate in the productive phases of the agricultural
economy, and they receive the same wages as men for the same work...Finally,
women enjoy social equality with men.
Such customs as the veil, purdah, child
betrothal, foot binding, widow immolation–these, and all other disabilities
suffered by the women or India, on one side of Burma and China, on the other,
have always been absent from Burma.’ Melford Spiro, Kinship
and Marriage in Burma: A Cultural and Psychodynamic Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1977. Pp.257-58.
. For a discussion of the comparative rise of South
Korea, Thailand, and Burma, see David
I. Steinberg, ‘Myanmar: The
Anomalies of Politics and Economics,’ in James Morley, ed. Driven by Growth. Political Change in the Asia-Pacific Region. New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 2nd edition, 1998,
In Benedict
Anderson, ‘The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture, in Claire Holt, ed. Culture and Politics in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1972. .
. For a
discussion of these issues, see David I. Steinberg, ‘The State, Power, and
Civil Society in Burma/Myanmar: The Status and Prospects for Pluralism,’ in Burma-Myanmar. Strong Regime, Weak State? Bathurst (Australia): Crawford House, 2000. In many modern societies,
power is considered infinite, so that sharing becomes a ‘win-win’ situation.
. In 1983,
when the director of the intelligence services, General Tin Oo, was considered
by Ne Win to be a political threat because he was so popular, he was purged
from that position, along with all those in that organization associated with
him–his entourage. The resulting
disintegration of Burma’s intelligence
capacity led to North Korea’s almost
successful assassination of President Chun Doo Hwan of South
Korea, who was on a state visit, but
killing seventeen high Korean officials and three Burmese. It is doubtful that this attempt would have
gone undetected if the ubiquitous intelligence services had been intact.
. This is evident in the elections of May
1990. Of the 93 political parties that
eventually contested the elections, 36 had minority nationality names,
. The
military is in fact the most cohesive institution in the country, but this is
true because they first destroyed, and then have not allowed to develop, any
other institution that might play a similar role. The most heinous crime in Myanmar, according
to the military, is attempting to split the military, of which Aung San Suu Kyi
was first accused.
. Previously
some groups in the Shan State had sought
UN trusteeship for that area, and some drug czars have masked their lucrative
trade under the guise of being ethnic nationalists and seeking independence or
autonomy.
. This was based on the model of the Indian
states within the British Empire.
. The Burma
Communist Party before its collapse along the China border in
the late 1980s had Sin-Burma leadership and large numbers of the Wa ethnic
group.
. The
problem was exacerbated because in World War II the Karen sided with the
British, and the Burmans at first jointed with the Japanese. There were massacres by the Burmans of the
Karen in the Irrawaddy delta in 1942.
. The Thai were most concerned about the
perceived Vietnamese threat on their ‘Eastern front,’ and wanted to ensure that
their Western borders remained protected.
. The most recent (March 2000) example is a
decree that all Burmese overseas must remit 50 percent of their overseas
earnings to their families. No mention
is made of those without families, and severe hardships will result, thus
further isolating the regime from its citizenry. Shortly after this decree was
issued, it was said to have been recinded.
. In 1988, Burma had 40,000 visitors,
compared to 400,000 in Nepal and 4,000,000 in Thailand. In fiscal year 1998-99, there were 286,882
tourists. Selected Economic Indicators, Myanmar Times and Business Review, March 6-12, 2000. Vol. 1, No. 1.
. This
pattern of forced urban resettlement was begun by the military in Rangoon in 1958,
when almost 200,000 people were essentially dumped into inhospitable areas,
which have since remained poor areas and were the scenes of some of the most
virulent anti-military demonstrations of 1988.
. Although
Suharto’s Indonesia has been a
model for much of the military’s recent thinking of its civilianized future
role, the Burmese military have not attempted to introduce a national ideology,
such as the Indonesian Panjasila. One of the tragedies of Burma was the
lack of a cohesive national concept. The
monarchy in Thailand and the King as defender of the faith perform this
function there, and even South Korea, lacking a positive concept that was
credible (since there was little democracy until recently for much of the
independence period), used anti-communism as a rallying cry.
. Although
the hierarchy, and thus the Buddhists as a national power force, are
controlled, individual village Buddhist monasteries are one of the few elements
left of civil society–groups not under state domination or control, and where
people gather together to pursue common goals.
. Some 15,000 firms were nationalized in
beginning in 1963. Land ownership had
been vested in the state since independence, and it remained in private hands
even though the government had plans for large-scale management of agricultural
land through producer cooperatives and eventually communes, but this never came
to pass.
. See David I. Steinberg, ‘Myanmar and the
Requirements of Mobilization and Orthodoxy: The Union Solidarity and
Development Association.’ Burma Debate, February 1997.
. The opposition overwhelmingly won the May
1990 election, which the military have refused to recognize. The voting may have been as much against
military control over the society as it was a positive vote for the National
league for Democracy (NLD), for earlier in 1960 the population essentially
voted against the military’s continuing role in direct governance. A
distinction should be made between the military as individuals, as a national
defense force, and as a national administration. It is the latter that is deplored. The May 1990 elections, for example, were not
a repudiation of the military per se.
Forty-two of those elected were retired military officers, and 145
retired service personnel, along with 54 lawyers and advocates and 50
doctors. Working People’s Daily, 9-12-90).
. This is not new. The military attempted to end the
insurgencies in the 1960s by forming local rebel groups into the KKY, which was
a kind of local militia. They held their
arms, and as long as they did not shoot at the government troops, they could
engage in their traditional pursuits, which included opium production.
. Opium
production was said to be about 2500 tons in 1998, but has decreased to about
1750 tons the following year, partly because of bad weather but also because of
government surveillance.
. As President Marcos in the Philippines did when he
called for a snap election he thought he could control, so the SLORC made an
immense error in judgement by agreeing to the election of 1990. Each undercut their own interests.
. It should
be understood that the U.S. is not
necessarily acting with unanimity. There
are internal divisions within the executive branch, and some members of
Congress and their staffs who can prevent a liberalization of policies because
no one wants to be seen to be voting for a pariah regime. Some think tanks (CSIS, Cato Institute) have
come out against sanctions, and some human rights groups have called for a
change in U.S. policy that
has been perceived to be ineffective.
. In a
survey in 1995 (before US sanctions), a survey of 193 Japanese firms in Myanmar
(102 responding), indicated the top problems facing these firms (in order of
priority) were: the dual exchange rate (71.3%), lack of infrastructure for
transportation and distribution(60.4%), the political situation (50.5%), the
ban on ODA from Japan (43.6%), insufficient information on Myanmar (43.6%),
undeveloped laws and systems (25.7%), shortages of electric power (21,8%). Of 467 local manufacturing firms in and
around Rangoon, in 1996 most complained about shortages of electricity,
troubles in financing, and shortages of materials and spare parts. Tokyo: Ministry
of Finance, Institute of Fiscal and
Monetary Policy, Study Group on the Myanmar Economy,’Current Situation of the Myanmar Economy and
Its Future Development Strategy.’. pp. 93-94.
. His
Majesty the King of Thailand spoke quite strongly against sanctions toward Myanmar and for a
more engaged approach to it. Personal
audience, 1993.
. The
following is from David I. Steinberg, Burma: Myanmar’s Decade of Turmoil: Authority and Legitimacy in a Troubled State. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press, 2000 (in press).
.
Socialism, the hallmark of political legitimacy in the early years of the Union
and in the independence struggle was effectively demolished as an ideology not
because it was felt to be inappropriate, but because it failed so miserably. Some argue that it was not an ideology of Ne
Win, who simply used it to gain power.
. Yet in
1990, the military entered monasteries and pagodas in Mandalay and
suppressed dissident Buddhist monks. In
part, the tatmadaw may be attempting to assuage the anger
generated by this poor and politically disastrous image.
. Some
influential Chinese officials realize the potential danger. One was quoted as having said, ‘We [Chinese]
are walking on eggshells [in Myanmar].’
.
However farfetched this may sound to Americans, it was viewed as a real
possibility in 1988 when a U.S.
aircraft carrier was reported to have been stationed off the coast to enable
the evacuation of U.S.
personnel if chaos had ensued in the demonstrations. Later, the SLORC conducted an informal survey
among key individuals to ascertain their reaction if the U.S.
were to intervene. This was after the U.S.
invasion in Haiti. A senior military official also said that the
government had no faith in official statistics on U.S.
congressional aid levels related to Burmese refugees. ‘They say it is five million [dollars] but it
could be fifty.’ Personal interview.
.
Although the evidence for this in Asia
alone over any reasonable time is highly suspect; e.g. Korea
(1961-1987), Taiwan
(1949-1992); China,
Vietnam,
Singapore,
Malaysia,
etc.
. Speech by
Prime Minister Sein Win, NCGUB, American
University, Washington, D.C.,
January 2000.
. One might
argue that because the NLD and NCGUB oppose NGO activity in building civil
society, then the military might agree to it.
.In February
2000, the military has allowed the publication of a new newspaper, with an
Australian as editor, that is purported to be autonomous. At the same time, it has officially
‘published’ via internet a comparatively moderate set of articles by one ‘SA’
that is more compromising in tone, although still severely critical of the
NLD. Do these events indicate an oblique
signal? Military intelligence officials
have been aware of the shortcomings of the official press, jokingly ascribing
it to Chinese training. It seems likely that any public amelioration of the
rigidity of the regime will not affect its conception of its power role. It is significant that the weekly newspaper
will be subject to self-censorship, as the editor indicated. These articles by ‘SA’ were not internally
distributed within Myanmar.
. From
Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London: Zed Books,
2nd edition, 1998.
. From
Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London: Zed Books,
2nd edition, 1998.