HOW STRONG IS THE SLORC? BY DR HERB

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Subject: HOW STRONG IS THE SLORC? BY DR HERB FEITH: HR-SUB#32.

SUBMISSION NO 32.
(Dr Herb Fieth)

6.5.95

Ms Margaret Swieringa,
Secretary of the Burma Inquiry
of the Human Rights Sub-Committee,
Joint Parliamentary Committee on
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade,
Parliament House,
Canberra.

Dear Margaret,

I  wonder  whether  it  is  still  possible for your Inquiry to recieve the
enclosed document "How strong is Burma's military government ?  Reflections
on  a  regime  in  crisis",  submitted  to the ACFOA Council last August by
Alison Tate, Marc Purcell and myself. Some of it has been superseded by the
rush of events since January, but the central argument seems to me to  have
stood the test of time reasonably well.

I  would  be  happy to speak to that argument and update it in the light of
the recent developments. Is it possible for  me  to  be  fitted  into  your
timetable at this late stage ?

As  you  may  know,  I  was  part  of  a five-person group (four Australian
academics and one Indonesian  one)  who  taught  a  three-week  seminar  at
Manerplaw  in  Burma  in January-February 1994 on "Military Rule, Democracy
and Federalism in REgional and Global Context". It was to  a  group  of  32
public servants, military officers and others of the Karen National Union.

While  not  a  Burma  specialist,  I  have  had  an  active interest in the
comparative politics of the Southeast Asian  states  ever  since  the  late
1950s  when  I was the Indonesia author of the volume edited by George Mc T
Kahin of Corness University on Governts  and  Politics  of  Southeast  Asia
(Corness University Press, 1959, revised edition 1964).

Cordially,
Sd. Herb Feith

PS  If you have any spare sets of the submissions you have received I would
be most grateful if you could send me one.

How Strong is Burma's Military Government ?
Reflections on a Regime in Crisis

Herb Feith, Marc Purcell and Alison Tate

The question of how strong Burma's ruling State Law and  Order  Restoration
Council is can be seen as having four dimensions. These have to do with its
domestic political legitimacy, wiht its effectiveness as manager of Burma's
economy,  with  its efforts to achieve ceasefires with the ethnic movements
with which it has been at war, and  with  its  attempts  to  mormalize  its
relations with the international community.

1. Domestic Political Legitimacy

a. Bitter memories.

The  State  Law  and  Order  Restoration  Council  continues  to face major
legitimacy problems, because of the legacies of the  bloodletting  of  1988
and  the  repudiated  election  of 1990. Memories of the popular democratic
challenge which was  crushed  in  1988  are  reinforced  by  the  troubling
presence  of  the  imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma's central
nationalist figure, its Nehru, Slekarno or Ho Chi Miny, the woman  who  won
the 1990 elections and the the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace.

The  SLORC  leaders  know  that  urban  Burmese will not readily forget the
10,000 who were killed in Rangoon and other centres in 1988. Urban  Burmese
experienced  then  the  arbitrary  violence  rural  Burmese had endured for
decades, especially people in the ethnic minority areas.

The country's rulers also know that the Burmese  people  as  a  whole  have
twice  repudiated  military rule through the ballot box. They voted against
the pro-military party in 1960, after just two years of military rule. They
did so even more decisively in 1990,  when  Aung  San  Suu  Kyi's  National
League  for  Democracy  won over 60% of votes and oer 80% of seats, despite
its principal leaders bieng under arrest.

b. The Constitutional Convention and the Fear of New Elections

If the SLORC leadera sought legitimacy in 1990 through elections they  have
sought  it  in  1993-94 through the holding of a Constitutional Convention.
ONce this body has produced a constitution the SLORC will no longer need to
rule by decree. And the stage will be set for a new election.

But the constitution drafting process has been going very slowly.  This  is
partly  because  of  the divergence between the SLORC's agenda and those of
the minority of more or less independent representatives in the Convention.
But it is also widely thought that the SLORC leaders are  in  no  hurry  to
complete  the  process.  This  reflects their fear that they would be under
pressure to hold soon elections they would probably be unable to win.

Even with the creation in 1993 of the  "Union  Solidarity  and  Development
Assiciation",  a  kind  of state party modelled on Indonesia's Golkar ( and
widely seen as a new version of the Burma Socialist Program  Party  of  the
pre-1988  period), there is real doubt whether the government leaders would
be able to win an election. This owuld be extraordinarily difficult if they
had been forced by foreign pressure to release Aung San Suu Kyi. Even  with
Suu  Kyi  still  under  house  arrest,  it might prove to be too difficult,
especially as the government would find  it  hard  to  deny  the  case  for
inviting international observers to witness the poll.

c. Ne Win and the Division within the Ruling Group

General  Ne  Win,  who  ruled the country in 1958-60 and again from 1962 to
1988, continues to exercise important influence within the regime.  Now  84
(?),  he  does  not seek to influence ppolicy making on a day to day basis.
But he continues to mediate  factional  antagonisms  within  the  military,
playing  a  role  that  is sometimes compared with Deng Xioping's. It seems
that hs is unwilling to nominate a successor.

Ne Win reportedly  sometimes  sides  with  General  Than  Shwe,  the  SLORC
chairman, who speaks for a faction of mainline officers, and at other times
with  Than  Shwe's  principal  rival,  SLORC'S  highly visible Secretary 1,
LIeut. Gen Khin Nyunt, the intelligence chief and head of a  faction  built
around intelligence interests.

d. The Expansion of the Armed Forces and their Ineffectiveness

The  post-1988 government has expanded the size of the armed forces rapidly
to a present figure of close to 300,000, and has purchased large quantities
of military equipment -- including a single purchase from Chian of supplies
worth US$1.5 billion. Its defence outlays are reportedly at over 40% of the
state budget.

Yet it has not been particularly effecitve in its military operations.  Its
decision  of February-March 1992 to call off an announced offensive against
Manerplaw, capital of the Karen state ( and headquarters of  the  coalition
of  ethnic and trans-ethnic democratic oppositions), was widely interpreted
as an admission of military incapacity. In addition its  forces  have  made
little headway in their offensive against the drug lord Khun Sa in the Shan
State.

2. Economic Management

The  government  which  emerged  from the crisis of 1988 declared itself in
favour of free  markets,  dropping  its  predecessor's  commitment  to  the
Burmese  Way  to  Socialism.  But  it  has made few economic reforms. Minor
improvements notwithstanding, Burma's economy remains startingly run down.

a. Patterns of Economic Change since 1988

One major consequence of the change of economic direction was the entry  of
Thai logging and fishing companies. Another was the normalization of border
trade  with  Thailand  and  China  which  had previously been carried on as
smuggling. In addition the Burmese government has succeeded  in  attracting
considerable  investment in hotels and construction, especially in Rangoon,
and a small amount of investment in exploration for oil and gas.

But there has been very little investment in  infrastructure,  because  the
government  has  been  desperately  short  of revenue, and unable to secure
loans from abroad. International opposition has made it impossible for  the
government  ot  obtain World Bank loans, and very difficult to obtain loans
from private banks. Japanese aid, previously an important source of  funds,
has been at a very low level since 1988.

One  part  of  the  country,  the  North, has enjoyed buoyant conditions in
recent years. Mandalay has been described as a boom town. This has resulted
from  Chinese  investment  and  the  entry  of  large  numbers  of  chinese
immigrants,  petty  traders  and  some  people  involved in larger business
organizations.

But this local boom has come  at  the  cost  of  rapid  inflation  and  the
destruction  of  local light industry. Moreover the integration of Northern
Burma into the Yunanese economy, and its disarticulation from the  rest  of
Burma,  has  stirred nationalist resentments, resulting in fears of renewed
anti-Chinese rioting.

b. The Obstacle to Economic Reform

The SLORC government has hitherto failed to tackle the central problems  of
economic  reform.  Its  steps  in  the  direction  of  creating a realistic
exchange rate have been tentative,  perhaps  because  of  memories  of  the
rioting which followed earlier devaluations, and reportedly also because of
Ne  Win's personal opposition to any change from the rate of 6 kyats to the
US dollar.

The government has also found it difficult to  attract  priivate  investors
from  the outside world, partly because it has required them to enter joint
venture arrangements with local firms connected to military interests.

In addition economic and other technical expertise  continues  to  be  very
scarce. This is a legacy of the decades of Ne Win socialism, when isolation
and  myopia fed on eachother. In that 26 year period many Burmese with high
levels of technical skill left the country, because they felt stifled there
and unable to exercise their professional skills. The post-1988  government
has been unable or unwilling to attract these people back to Burma.

3. Towards Ceasefires with the Armed Ethnic nationalities

In  1989  the SLORC government negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the WA
guerrilla movement in the Shan state. In late 1992 it embarked on a  policy
of seeking to persuade most of the other armed ethnic opposition movements,
the  Karen, Mon, Karenni, Kachin and others, to accept ceasefires, allowing
them to keep their weapons and maintain their front lines.

This approach, initiated by Lieut.Gen. Khin Nyunt, and  actively  supported
by  the  government  of  Thailand  and  China, represents a major change of
policy.

It has been successful in several important ways, enabling  the  government
to  present  itself  as  a  peacemaker  and  weakening  the  morale  of the
opposition coalition.

This new policy has reduced the level  of  warfare  within  Burma.  It  has
lessened  the  rate  of  forced  relocation of village populations in areas
where ceasefres have come into effect. It has also led the leaders of  some
of  the ethnic movements to evict armed student groups and other non-locals
who are determined to keep fighting the SLORC government.

But many of the ceasefires are fragile.  Moreover  they  have  not  brought
economic  improvement  to  the  areas  affected,  either to areas for which
ceasefire agreements have been signed or to ones where de facto  ceasefires
have come into being.

Moreover  the government's success in negotiating with the ethnic movements
one by one has not undone these movements' determination to cooperate  with
eachother  in  facing Rangoon and what they see as "Burman chauvinism". And
it has failed  to  undo  the  appeal  of  the  "Manerplaw  coalition",  the
coalition of ethnic movements and trans-ethnic democratic organizations.

4. Efforts to Normalize Burma's Relations with the Outside World

The  bloodletting  of  1988 and the SLORC's government's repudiation of the
election result of 1990 have made it very difficult for that government  to
gain acceptance as a normal member of the international community.

a. Initial successes

The government succeeded early in gaining widespred acceptance of "Myanmar"
as  the  country's  new name, despite the unwillingness of opponents of the
military government to adopt this term.

Moreover it soon become clear that  Thailand  and  China  would  be  active
supporters  of  its  efforts  to gain international acceptance. ASEAN as an
organization has  been  generally  sympathetic  to  these  efforts,  though
Indonesia  and  Malaysia  became  less supportive after the SLORC action in
1991-1992 forcing over  250,000  Arakanese  Muslims,"Rohingyas",  to  leave
Burma for Bangladesh.

Evidence  of  Chinese economic penetration of Northern Burma and of China's
apparent interest in acquiring ilitary and naval facilities in other  parts
of  the country appears to have prompted states like India and Indonesia to
accept the SLORC structure with a view to being able to countervail Chinese
influence from within Rangoon.

b. Persistent Obstacles

The principal obstacles to the government's efforts to establish itself  as
a  normal  member  of  the  community  of  states have been the US, Western
Europe, Japan, Australia/New Zeland, the World Bank and the UNited Nations.

The US government has maintained a  particularly  strong  position  against
acceptance  of  the SLORC government as a normal member of the community of
states. This reflects US  global  policy  on  the  importance  of  allowing
election  outcomes  to  be honoured. It also reflects US concern to rein in
the production of drugs. Burma's drug production has risen sharply  in  the
years  of  SLORC  control. From a total of 800 tons in 1983 it rose to 2600
tons in 1993.

The UN General Assembly meetings  of  1991,1992  and  1993  adopted  strong
resolutions calling for the release of political prisoners in Burma and for
the   restoration   of   democracy.   The   1993  meeging  also  instructed
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to initiate talks with  Rangoon  to
achieve those aims.

The meeting seems to have led to the emergence of the Thai Foreign Ministry
as  a  major actor on Burma policy, and to a corresponding reduction in the
power of the army-dominated National  Security  Council.  Foreign  Minister
prasong   Soonsiri   has   emerged   as  a  key  figure  mediating  Boutros
Boutros-Ghali's efforts to persuade the Rangoon government to  comply  with
the resolutions of the UN General Assembly.

At  a  time  when  much  international  attention  is focussed on Haiti and
Nigeria, the two other states where ruling armies have held  elections  and
then  refused to accept their results, Aung San Suu Kyi's symbolic power is
very great. As Archibishop Tutu has said, she is  a  mandela  to  whom  the
SLORC regime will need to respond by following a De Klerk to emerge.

Many palyers on the international stage seem to have accepted Gareth Evan's
emphasis  on  the  importance of benchmarks by which to measure the Rangoon
government's progress in moving towards democratization. By the same  token
many  are now thinking about the possiblilty of transition to a new kind of
political system, one in which Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for
Democracy play a major roles.

The time may soon come  when  the  Realpolitik  considerations  which  have
hitherto  led states like India and Indonesia to accept the SLORC structure
in order to be able to countervail Chinese influence through  it  become  a
factor accelerating regime transition.

It  may not be too long before today's question of "how strong is the SLORC
government ?" is superseded by tomorrow's "what elements within  the  SLORC
structure are willing to accommodate themselves to the necessity of dealing
with Aung San Suu Kyi on her terms?"

The   international  NGO  community  has  every  interst  in  speeding  the
transition to that second question.
8.8.94.