BBC-Burma's political stalemate

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Friday, August 14, 1998 Published at 17:06 GMT 18:06 UK 
Burma's political stalemate 
By Alice Donald of the Asia-Pacific unit 

There is mounting international criticism of the military regime in Burma,
fuelled by the trial of 18 foreign human rights activists, who are to be
deported, and the continuing stand-off between the junta and the opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi over her right to travel. 

The image of Aung San Suu Kyi stranded in her car on a dusty roadside has
captivated the world's media. 

The unequal match between the diminutive opposition figure and the men in
military fatigues who are blocking her path has all the makings of an
enduring political icon, much like the Chinese student who confronted the
tanks in Tiananmen Square. 

The generals have rebuffed all criticism with characteristically hard-line
statements. But the international spotlight will not go away, with all eyes
now fixed on August 21 - the deadline which Aung San Suu Kyi has set for
the parliament elected in 1990 to meet. 

Aung San Suu Kyi's decision to challenge the junta has been stunningly
effective in dramatising the repression in Burma. And she has other weapons
in her symbolic armoury - not least her demand for the junta to convene
parliament and thus finally recognise the landslide victory that her
National League for Democracy won in the 1990 elections. 

Aung San Suu Kyi has not said what she will do if, as expected, the junta
ignores her call. However, this matters less than the fact that she has
managed, at least temporarily, to seize the initiative and drag the glare
of international attention onto the generals. 

And by limiting herself to carefully calculated political moves, she has
crucially steered firmly away from any actions which could lead to a replay
of the popular uprising of 1988 and the appalling repression which quashed
it. 

How is the junta itself responding to this apparent momentum for reform? 

The defiant statements from Rangoon - branding Aung San Suu Kyi as a
provocateur and any outside pressure as interference - indicate little room
for compromise. 

The arrest of the foreign activists arrested for distributing pro-democracy
leaflets appears a clumsy and self-defeating move by the regime. 

But it is important to remember that the government calculates its moves
for domestic as much as international consumption. 

The stark fact is that the junta has clung onto power for a decade by
suppressing internal dissent, and so by their own logic this is the route
to survival. 

Are there any grounds for hope in the apparently sterile political climate?


Some observers say divisions in the junta itself could help break the
mould. There is known to be a power struggle between the two power centres
in the junta - military intelligence, headed by General Khin Nyunt, and the
army, led by General Maung Aye. 

The internal putsch last November, in which a number of senior figures were
ousted, ostensibly for corruption, has also had repercussions for internal
unity. 

However, whatever the speculation about fissures in the regime, the
generals have always pulled together against opposition at home and abroad,
and there is no reason to believe that strategy will change. 

Nevertheless, the Burmese regime cannot remain completely impervious to
sustained external pressure - especially from its main aid donor, Japan,
and its Asean partners. 

Thailand and the Philippines have voiced open criticism of the junta's
intransigence, effectively removing the cloak of respectability which the
generals hoped to acquire by joining the regional grouping last year. 

International censure, combined with the struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi, can
only heighten the junta's discomfiture. 

But the actual mechanism for change, if it ever comes, is likely to be slow
and painstaking - belying any comparisons with the "People Power" uprisings
in the Philippines and Indonesia. 

So effective has repression been in Burma that there is virtually no civil
society capable of delivering a sudden, shattering blow to the regime. 

The generals have now said they will meet NLD figures, though not Aung San
Suu Kyi. They insist that the Constitutional Convention, boycotted by the
NLD, is the only vehicle for reform. 

The NLD, meanwhile, says nothing less than direct dialogue with Aung San
Suu Kyi will do. 

The question is: Who will make the first concession and how can Burma edge
towards reform without slipping into political chaos? 

While the camera lenses of the world's media are trained on that car on the
roadside, it is this murky political shadow-boxing that could provide the
key to unlock Burma's political stalemate.