Disarmament

[suantak@xxxxxx]

Is Armed Resistance the Right Answer?

People from other countries must have
been full of riddles for the things
happening in Burma. As soon as Burma
became independent or even before
independence, Burma was torn apart by
civil war. Whether it was the communist
or the non-Burman ethnic rebellion no
one seems to really ponder the benefit
of armed resistance. Nobody has  given
up even though rationally it should be
clear that by now after fifty years
these rebellions have not brought the
result that they sought but only misery
and hardship to the people.    While
neighboring countries of Burma
concentrate their energies to develop
their economy and well being of their
people, the power holders in Burma seem
to take a course detrimental to the
peoples of Burma but nothing else.

 Whether it was the communist or the
Karen, Mon, Arakanese, Shan, or Kachin,
or other armed groups their actions seem
to aim at destroying Burma.  The power
holders, whether the civilian or the
military seem to have no interest in
finding long lasting political
solutions.  The military used the
rebellion to breed insurgency by
treating the people cruelly, making the
people hate the Burman because the
officers of the Burman Army are Burman.
The Burman Army needs an enemy in order
to build the Burman Army to a strong and
large army. Thus they sought military
solution rather than political
solutions.  The military runs the
country with an aim and object simply to
build up their strength. The problem is
that the non-Burman never thought about
what the Burman Army is doing.  The
military wants to hold on to power
indefinitely and only a continuous
rebellion can keep the military as it
is. With no rebellion there will be no
justification to build-up of the army.
The non-Burman never realized that they
are helping the military with their
armed resistance movement.  They say we
have to fight for emotional reasons or
they believe that only when they rebel,
the Burman think them seriously as a
people.  These reasons are simply
pathetic reasons.

The Burmese military boasted so often
they had brought 16 armed groups to the
legal fold, with whom the military
signed cease-fire arrangements.  The
reason why the Burman Army signed the
cease-fire arrangement is not difficult
to understand. The general peaceful mass
uprising of the people of Burma in 1988
was so over-whelming because almost the
whole population was involved in the
movement. The non-violent demonstration
brought down the Ne Win government of
the Burmese Way to Socialism.  Had the
rebel groups, which number about 50 000
men altogether in 1988 could have taken
over Rangoon if they had the mind to
march to Rangoon and overthrow the
military which was 180 000 men strong.
The Burman Army was too small to
effectively control the demonstrating
crowd and defend against the rebels.

General Ne Win and the generals of the
Burman Army felt lucky that that the
rebels did not act in unison. This was
the reason why the newly formed Ne Win?s
SLORC negotiated the cease-fire
arrangements  with the rebel groups.
The military could not handled a large
opposition therefore signed the
cease-fire with most of them but refused
to sign cease-fire agreements with some.
They have to have excuses of building up
the Burman Army.  There must be some
rebellion in Burma.  The military  need
an enemy unless they have no reason to
rule the country because their excuse
for taking over the power was to rescue
the country from disintegration.

The only thing the SPDC or the SLORC
wants now is to sit in the throne
forever.  They are trying very  hard to
make the people of Burma and the
international community into believing
that they, the Burman Army is also
interested in democracy.  They do not
care what is happening to the country.
They will feed the people opium and
heroin, and they rape, torture, kill,
and commit all kinds of atrocities.  We
must understand why the SPDC is doing
these things. Without these cruelties
and the abuses of human rights the
military have no chance to stay in
power.  Unless the people hate the
military and hate each other that means
unless the non-Burman hate the Burman
and rebel, there was no need for the
existence of a military in Burma.  That
is the reason and the only reason they
practice these brutalities.  It is
important that the people of Burma do
not fall into the psycho of the
military.

Thus there are two most crucial
undertaking necessary for the opposition
to make.

The first one is to find ways how the
armed resistance groups stop their armed
opposition and fight by non-violent
means.  So long as the Karen, Shan,
Karenni, or Chin take up arms against
the military, they are indirectly
helping the military.  The military need
an excuse for their brutality.  The
military  should not be  given the
possibility of excuse.  So long as the
Kachin, Mon, Pao, or Wa keep their arms
the military have the excuse of
maintaining large and hungry army
contingencies in their areas.  Alone in
the Kachin State they stationed 104 000
soldiers, and supposedly they had a
cease-fire.  These soldiers are becoming
permanent residents of the Kachin State
and soon the Kachin would be minorities
in their own land. The production of
opium will continue so long as these
armed groups  give them an excuse for
the military to be able to benefit from
the drug.

 The NGOs or foreign agencies heard and
saw the abuses of human rights from the
refugees who fled to Burma?s neighboring
countries.  It is true the Burman
military is brutal and treated the
non-Burman population as animals: they
kill, torture, rape, and use as forced
porter, and forced labor.  The armed
groups explain that they need to hold on
to arms because they must protect their
people.  None of them can protect their
people from the cruel hands of the
military.  They left their people wide
open to all kinds of atrocities.  Their
armed movement only encourage the
military to do whatever they want to do
with their people.  The Burman military
enjoyed torturing, raping, and other
atrocities.  They always were made to
believe they were a superior race.
Their purpose is to inflict pain.  When
they are in remote places from their own
homes and with different ethnic groups
and tired from marching long distance
they release their anger on the people.

This situation has continued for the
last forty or fifty years.  The Karen,
Kachin, Karenni, Shan, etc cried for
political solution. But it was them who
started to look for military solution
because it was them who took arms to
fight the Burman Army.   The Burman
military is afraid of political
solution.  There will be no political
solution because political solution
means the end of the military.

That means that only when armed
opposition ceases, the military will
have no more excuses for their
brutality.  It will be like taking away
the pillars where the military is
standing so solid for the last forty or
fifty years. The only time that solid
pillar was taken away from the military
was possible only when there was a
massive non-violent demonstration staged
by the students, monks, and the people
in 1988.  The military always have solid
base in non-Burman areas because the
non-Burman armed themselves thereby
inviting the military to station in
their areas.  The armed groups never
match the firing power of the military.
Thus the army stay solidly without
having to worry about their positions.
Even after the military signed the
cease-fire arrangement with some of the
armed groups the military still stand on
solid pillars because they can always
start all over again because the Kachin,
Mon, Wa, Karenni, Pao, and etc. still
retain their arms.  If there is
necessity the Burman military could make
the armed groups on the war-path  with a
little provocation   The Burman Army had
always played with the non-Burman and
the non-Burman did not fully aware what
is being carried out against them.

The military was having a lot of fun in
the last years.  Since 1962 they
survived with aids from Germany and
Japan with no strings attached.  They
could easily borrow money from the World
Bank and IMF.  The growing of opium in
Burma was done with the tacit approval
of the military.  How can a government
of the country be not in control of what
is growing in Burma?  They control
effectively the democracy movement. They
can sign cease-fire agreements as they
like. They dictate what is happening in
Burma. They did whatever they want in
Burma and outside of Burma.  They close
down schools and universities in Burma
because they can not handle peaceful
demonstrations usually started by the
students.  For them  staying in power is
more than anything else. They do not
care for the people, whether they lead
them to poverty, drug addiction, or
illiteracy.   The neighbors ignore the
human rights abuses and exploited what
they can from the people of Burma.  The
regime was admitted to the ASEAN.

 The time has come to realistically
reconsider the actions options open for
the opposition to the Burman military.
One thing is clearly definite. Armed
opposition has failed terribly.  Armed
opposition had supported indirectly the
military.  Today the military and the
armed opposition work together as
partners, though indirectly.  They do
not coordinate their actions but
compliment each other .  The armed
resistance movements give the military
the right to terrorize the people.  The
military seldom attack the armed
resistance groups but rather terrorize
the inhabitants around the camps of the
resistance movements. Then the armed
resistance groups get their excuses for
fighting with arms.

 It is time to take away the Burman
military their fun, the fun of
terrorizing the people.  If there is no
more armed opposition, there will be no
more reason for operations.  They might
try to intimidate the people but then
they have no more excuses. With this at
the least forced porter conscription
will ceased.  May be to a certain extent
also forced labor because then the
military will no more need to build new
military bases.

The mean reason why I am suggesting the
suspension of fighting is the
hopelessness of armed opposition. Before
the cease-fire arrangements they had a
chance to harm the military if they had
fought together as a front.  But they
never come close to fighting together
although they formed the National
Democratic Front.  The Karen and the Mon
were fighting against each other at the
time of the uprising in Rangoon.  This
shows how they lack the focus they
needed to operate.  They lost the
opportunity to fight effectively the
military with the signing of the
cease-fire arrangements. Now even the
Karen National Union is diminished to at
least by fifty or more percent of its
original strength of some twenty
thousand. The Chin, Karenni, Shan,
Arakan, and All Burma Students
Democratic Front are each only in the
few hundreds, far from challenging the
might of the Burmese military.  These
small outfits give a huge legitimacy to
the military their brutal, cruel, and
mean acts or religious persecution,
human rights abuses, racial
discrimination, and even genocide.  The
armed resistance groups oppose the
military with arms and expect the
military to be nice to them.  If anybody
declare war to somebody else will they
not harm each other?

It is not clear what the Karen or Chin
etc. expected from democratic Burma when
they take the brunt of the pro-democracy
movement.  Do they expect to be given a
large share of rights and privileges in
democratic Burma? It is doubtful.  Would
it not be better for the Karen to assure
that all Karen areas are administered by
the Karens in the future instead of
blindly fighting the Burman military?
Similarly  Chin people are mostly in
proper Burma.

Since 1988 the military sees peaceful
demonstrations as the biggest threat to
their holding on to power. (Not the
armed groups) They acted very harsh to
every signs of peaceful demonstrations.
They stop any demonstrations. Arrested
the leaders and gave them long prison
sentences.  The universities were closed
very often and closed permanently since
1966 because of a demonstration that
attracted many Rangoonians.

In the Chin State, the Chin defied the
regimes order to destroyed the monuments
they erected to commemorate the
centennial of the arrival of Christian
missionaries.  Instead of confronting
the military, the Chin simply stayed
indoors for the whole day to pray.  The
method spread to other towns such as
Haka and was about to spread to Falam.
When nobody came out of the house for
one day the Burman Army contingent did
what they had never done before in the
last ten years.  They came to the
village council and offered their advice
how to get permission to erect the
monument.

For the last fifty years armed
resistance movement was used for making
a statement to the power holders. The
failure for this movement is evident.
New ideas must be tried out. New ideas
how not to kill each other. The new idea
is to stop completely the armed
resistance movement.  Without armed
resistance movement and searching for
common ground with the military is the
most likely course for solving the
problems in Burma.  New ideas for
disarmament.  Burma has become a very
poor country because of corruption,
mismanagement, and maintaining an
exceptionally large military.  All these
must stop if the people of Burma have a
mind for development and peace.