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SCMP-People power 'jolts' junta



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

South China Morning Post
Wednesday, September 8, 1999

THE MEKONG REGION

People power 'jolts' junta
BURMA by WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok

The Burmese junta will have been shaken by the number of people willing to
demonstrate against its rule - even if tomorrow's "9-9-99" day of protest
fizzles out, observers in Burma and Thailand said yesterday.
The population is not expected to challenge the police state en masse as it
did on August 8, 1988, when thousands were shot.

"It won't come to much because the [junta] is going to make sure it
won't,"said Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Burma Project, part of the
Soros Foundation network.

"The detentions and the force they are using to pre-empt any perceived
threat proves that they are truly spooked."

Sporadic protests in the face of fierce repression indicate just how
disillusioned the Burmese are with military rule and its inability to revive
a shattered economy.

"Some people out there are willing to confront the regime - I think that's
surprised them," one diplomat in Rangoon said.

An independent Burma watcher in Bangkok said: "It is remarkable in the
circumstances that any protests have happened.

"There seem to have been little explosions of anger and frustration up and
down the country."

Student protests over police brutality erupted into nationwide protests in
1988, causing a stunned military to temporarily cede power to an ostensibly
civilian cabinet after holding power since a 1962 coup.

But the military reasserted itself via brute force and a dishonoured
election.

After planned mass demonstrations for last year's 10th anniversary of 8-8-88
fizzled, the junta probably thought it had the population in its pocket, the
Rangoon diplomat said.

But in recent weeks, protests by the two sections of society that have
traditionally been in the vanguard of anti-authority movements - students
and monks - have been reported.

The actions of some arrested protesters were touted by Rangoon as evidence
of a foreign-inspired conspiracy.

Last week the Government jailed for 17 years a British activist detained in
a border town handing out pro-democracy leaflets.

James Mawdsley's father said yesterday he feared his son was being tortured,
after a British diplomat was denied access to his jail cell in the remote
town of Kengtung.

Police yesterday detained a Western woman who tied her hand to a lamppost at
a road junction in Rangoon and started shouting pro-democracy slogans in
Burmese, witnesses said.

About 100 passersby gathered to watch the protest until police ended it
after 20 minutes.

Observers said the real crackdown was aimed at a much broader section of the
population.

The All Burma Students Democratic Front, an exile group, estimates 500
people have been detained or arrested in recent weeks.

But a Rangoon diplomat could only say more than 100 appeared to have been
detained.

There have been several reports of curfews being imposed in provincial
towns, despite vigorous denials from the military.

Visitors to the town of Myawadi, on the border with Thailand, have heard
loudspeakers warning anyone with "ill intentions" to stay out of Burma for
9-9-99.

Burma's Bangkok Embassy has admitted that individual tourist visas had been
temporarily suspended.

The army, despite its insistence on an almost mystical traditional of
loyalty, has been far from immune.

Seven lieutenants were caught passing around pro-democracy pamphlets in
Papun township in Karen state, the National Council of the Union of Burma,
an opposition exile front, said.

And the military headquarters had banned all military personnel from
visiting Rangoon without specific instructions, it said.

The opposition radio service, the Democratic Voice of Burma, said a group of
captains and lieutenants in central Burma were discovered discussing what
their response to an outbreak of 9-9-99 protest would be.

"Clearly some soldiers are reluctant to participate in another massacre," a
reporter with the station said.

The radio also reported that one recent protest at a college in Shan state
was led by the children of military officers.

Steep increases in the cost of living - particularly for rice - feeble
salaries, closed universities, high school fees and military meddling in
religious affairs were cited by the council as sources of deep irritation
among ordinary Burmese.

One student activist on the Thai-Burmese border said that although protests
might have painful repercussions for people, physical demonstrations were
necessary to show the public's deep dissatisfaction.

But the Burma Project's Ms Aung-Thwin said it was hardly likely that the
shadowy but powerful military intelligence organisation was unaware of its
popularity rating.

"You can bet that they know what the people and the world think of them,
even if they don't admit it publicly," she said.