Bkk Post - Editorial - The number i (r)

[bina@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Re: Bkk Post - Editorial - The number is up in Rangoon

That was an interesting editorial in yesterday's Bangkok Post, worth re-reading.  In fact, the order from Rangoon to bar traffic into Burma on 9-9-99 seems to have been generally obeyed by Thai authorities, as a brief visit to the border area revealed yesterday.  

About 200 meters from the MaeSot-Myawaddy bridge, the Thai military had set up a roadblock.  Cars, trucks, and motorcycles were stopped and passengers interrogated.  There was a collection of forlorn-looking Burmese youth on the side of the road under police guard.  These were the ones who didn't make it past the roadblock.

A student activist riding on the truck with us commented that 200 factory workers had massed at the border crossing this morning, but that 20 of their leaders had already been arrested by the police.

Arriving at the bridge, one could see the 5-meter high cyclone fence drawn shut across the access road.  Normally busy with commercial and pedestrian traffic, the bridge was completely deserted.  When questioned about the closure, Thai immigration officials would only say that it was from the Burmese side.  When did it close? Just today.  When would it be open again?  Only the famous Thai smile for a reply.

As we walked along the Thai side of the Moei river, past the shopping stalls filled with Burmese, Malaysian, and Chinese goods and, today, bereft of customers, a strange quiet filled the air.  The boats that normally ply the river crossing piled high with boxes of Thai packaged noodles and dishwashing liquid, lay along side the banks, their motors silent.  We passed a well-dressed Burmese man with a walkie-talkie who studiously avoided our gaze, as he went about his patrol on the Thai side.  Across the river, we could see the Burmese soldiers and MI agents gathered in groups, waiting for any signs of trouble.  But even the insects and the birds were invisible.  Everyone had gotten the message about today.  

Be careful of cameras, said one Burmese student in our group, they will try to take your picture from the other side.

Later I stopped for a Thai green papaya salad in a small cafe near the river.  The walls of the bamboo hut were covered with posters with Thai and Burmese movie and music idols.  The only evidence of politics were the ubiquitous pictures of the Thai King and Queen.

What is so nice about Mae Sot is the easy mix of Thai residents and Burmese workers on the streets and in the markets.  The collection of different foods for sale is staggering.  Some Thai shopkeepers have even learned to speak Burmese.  The peaceful environment must be attributed to the super-tolerant Thai culture, and to the unspoken gratitude of their Burmese "guests". 

There is also a large community of Burmese-Indian Muslims, with their mosque, their distinctive dress, and their small bakeries and restaurants, even in the poorest quarters.  And many Karen, who still speak their own language at home, but who are becoming more and more assimilated into the surrounding Thai culture.  

Hill tribe women in costume appear on the market streets, gathered in small groups and trying to sort out what they must do in this booming metropolis before heading back out to their up-country villages.  Goats and cows still share the streets with the children, dogs, bicycles, trucks, the occasional Mercedes Benz, and of course the ubiquitous motorcycles.  

It is a bit surprising to see how peaceful things are on this side, with all the problems with the military regime just across the border.  I wonder, too, just how more enjoyable it might be here, with an NLD government in Burma.

At 07:49 PM 9/9/99 +0900, TIN KYI wrote:
>Bangkok Post - Sep 9, 1999.
>Editorial
>
>The number is up in Rangoon
>
>Among the more bizarre of the Rangoon junta's efforts to suppress any
>expression of dissent on 9-9-99 was a request by military authorities in
>Myawaddy to their counterparts in Thailand. The request was simple enough:
>Please keep the Burmese out of Burma. Thai authorities were asked to tell
>the employers of thousands of Burmese workers that their days off had >been cancelled and that if they wanted to go to Burma they should do so >at another time.
>
>Strange though the request was, it was not altogether out of character for
>an illegitimate regime that has listened to its own propaganda for so long
>that it is in danger of believing it. The appeal to the Thai authorities
>also betrays a belief on the part of the regime that any citizen who has
>been abroad must be a threat to its stability. The victim of an economic
>shambles courtesy of the military government, the average Burmese worker is
>now seen as a potential enemy of the state merely for crossing the border in
>search of employment.
>
>The request to the Thai authorities has come as just one of many measures
>intended to ensure that today passes off without any event that the military
>could construe as a threat to its existence. Curfews have been declared,
>citizens have been arrested, security units are redoubling their efforts to
>prevent the risk of people meeting and talking with one another. According
>to the official version, however, none of this is taking place because the
>populace is disloyal to the outfit now calling itself the State Peace and
>Development Council and 9-9-99 is just another day to all but the
>superstitious.
>
>But by its very own actions and attempts to deny and conceal them, the
>military regime has demonstrated clearly that even though it may not be
>superstitious, it does not regard today as just another day. It has every
>reason to be wary of 9-9-99 not so much for reasons of numerology but
>because the numbers may also be regarded as a rallying point for a
>population which would otherwise be unable to organise anything. With a
>stranglehold on the media, universities closed, communities infested by
>junta eaves-droppers and severe restrictions on public assembly, the people
>of Burma needed and found a way to put those four numbers to good effect.
>
>The generals, as a result, are jumping at shadows, seeing threats from
>within and without the country's borders, and in this respect they are
>making a correct assessment because the only people who want them to
>continue in power are themselves. It is reasonable to speculate that the
>dictatorship is as scared of what today might bring as it is baffled by it.
>While there have been calls for action and warnings of military activity by
>the various groups ranged against the regime, Rangoon is facing what may be
>considered a formidable yet invisible challenge. Fresh in the minds of
>people who have endured decades of brutality and bungling at the hands of
>the military is the memory of 8-8-88, the date of the atrocity in which the
>junta slaughtered thousands of people in the interests of its own particular
>interests. The opposition is unlikely to offer the military another
>opportunity of that nature.
>
>Since 1988, the junta has changed in form but not in substance, enjoying a
>different acronym but continuing to feed off an oppressed people who yearn
>for the democratic order they have for so long been denied. They do not want
>rulers who are reviled on the international scene, with the exception
>perhaps of Asean and its gullible apologists. Nor do they want to be
>associated with a regime that likes to do business with drugs traffickers.
>Through 9-9-99, the people are saying that dictatorship has had its day and
>has failed. The generals would do well to listen.
>