Myanmar's Long Road to National Reconciliation (3 page)

Myo Win

Mr Myo Win is Lecturer in Agricultural Engineering, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. Born and educated in Myanmar, with a degree in Agricultural Engineering from Rangoon Institute of Technology, he also has a post-graduate degree from the University of Melbourne. His father, U Ba Tin, was a pioneer in Myanmar agricultural development and served as an agricultural advisor for over sixty years, finishing as a CEO with the Agricultural and Rural Development Corporation (ARDC). During U Ba Tin’s service, he was posted in major agricultural regions, and Myo Win had many opportunities to see Myanmar agriculture in action. Since 1982, Myo Win has been lecturing in agricultural engineering, specializing in irrigation and soil conservation, at Charles Sturt University in the NSW rural city of Wagga Wagga.

Trevor Wilson

The 2004 Myanmar/Burma Update Conference, the sixth in a series, took place in the context of an overall political situation little changed from that of five years ago. The same military regime remains in control of the country, functioning in much the same repressive way as before, and there is still no clear prospect of substantial change or of the genuine political and economic reforms that would allow the people of Myanmar the hope of enjoying the prosperity and freedom being enjoyed by their neighbours in Southeast Asia. Yet the particular dynamics of Myanmar’s political, social, and economic circumstances had gone through quite significant changes in the previous eighteen months, leaving the country facing more uncertainty than for many years.

October 2004 witnessed the most dramatic, and probably the most far-reaching, changes in the leadership of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
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since the forced retirement of General Saw Maung in 1992. All the more surprising because they were almost unforeseen, these changes ended the previous strong sense of collegiality and cohesion amongst the top SPDC leadership. There had long been speculation about differences among the top three leaders — the SPDC Chairman, Senior General Than Shwe; the Vice Chairman, Deputy Senior General Maung Aye; and the Prime Minister, General Khin Nyunt — but hitherto the leadership had clearly attached highest priority to regime stability and cohesion, and had handled occasional internal problems, such as accusations of corruption, with the minimum of outward fuss. In this
instance, however, the top leaders went so far as to abolish one of the military institutions — Military Intelligence — that was critical to the regime’s maintenance of tight controls over the country and its people, on the presumption that it was a tool of the fallen Prime Minister. They also instigated a wholesale purge of military intelligence officers and their close associates, on a scale unprecedented under the current government.
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Parallel with this, they initiated a wide-ranging Cabinet reshuffle in which a number of relatively inexperienced generals with no obvious qualifications for ministerial jobs replaced long-serving, experienced (and, in some cases, relatively capable) Ministers.

Two aspects of the changes had the immediate effect of increasing the constraints on any international organization or foreign individual who needed to work with the government. First, there were various indications that the regime seemed to be turning the clock back on more than a decade of gradual change, and was much less receptive to new ideas and any relaxation of tight state controls. This was shown in harsher official propaganda, in overt knee-jerk negativism towards dealing with foreigners, and in a reversion to earlier inward-looking military-style attitudes. Second, while the international community lacked direct knowledge of the new decision-makers, conversely, the incoming generals who had been appointed to senior SPDC or government positions displayed a striking lack of international exposure or experience. This does not bode well for the immediate future of Myanmar’s international relations, nor does it suggest any great sensitivity on the part of the regime to international opinion — at least in the absence of some new, explicit decisions being taken in favour of international cooperation, something that seemed rather unlikely for the moment.

The 2004 Myanmar/Burma Update Conference also took place against the backdrop of the National Convention that the SPDC re-convened in May 2004 after an eight-year hiatus. The National Convention was a key part of the “road map” launched by the SPDC in August 2003 as an obvious (but doomed) attempt to neutralize international opprobrium after being generally held responsible for the attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) followers at Depayin in May 2003.

The National Convention eventually resumed in February 2005, operating in much the same way as it had functioned the previous year,
but with some personnel changes among the delegates. By re-affirming its intention to re-convene the National Convention, the SPDC acknowledged that political transition has to be accomplished in one way or another. This would in normal circumstances have been taken as a welcome step, seen as indicating that the new SPDC leadership maintained its commitment to a quasi-consultative political process.

However, in terms of both its composition and its operations in 2004, this “home-grown” National Convention would not pass any normal tests of representative-ness, transparency, credibility, and, therefore, legitimacy.
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Moreover, the SPDC proceeded with the second phase of the current Convention apparently unconcerned about the exclusion of so many of the opposition political parties that had won the majority of the seats in the 1990 elections.

The SPDC leadership made no serious attempt to create the conditions for the NLD to reconsider its decision not to participate, despite some reports of wavering by the NLD leaders who had attended the earlier National Convention up until 1995.
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To compound matters, the SPDC forced the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, the party that won the second largest number of seats in the 1990 elections, out of the convention permanently by arresting its leaders on the very eve of the Convention’s resumption. It is difficult to draw any conclusion other than that the SPDC’s military leadership is even more reluctant than before to allow “normal”, uncontrolled, law-abiding activities by political parties. At the very least, this would make highly suspect any form of “multi-party democracy” that might be eventually installed as a product of this process.

The SPDC continued to determine arbitrarily which delegates would participate in the National Convention, but in fact nominated a wide range of representatives. Included among the delegates were some quite prominent figures, many of whom (not surprisingly) had a record of cooperating with the regime, but not all of whom could be termed “supporters” of the regime by any means. One of the unusual features of the Convention was the extraordinary measures the SPDC adopted to maintain the isolation of the delegates from interaction with the community while the sessions were in progress. But although delegates were kept at the venue for lengthy periods in specially-prepared accommodation, they were allowed to return to their families from time to time, and some
inkling of what had gone on behind the scenes leaked out. This was probably encouraged by the authorities to some extent, or at least was not actively discouraged.