Myanmar's Long Road to National Reconciliation (8 page)

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s iconic status is thus the main strength of the party, but also arguably its greatest weakness, for without her the party’s future is in doubt, and not merely because as it has excluded itself from the only political process in the country which is possible under the current military regime. Time is not on the NLD’s side. The average age of eight of the nine CEC members, excluding the General Secretary, is nearly eighty-one.
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It would appear that the NLD CEC is unable to reach a policy determination without the presence of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. According to a number of separate reports, following the party’s May 2004 meetings a number of local-level party activists requested a briefing from the members of the CEC. When they received no satisfaction, individuals elected in 1990 met with the senior leadership for clarification of the party’s future plans. They replied that they were making no decisions in regard to the future until Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released. Asked if that date was not until after the convention had concluded, they had no answer but sat “like tombstones”.
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The air of unreality which seems to surround the NLD CEC was then compounded when about forty of the NLD members-elect wrote to the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), composed of the eight NLD CEC members and some senior ethnic minority party leaders and independents. Having previously told the elected members that they could not have a meeting with the CRPP, the CEC members took offence and attempted to summon such impudent “young” men to the
NLD headquarters for disciplinary action. While similarly unrealistic activities have been proposed by other aging políticos living in the leftist politics of the past, such as the formation of an AFPFL-type “united force” led by the NLD, the younger activists of the party have been constrained on one pretext or another. As a result of the party being unable to act as long as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention, rank and file members are said to be drifting away from it, with some apparently joining the government-sponsored Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in order to gain the patronage which derives from that body.
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The strategy of many who oppose the army government, both within Myanmar and among the exile community, appears to depend largely on the support that their cause generates in the United States and other Western countries. As the seventy-one-year-old U Than, who was elected in 1990 under the Rakhine League for Democracy banner and now resides in India, said on 25 October 2004, “... we are struggling for democracy in Burma, [but] there’s so much international pressure that’s building up — so we are going to have democracy soon.”
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This hope, fervently held by opponents of the military in Myanmar since the first days of demonstrations against the governments of Brigadier General Sein Lwin and Dr Maung Maung in front of the United States Embassy in Yangon in August and September 1988, appears after sixteen years to be increasingly pious.

While the travails of the NLD and its supporters receive little media attention, signs of discord and disagreement within the SPDC are seized upon as harbingers of the possible collapse of the military order in Myanmar. The dramatic removal of the Prime Minister in October 2004, only hinted at prior to the event itself, was one of the few instances of public discord amongst the top leadership of the regime. The resulting situation created conditions for the government of Myanmar unprecedented in the SLORC/SPDC period and provides the possibility of a new beginning, though when and how significant political change might occur remains in the realm of speculation. Moreover, none of the imagined scenarios for the future I can see suggest that the road to constitutional government, or even democracy, will be travelled any faster than before as a result of the changes in the SPDC.

The SLORC/SPDC has undergone various mutations since it took power on 19 September 1988. Initially, the senior members of the regime were more or less peers in terms of their experiences and seniority. None had served in the old BSPP government, other than the first chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council, General Saw Maung.
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Indeed, a new rank, Senior General, had to be invented for the chairman in order to differentiate him from his peers. None of the members of the SLORC held the old order in high regard, perhaps as a result of their having served as BSPP regional party committee chairmen and central committee members, and they plunged into government with a verve unknown in recent Myanmar experience. No clear hierarchy had yet emerged among them, each was able to manage his sphere of responsibility relatively independently, and entrepreneurship and initiative became possible even for members of the once-moribund civil service. Brigadier General Khin Nyunt, who had been known for his service to General Ne Win, the senior figure in Myanmar government for the previous twenty-six years, became Secretary 1 of the SLORC, and although junior in the hierarchy, became the most publicly active member of the regime. With his picture often in the press and on television, and his frequent visits to all parts of the country, Secretary 1, who also held the post of head of Military Intelligence, became a crucial member of the regime. Military Intelligence, through organizations such as the now-defunct Office of Strategic Services (OSS), was seen as serving as a think-tank for the regime. The learning curve of the government after 1988 was quite steep as the military sought to reposition itself and the larger government of Myanmar both domestically and internationally.

The collective nature of the early SLORC was underscored in 1992 by the removal of Senior General Saw Maung following a nervous breakdown. At that time the other members of the organization were either able not to involve themselves in their colleagues’ affairs or able to work together relatively harmoniously to resolve a problem. A solution for one difficult issue that faces all military regimes, the need to provide reasonably steady and predictable promotion possibilities, was also available to the early SLORC because, relatively speaking, the upper levels of the Myanmar armed forces were not bloated with numerous senior-ranking officers. The army under General Ne Win had been noted for its relatively anaemic organizational structure. Also, the SLORC period
was one of rapid expansion of the armed forces, which created many promotion opportunities.

However, time, the enemy of all politicians in power, was not standing still, and by 1997 the free-wheeling days of the SLORC were numbered. In that year, the members of the SLORC still in command of troops or intelligence units moved against those who had taken on increasingly governmental responsibility.
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The result was the beginning of the creation of a greater sense of hierarchy within the regime. With the removal of former regional commanders-turned-ministers and other members of the SLORC in mid-November 1997, simultaneously with the renaming of the ruling council as the SPDC, the structure at the top came to reflect an evolved ethos and
modus operandi.
Senior General Than Shwe had only two senior members of the SPDC with whom to cope, the ever-resourceful Lt. General Khin Nyunt, and the commander-in-chief of the army, General Maung Aye. The new members of the SPDC, largely former regional commanders, were in no position to argue with their seniors on the council, but merely waited in the hope of their demise.

For the six years between the formation of the SPDC and the removal of General Khin Nyunt, the Senior General has had the responsibility of balancing the plans, ambitions, and views of General Maung Aye and General Khin Nyunt. Most recently promoted Vice-Senior General, Maung Aye formally stood as the Senior General’s deputy as well as commander of
tatmadaw kyi
(or the operational commands of the army). During most of the time since the formation of the SPDC, any potential clashes between the Senior General’s two most senior colleagues were kept in check not only by his ability to arbitrate between them, but also by their mutual attention concerning their shared political problems, especially the delicate matter of how to deal with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi while coping with the international pressures that have faced the government. With both of these issues in stasis in October 2004, even if only temporarily, steps were taken which eventuated in the removal of General Khin Nyunt.

After regular troops were ordered to raid Military Intelligence and related units along the Shan State border with Yunnan Province, evidence of corruption and malfeasance was allegedly discovered. The raid, which took place while General Khin Nyunt was on an official visit to Singapore, prolonged briefly for minor medical treatment, produced allegations that the head of Military Intelligence, either knowingly, or unknowingly and
therefore also in dereliction of duty, had allowed his subordinates to become involved in corrupt transactions. This provoked a crisis perceived as insubordination, which required resolution.
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General Khin Nyunt’s departure from the government had obvious repercussions throughout the governmental structure of the country. His long and active career had made a number of individuals hostages to his fortune, many of whom would be now called to account as part of moves to “clean up” the situation he had allowed to be created. This situation suggests that in the future the government of the SPDC may be more risk-averse and cautious than it has been for the past sixteen years.
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Why might this be the case? Two periods in Myanmar’s relatively recent history give some clues. In 1984, the year after the bomb attack by North Korean agents that nearly ended the life of the then South Korean prime minister who was visiting Yangon, Military Intelligence was re-organized. It was brought together with the Home Minister’s Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI) and the regular police Special Branch under the umbrella of a newly-created National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) composed of the Home, Finance and Planning, and Defence Ministers and chaired by the Prime Minister . The intention was to ensure that the intelligence failure that had followed from the sacking of General Ne Win’s assumed heir apparent, General Tin Oo,
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on corruption charges, and that allowed the North Koreans to enter the country and plant the deadly bomb, would not be repeated because of lack of coordination amongst the government’s various intelligence units. The NIB, which was abolished after the removal of General Khin Nyunt as being “no longer suited”,
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was possibly a solution to a problem that was only partially responsible for the intelligence failure that permitted the bombing incident to occur.

An equal, if not greater, cause for the inadequacy of the security services in 1983 was the chaos which resulted from the removal of General Tin Oo and his entourage, reportedly down to the level of captain. When such events occur, those who remain in the system spend more time looking over their shoulders in order to ensure that their positions are secure than in undertaking their security duties. Changes in Military Intelligence at that time had further long-term consequences for the regime. The new head of Military Intelligence after 1984 was the relatively junior
Colonel Khin Nyunt.
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Even more than his much more senior and experienced predecessors, Colonel Khin Nyunt was unlikely to have had the courage to bring unwelcome news to the attention of the one man who could make things happen in Myanmar at that time, BSPP Chairman Ne Win.
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As U Ne Win became increasingly isolated and cut off from realistic information about the condition of the country, the government of socialist Burma effectively ground to a halt other than for the performance of ritualistic activities. The result was the moral and financial bankruptcy which led to the popular upheaval of 1988.

Similarly, during the crucial months of July, August, and September 1988, between the announcement of the resignation of U Ne Win as Chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party and the military
putsch
that installed the SLORC, it can be argued that Military Intelligence and the other security services of the state stopped operating effectively, thus limiting the regime’s capacity to cope with the political demands that faced it at that time. Only after the military reasserted its authority and provided the necessary security to allow Military Intelligence to re-establish its various monitoring mechanisms were public political activities controlled, if not eliminated. It may be that the present period is again a time in which the remaining Military Intelligence organization spends more time worrying about its own future than checking up on the political activities of the citizenry.
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Even if history does not repeat itself in the manner suggested above, the SPDC is clearly in a new situation in terms of its own internal
modus operandi.
Senior General Than Shwe will no longer have his previous role as arbiter determining the balance between his two most senior colleagues; nor is it likely that he will be the recipient of unwelcome news, even in the unlikely event that the new head of Military Intelligence were to report directly to him as General Khin Nyunt had done. This raises the prospect that the government of Myanmar could be about to repeat the experience of the 1980s. There are, however, some factors that work against this scenario, two that are internal to the structure of the regime and two that are external.

One internal factor is the inexorable passage of time and the necessity for the army to provide satisfactory career paths for officers as they seek advancement. This places inevitable pressure on the top-most people to give way to those rising from below. For example, the regional commanders, who have been in place since the last reshuffle of SPDC members in 2001,
will before long be expecting their turn to sit in the offices of power in Yangon, while the incumbents will be thinking about when their chance for the top jobs will come. Most military regimes, lacking mechanisms for orderly succession, fail to manage this dilemma satisfactorily. Unlike in the days of the BSPP, when the army had the ability to resolve this problem by moving ambitious but less competent officers into the party or finding them posts in the bureaucracy, the present-day army will need to find room for them within its own increasingly bloated structures. The Senior General may also find that without a parallel and independent head of Military Intelligence reporting to him, his knowledge of potential plots against him within the armed forces is limited.