Everything Is Broken (13 page)

To many Burmese, the triumphant Japanese troops were seen as liberators. The Japanese were fellow Asians and Buddhists, and they brought with them promises of freedom from the white colonial master. When Japanese soldiers marched into Burmese villages they were often welcomed with songs and platters of fresh fruit.

Along with these soldiers came Burma’s own homebred heroes in the form of the Burma Independence Army, the first incarnation of today’s
Tatmadaw
. The BIA was founded by the intense and determined student leader Aung San (later to become the father of Aung San Suu Kyi) together with twenty-nine other young men who left Burma in 1941 to train with the Japanese military. On Hainan Island in the South China Sea, they studied military and guerrilla tactics designed to enable a core nucleus of men to lead an armed uprising against the British rulers. Known as the “Thirty Comrades,” this small band of freedom fighters would become national heroes of their time. After they returned to Burma with the Japanese troops at the end of that year, their ranks swelled into a ragtag army that numbered in the thousands.

It was a pivotal moment in Burma’s history for a young boy to come of age. During the final years of the war, the fate of the entire world appeared to rest on the outcome of epic battles being waged on Burmese soil between two imperial armies. Children listened to head-spinning tales of the courage and derring-do of the Thirty Comrades. There were stories about the secret training on a faraway island and about how the comrades had drunk each other’s blood while in Siam to pledge undying loyalty to their cause and to one another. The most popular tales were those that told of the many and varied ways in which they vanquished the once invincible British soldiers. I read accounts of the time in which Burmese men of Than Shwe’s generation recalled the excitement they felt as they ran out to greet the conquering soldiers. A BIA comrade later wrote about the electrifying effect of seeing Burmese men in military uniforms after long years of humiliating colonial rule: “We ate the food that the villagers offered us, wooed their daughters, brought danger to their doors and [then] took their sons with us.”

But the euphoria of freedom was short-lived. The Japanese administration soon took on the traits of an occupying force. While soldiers requisitioned crops and cattle from farmers and slapped people in the face for perceived disrespect and minor misdemeanors, the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, hunted down British sympathizers. The Thirty Comrades became frustrated. Realizing that the Japanese were not going to grant Burma anything more than a sham independence, they switched allegiance and, by 1944, had joined the underground resistance movement being coordinated by Allied forces. The general population, weary from hunger and humiliation at the hands of Japanese soldiers, enthusiastically supported the resistance. Clandestine meetings were held in safe houses in towns and villages across the country, and leaflets were distributed urging people to “Rise and attack the Fascist Dacoits [armed bandits]!”

When the Allied forces began their campaign to retake Burma in 1944, the country once again became a blood-soaked battleground. Cities were bombed and fierce hand-to-hand combat forced the Japanese southward out of the country. By the time the British government had reestablished its colonial administration in Rangoon in May 1945, the country was in ruins. Roads, railway lines, and bridges had been destroyed by the scorched-earth policy and aggressive bombing campaigns. The population was starving and disease was spreading. In the face of this mass destruction, and after its ignominious defeat by the Japanese, the British government lacked the will to hold on to its Burmese colony. Aung San took the lead role in the negotiations for independence, traveling to London to sign the agreements with Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Final details were ironed out, a date was set, and the country eagerly awaited the day on which it would regain its sovereignty.

But, on July 19, 1947, there was a startling and tragic turn of events. Aung San and most of his newly formed cabinet were gunned down by a rival politician while attending a morning meeting at the Secretariat, the seat of the British government in Rangoon. It was just months before Independence Day, and the man who had been the principal architect of that longed-for freedom was dead at the age of thirty-two. Aung San had attracted a widespread following; ecstatic crowds attended his speeches; and poems and songs were composed in his honor. In death, he was instantly immortalized, and his framed photograph—often showing the iconic image of him dressed in the broad-collared greatcoat and peaked cap he wore while visiting chilly London—hung in homes and government buildings throughout Burma. Reeling from the aftermath of World War II and the death of Aung San, Burma faced a precarious future.

In a dimly lit upper story of the Defense Services Museum I came across two cabinets that contained relics of that period. In the first was the British flag that was lowered in the early morning hours of Independence Day, January 4, 1948. In the second was the red-and-blue Burmese flag proudly hoisted into the air that same day. The once bold colors of the flags had faded to pale pink and watery blue. Hanging limply in the dusty cabinets, they failed to capture anything of the exhilaration or terror of those times.

Than Shwe was a teenager during the early years of Burma’s independence and would have been fully aware of the tumultuous events he and his family were living through. The departure of the British administration left behind a power vacuum that was filled with nationwide chaos, which one historian described as an “orgy of violence.” A series of armed rebellions broke out around the country. The central region of Burma, where the Burmese ethnic majority live, is surrounded by mountainous areas that are home to seven major ethnic groups who were given varying degrees of autonomy when governed by the British. In 1949, the Karen ethnic group launched an armed struggle against Burmese rule. In the far south, Mon nationalists took up arms, and in Arakan State, in the northwestern part of the country, an Islamic insurgency was brewing. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Burma marched off into the forested mountains and began to wage war against the central government. The Union of Burma, its borders determined by the departed British government, looked as if it was about to splinter apart.

The nascent Burmese army was tasked with restoring peace. From a military standpoint, the democratic government was proving to be ineffectual. Politicians quarreled among themselves and added to the proliferation of armed and angry young men by supporting militia groups to safeguard their territories. Rangoon was often paralyzed by labor strikes, as civil servants demonstrated for better working conditions. The countryside was lawless, and people were scared to leave urban areas for fear of bandits who held up trains and preyed on lone travelers.

It was against this backdrop of shattered national unity that Than Shwe decided to join the army in the early 1950s, when he was twenty years old. It must have been a difficult decision; the army did not hold the promise of a long and stable career, and enlisting during a time when the country was wracked by civil war was a dangerous choice. Perhaps the upheavals of Than Shwe’s childhood—the extreme violence of World War II and the patriotic bravado of the BIA soldiers—had inspired the hero in him. Or perhaps, as most of my Burmese friends suggested, he simply didn’t have the skills to do anything else.

The official record states that Than Shwe completed high school but did not attend university, and was working in a post office before he enlisted. I came across a description of what drove young men to join the army in a collection of profiles written by the late Burmese journalist Ludu U Hla. In the 1950s, U Hla recorded an interview with a soldier who had enlisted in the same year as Than Shwe. The soldier had signed up at the suggestion of his friends after they saw a recruitment poster that was part of the army’s drive to scour the country for able-bodied men. The poster listed the salary and monetary value of rations, uniform, and equipment that would be issued to each new recruit: “The total seemed an enormous sum to me,” the soldier told U Hla. He also spoke of the duty he felt to defend his country. The army attracted young men with the lure of money and the chance to become one of the gun-toting heroes they had seen and heard of during their childhoods.

By the time Than Shwe became a soldier, the Burmese army had wrestled back large chunks of territory from the ethnic rebel forces, but there was another even more threatening battle to fight. Of grave concern to the Burmese government was the growing presence of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist army, which had been driven out of China when Mao Tse-tung seized control in 1949. What had started with a few deserters escaping into Burma had grown into an entrenched force of some twelve thousand troops that held sway over substantial areas of Shan State along Burma’s northeastern border with China. Fearing a possible Chinese invasion, the government requested help from the United Nations, but the assistance it received was inconsequential, and the
Tatmadaw
had to continue fighting against the encroachers.

The first decade of Than Shwe’s military career was one of great growth and change for the army. Having gained in strength and battle experience, the
Tatmadaw
now set about organizing itself into a sustainable military institution. At the orders of the army’s commander in chief and former member of the Thirty Comrades, General Ne Win, better training facilities and specialized units were established to train soldiers in topics that ranged from counterinsurgency tactics to intelligence gathering. Officers traveled the world in search of reliable military models, borrowing ideas from the great military academies of Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, West Point in the United States, and Dehradun in India.

Than Shwe soon joined one of these newly established units, the Directorate of Psychological Warfare, or “Psywar,” the aim of which was to enable the military to adopt political tactics. Psywar operations involved the production and dispersal of propaganda. Pamphlets and magazines praising the good work of the
Tatmadaw
were published for public consumption, and in-house journals covered military science and kept soldiers up-to-date on technological developments. Among Psywar’s more sinister tasks was the compilation of lists of subversive elements considered to be a potential threat to the country’s stability.

In 1962, a military coup ousted the civilian government and established a revolutionary council led by General Ne Win. It was a decisive moment for Burma: The regime that seized power then has ended up ruling the country in one guise or another up to the present day. Under Ne Win’s rule, Than Shwe rose steadily through the ranks. He was only a captain when the coup took place, but within ten years he had become a lieutenant colonel, and ten years after that he held the powerful position of regional commander in the southwest division. Ne Win was a capricious and hotheaded leader, but he prized loyalty above all else, and Than Shwe’s rise within the
Tatmadaw
probably had his tacit approval if not direct involvement.

Burma’s years under Ne Win were disastrous for the country. Ne Win closed Burma off from the rest of the world. He expelled foreign residents, nationalized all business and industry, and launched the “Burmese Way to Socialism,” a political system that blended Marxism, Buddhism, and authoritarian rule. More ethnic groups took up arms against the central Burmese government. With the Kachin in the north, the Shan to the east, and the Karen and Mon to the south, among others, the Burmese government was surrounded by enemies, and the country was locked in perpetual civil war. After twenty-five years with Ne Win at the helm, the economy had become so deflated that the United Nations declared Burma one of the world’s least developed countries. The nationwide uprising against military rule that gripped the country in 1988 was triggered by this financial deprivation. Though the demonstrations were brutally quashed by the army, they did trigger significant changes in the ruling strata. Ne Win resigned, his faux socialist policies were dismantled, and the country opened its doors to foreign investment and tourism.

Just a few years later, Than Shwe snagged the top job. By 1992, he was chairman of the new ruling body, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). He also took on the role of commander in chief of the armed forces and minister of defense. It was a spectacular rise from uneducated village boy to the country’s ultimate leader. Than Shwe had joined the army when it was still an undeveloped fighting force numbering just a few thousand men. By the time he became army chief, he had around two hundred thousand troops under his command.

My favorite exhibit at the Defense Services Museum was a section showcasing the
Tatmadaw
’s productivity. Since its early days in the 1950s, the army has had to raise revenue from businesses set up and run by soldiers. Looking around the exhibit, I had the sense that the regime could easily survive the longest of sieges—it seemed to make everything.

Apart from the obvious military tools such as bombs, grenades, antipersonnel mines, artillery, and ammunition, the
Tatmadaw
also ran factories that produced paint, metal, leather, textiles, waterproofing chemicals, shoes, and—curiously—balls (on display were one sample football, one volleyball, and a tube containing three
Tatmadaw
tennis balls). What I liked most were the oversized models of a soldier’s kit that had been placed in the center of the crowded room. The models were of an enormous army-issue drinking water bottle, a floppy terai hat the size of a bed, and a pair of leather boots big enough for a grown man to stand inside. The items were crafted so realistically that it was easy to imagine they could belong to a giant
Tatmadaw
soldier who might actually exist.

With Than Shwe as commander in chief, the army continued to grow. Throughout the 1990s an energetic recruitment effort expanded its troops from two hundred thousand in 1988 to an estimated four hundred thousand over a decade later. The army also stocked up on weapons and ammunition. Helicopters came from Russia, machine guns and mortar rounds were purchased from Pakistan, and China was a source for rocket launchers, antiaircraft gun systems, and armored personnel carriers. The expansion made little sense in military terms; Burma has no external enemies, and many of the ethnic armies, unable to stand up to the increased might of the Burmese army, had agreed to cease-fires. Perhaps in acknowledgment of this uncertain peace, the SLORC changed its name in 1997; having restored “Law and Order,” it became the State
Peace and Development
Council (SPDC).