Living Silence in Burma (18 page)

    The NLD would inevitably be destroyed; that family members would be removed from public service and the children would be expelled from school; that every means would be used to cause loss in any business undertaking; that … future bank loans would be refused; that the NLD is an organization that is in opposition to the government; and that these measures formed part of a special campaign.
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According to the CRPP statement, the family of another NLD MP-elect from the same township was told the same thing, and the next day both men were taken into custody and pressured to resign, but they refused. They were released after about nine hours but, soon after, the secretary of the local USDA chapter went house to house copying the names of all the people on the household registrations and asking the head of each household to sign. These names were then put into petitions which stated
that the signatories and their families had no confidence in the NLD MPs-elect, and the petition results were reported in the government-controlled media. By October 1999, only 183 of the original 485 representatives who were elected in 1990 remained valid, with many of the MPs-elect having resigned, been arrested or had their elections declared invalid.
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The regime sought to break down the NLD in other ways as well. The most talented thinkers in the party, such as Win Tin, an intellectual, and Win Htein, a former military officer, were kept in prison along with many other committed party members. Because of the poor living conditions and lack of adequate medical care, many became ill and a few died. Meanwhile, party members unhappy with some of Aung San Suu Kyi’s policies were cultivated by the regime, and their views were given prominence in the government’s publications.

Communications between NLD party offices were limited, because the NLD was not legally permitted to print or reproduce party literature or to use a fax machine. The party had minimal funds for travel and communication expenses anyway, so keeping everyone informed of the central committee’s policies was difficult. Whenever Aung San Suu Kyi tried to travel outside Rangoon to meet party members, she was stopped and ordered to return home. In distant districts, NLD members usually learned about what was going on at the party headquarters through foreign radio broadcasts or informally from the occasional member who made a trip to Rangoon.

At the same time, the regime tried to destroy Aung San Suu Kyi’s morale by forcing her to choose between her family and her political activities. When her husband, Michael Aris, was dying in England in early 1999, the regime refused to give him a visa to come to Burma. The state-controlled media insisted that since she was the healthy one, she should be visiting him. She made the painful decision not to leave, knowing that the regime would never allow her back in. But the generals punished her by cutting the line on every phone conversation she tried to have with her husband in the days before his death.
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Michael Aris died on 27 March 1999, Burma’s Resistance Day, and his fifty-third birthday.

Some of the remaining Thirty Comrades, particularly Bohmu Aung, repeatedly called for the military regime to engage in a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, but the regime ignored them. The regime also tried to prevent the formation of links between the NLD and the ethnic nationalities’ organizations. The NLD members inside the country could not correspond directly with the armed ethnic groups, because the party could be declared illegal for having contact with insurgent organizations. But NLD
members who fled to the border areas tried to develop good working relations with the leaders of the armed ethnic groups, as did students who went out to the ethnic-controlled areas in 1988.

On several occasions, the leaders of armed ethnic organizations wrote individual and joint statements declaring their support for Aung San Suu Kyi and the democratic struggle. In January 1997, a number of ethnic minority leaders met in Mae Tha Raw Hta on the Thai–Burma border and signed an agreement calling for tripartite dialogue (the military regime, pro-democracy forces and ethnic leaders), a federal union and a democratic political system. The agreement stated: ‘We agree also to join hands with the pro-democracy forces led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and act unitedly and simultaneously for the achievement of rights of the nationalities as well as democratic rights.’ While many of the attendees represented small organizations, the generals were upset that representatives of the United Wa State Army and the New Mon State Party (NMSP), two large ceasefire groups, also signed. The regime later punished the NMSP for its attendance by cutting its monthly logging quota.

A number of ceasefire groups subsequently issued joint statements supporting the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament and calling for a tripartite dialogue. However, the SPDC ordered them to rescind their statements and urged other ceasefire groups to make statements against the CRPP.
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Inside the country, NLD members tried to build more cohesive relations with the ethnic political parties. In the period just after the 1990 election, the NLD and the UNLD, the alliance of ethnic minority political parties affiliated with the NLD, met regularly to discuss federalism and other issues. Together they came up with the Bo Aung Gyaw Street Agreement No. 1, which stated the need to build a real democratic union of Burma, with the understanding that ‘real democratic’ meant more autonomy for the ethnic states. At the National Convention, the elected ethnic and NLD party members were housed in the same barracks and had a chance to deepen their relationships.

In the late 1990s, the NLD tried to arrange meetings and informal get-togethers with ethnic political leaders, although the regime often blocked such efforts. Even Aung San Suu Kyi’s attempts to attend Karen new year celebrations in Insein township, just outside Rangoon, were thwarted.

Despite the NLD’s efforts to develop closer relations with ethnic nationality leaders, the regime continued to drive wedges between them. The armed ethnic groups were often reluctant to do anything that might
jeopardize their ceasefire agreements. While the ceasefires had not resulted in the granting of ethnic rights and political autonomy, they did mean the end of decades-long civil wars and far less suffering for the civilian population. Thus, as long as the
tatmadaw
was in control, most of the leaders of the armed ethnic organizations felt it necessary to cooperate with the regime. At the same time, some of the ethnic leaders, particularly in the remote areas, wondered whether any Burman-dominated government would accede to their demands for political autonomy. And indeed, many Burmans, including some in the pro-democracy movement, continued to harbour serious doubts about federalism.

Fifty years after independence, Burma was still struggling to resolve its political and economic problems. The regime continued to cling to the idea of a unitary state with centralized powers, while the ethnic nationalities continued to insist on greater political freedoms. The military regime managed to severely damage the organizational capacity of the pro-democracy movement, but it was not able to build a prosperous nation. While military generals’ families and their friends managed to amass fortunes through virtual monopolies over many of the most lucrative businesses, ordinary Burmese businessmen found that without the necessary bribes and connections, they were not able to participate much in the new market economy.

Because the regime devoted so much of the country’s resources to repressing its citizens, everyone suffered. Water and electricity shortages became acute in the late 1990s, with frequent blackouts in Rangoon, and some rural towns receiving electricity only once every three to five days. One joke circulating in Rangoon was: it’s fortunate that the military government only takes responsibility for water and electricity, not air. Thus, Burma entered the twenty-first century lagging far behind many other countries in the region, with the generals still in power and the majority of the people feeling unable to do anything about it.

5 | The Than Shwe years, 2000 and beyond

    What the Myanmar government calls a process of democratization is in fact a process of consolidation of an authoritarian regime.
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(Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar)

In the first several years of the twenty-first century, the ruling generals maintained their grip on power by suppressing potential domestic threats and engaging with the international community only to the extent that they felt absolutely necessary. The regime continued to project an image of confidence in its right to rule, despite internal and external calls for change and an increasing flow of migrants out of the country. The 2007 monks’ demonstrations and Cyclone Nargis posed unexpected challenges for a regime that was used to dictating events, but neither led to a dislodgement of the top generals.

The Depayin Massacre

In 2000, Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest again after she and members of her party tried to take a train from Rangoon to Mandalay. The NLD had recently stated they would write their own constitution and Aung San Suu Kyi was trying to defy the travel restrictions the regime had put on her. Although this was a setback for her and her party, over the next two years she engaged in secret talks with the military intelligence. UN Special Envoy Razali Ismail made several trips to Burma during this period, and in part because of his efforts, she was released from house arrest, with no restrictions on her movements, in 2002. At the time, there was some optimism that the regime might be ready to engage in policy discussions with her.

To reconnect with NLD party members and ordinary people, Aung San Suu Kyi began touring parts of the country by car. Stopping in towns along the way, she gave informal talks and reopened local NLD offices. In the ethnic states as well as in the central divisions, people poured into the streets to catch a glimpse of her or hear her speeches. It became clear that she still had a great deal of popular support. Although she had official permission for the trips, she and NLD party members faced increasing harassment from USDA members and some local authorities.

On 30 May 2003, her travels ended when her convoy of cars was attacked by a mob of people in darkness not far from Depayin town. The regime stated that four people died, but witnesses claim that many more were killed, as men armed with bamboo clubs and iron bars beat NLD members and supporters until they collapsed.
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With up to five thousand attackers gathered at this out-of-the-way spot and police and military stationed at points down the road, it was clear that the assault was premeditated.
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s driver managed to manoeuvre the car out of the mêlée but they were stopped farther down the road. She was then taken away and held in a small house in the Insein Prison compound and then at an army camp.
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She underwent surgery at a hospital in September 2003, and following that she was taken back to her house, where she was put back under indefinite house arrest. Tin Oo, another senior member in the NLD, was beaten on the head during the attack and then taken to a prison in north-western Burma, where he spent several months. He was brought home in February 2004 and was also put under indefinite house arrest. None of the perpetrators of the attack was arrested, but more than 150 NLD members and supporters were incarcerated instead.
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This incident came to be known as the Depayin Massacre, and it sparked outrage around the world.

The Seven Point Road Map

In an effort to deflect attention away from the Depayin Massacre, General Khin Nyunt announced a Seven Point Road Map to political reform in August 2003.

1  Reconvene the National Convention (to finish drafting the basic principles for the constitution)

2  Implement ‘the process necessary for the emergence of a genuine and disciplined democratic system’

3  Draft the new constitution

4  Adopt the constitution through a national referendum

5  Hold elections

6  Convene the new parliament

7  Build ‘a modern, developed, and democratic nation’.
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No time frame was provided, giving the regime the opportunity to speed up or draw out any steps of the process as they wished.

While Aung San Suu Kyi and many other leading NLD members remained under detention, the regime proceeded to implement the road
map. The National Convention had not met since March 1996, but it was reconvened in May 2004. The NLD was invited to attend, but boycotted after the regime refused to release Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo from house arrest. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and most of the other ethnic political parties that won seats in the 1990 election boycotted as well, because the regime would not change the way the convention operated or remove the principle that the military must play the leading role in politics.
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The regime tried to enhance the legitimacy of the National Convention by inviting a number of new members to attend, particularly from the ethnic ceasefire groups. When the ceasefire groups called for more powers to be given to the ethnic states, however, they were ignored. The delegates met for two months and then were sent home.

In early February 2005, a group of leaders from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and the Shan ceasefire groups, as well as some other Shan and Burmese representatives, held a meeting to discuss the future of Shan State and what role the ceasefire groups should play in the National Convention.
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The regime responded by arresting the Shan leaders who had participated and sentencing each of them to seventy-five years or more in prison. Hkun Htun Oo, the chairman of the SNLD, was given ninety-three years.