Living Silence in Burma (21 page)

Preparing for the referendum

The generals knew how deeply angry Burmese citizens felt and decided that they had to offer some immediate hope for a better future. The regime moved quickly ahead with its road map. The closing ceremony of the National Convention had already been held in early September. Next, the regime set up a committee to write the constitution, which it finalized in February 2008. Then the regime announced that it would hold a referendum on the constitution in May 2008 and used all its propaganda machinery to urge a yes vote. Billboards were erected stating: ‘To approve the state Constitution is a national duty of the entire people today. Let us all cast a “yes” vote in the national interest.’ Vote-yes cartoons, editorials and slogans appeared in the state media. The authorities made almost no effort to educate people about the contents of the constitution, however. Copies had to be bought, and they were hard to find, especially outside Rangoon. Few people thought there was any point in reading it anyway, because they knew it would pass.

Anyone campaigning for people to vote no could be sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, and the domestic media were not allowed to cover the vote-no campaign. Still, the NLD urged people to vote no, as did the 88 Generation Students Group, the ABMA and other pro-democracy groups in exile. Some people in Rangoon and Mandalay dared to wear T-shirts that simply said ‘no’, but most people were afraid to show their feelings.

The constitution allows a degree of civilian participation in politics, as there will be an elected national parliament and state/regional legislatures. The seven divisions of central Burma are renamed regions and will have legislatures, just as the seven ethnic states will. Twenty-five per cent of the seats in each legislative body are reserved for the military, however, and the president of the country must have a military background.

Even more important, the
tatmadaw
will have the right to manage military affairs without any civilian interference, and the military can take power if they believe that national security is threatened. Moreover, Chapter VII, Article 4 states: ‘The Tatmadaw must play a leading role in safeguarding the Union of Myanmar against all internal and external dangers.’

All the security laws that have been used to arrest political activists in the past will remain valid, and all citizens have a duty to uphold the three national causes: namely, non-disintegration of the union, non-disintegration of national solidarity, and perpetuation of sovereignty.

Many of the ethnic nationalist leaders were strongly dissatisfied with the constitution because no significant powers were devolved to the ethnic states. Although there are separate lists for the legislative powers of the union and the states, states generally only carry out the maintenance work on infrastructure and other projects approved by the union. Burma’s constitution is likely the first in the world in which the state legislatures are specifically assigned responsibility for the prevention and control of agricultural pests and teaching people how to use chemical fertilizers properly.
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To appease some of the smaller ethnic groups and reduce the power of the Shan, one self-administered division for the Wa and four smaller self-administered zones for the Danu, Pa-O, Palaung and Kokang peoples are to be set up. The Naga in Sagaing Division will also have a self-administered zone. Yet the local governments in these areas will also have
tatmadaw
representation and will lack any real independent power.

In the ethnic states, the ceasefire groups came under pressure to support the referendum and begin preparing to set up political parties to run in the 2010 election. For some of the ceasefire groups, deciding what to do was not easy. They had not gained any rights but they were also not in a strong position to fight the
tatmadaw
again. Some ethnic leaders felt resigned and tried to console themselves with the hope that there would be some space to make changes in the parliament. It is highly unlikely, however, that they will be able to change much as all amendments to the constitution must be passed by more than 75 per cent of the MPs.

Cyclone Nargis

On 2 and 3 May 2008, Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma’s low-lying Irrawaddy Delta and Rangoon Division with 160kph winds and pouring rain. The accompanying storm surge, a huge wave caused by the cyclone, was estimated to be 3.5 metres high. Villagers clung on to roofs, house
posts and trees in an attempt to secure themselves, but tens of thousands of people were dragged out to sea, never to return again. Many survivors reported watching their family members pulled away by the retreating wall of water and being unable to save them. They are haunted by the horror, guilt and pain of the losses they suffered.

According to the military regime’s statistics, over 130,000 people were confirmed dead or could not be accounted for. Whole villages were erased from the landscape, bridges and roads were washed out, and human and animal corpses were piled up in stagnant water. Fields were inundated with salty water, and fishing boats smashed. More than two million people were badly affected by the cyclone and were desperate for food, clothing, clean water and shelter. Reaching all the affected people, many of whom could only be accessed by boat or helicopter, and helping them rebuild their lives, would be a daunting task for any government.

While foreign governments and relief organizations were eager to help, the regime was determined to handle the relief and recovery work on its own terms. Despite lacking the capacity to respond effectively to a disaster of such magnitude, the regime initially denied visas to foreign relief workers and refused the assistance of US and French naval ships, which were prepared to bring large amounts of aid directly to the delta area. In the first week after the cyclone, General Than Shwe did not answer UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s phone calls.
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He only made his first visit to a cyclone-affected area two weeks after the cyclone hit.
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Meanwhile, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, was so perplexed by the regime’s intransigence that he asked the UN Security Council to consider using the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ mandate – originally meant for the protection of civilians in civil wars. The Security Council could, for instance, pass a resolution ordering Burma to accept foreign assistance and foreign aid workers, and if it didn’t comply, perhaps authorize air drops of relief supplies.
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Several countries on the UN Security Council opposed this idea, but the regime was unnerved by the proposal. Than Shwe finally allowed Ban Ki-moon to make a visit and agreed to permit large numbers of foreign aid workers to enter the country. ASEAN played a role in persuading the regime to open up and, together with the UN and the authorities, coordinated the initial international relief efforts.

Why was the regime so recalcitrant? It viewed the pouring in of hundreds of foreign relief workers from numerous different countries and organizations as a potential security threat. The relief workers might use the cyclone relief and rehabilitation effort as a way to get into Burma
so they could engage in other activities. The top generals also did not want to be seen as doing less than foreigners, and particularly Western countries, to help Burmese citizens. Indeed, in the days immediately after the cyclone, the generals sought to take credit for the relief supplies by having stickers with their names plastered on to some of the boxes of goods donated by other countries.
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In addition, the regime is used to controlling all major activities and didn’t like the idea of any large organizations operating independently on its territory. Yet the generals were also not prepared to take full financial responsibility, nor did they have enough staff or vehicles available to manage the distribution of the aid. This was partly because their top priority at the time was carrying out the referendum on the new constitution, not helping the cyclone victims. The regime’s solution was to order the heads of large businesses to take on much of the aid distribution, with each company assigned to a specific region in the delta and ordered to work together with local authorities.
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The companies were told that they would be compensated by the regime later.

Just a few days after the cyclone, CDs with images of the devastation and suffering were being sold on the streets of Rangoon. After viewing the images and hearing the reports of starving villagers lining the roads begging for food, many Burmese citizens decided they had to do something. Some Rangoon residents simply bought as much as food they could, loaded up their cars, and drove out of the city to hand over their donations to whomever they found along the way. Others organized into groups to pool resources and move greater quantities of food, clothing and other basic supplies into areas reachable only by boat. Monks and churches from various parts of the country collected donations and provided assistance through their religious networks.

The authorities were somewhat wary of the voluntary networks that took on cyclone relief work. As with the international organizations, they worried that such independent organizing might lead to more politically motivated activities in the future, and they felt that it made the government look bad if it couldn’t handle the work itself. The voluntary groups did not always have official permission to carry out their activities, and some groups faced difficulties at checkpoints set up along the roads. Authorities were reluctant to let them pass for fear of punishment from above, although the presentation of ‘gifts’ often helped smooth the way. Despite these difficulties, ordinary people joined in, because they felt such sympathy for their fellow citizens.

After a few weeks, the regime announced that it was time for all the
refugees in monasteries and temporary shelters to return home and start rebuilding their houses and planting their fields. The problem was that many survivors had no materials with which to rebuild their houses, there was often little or no food or clean water in the villages, and their fields were still inundated with salt water.

Although foreign aid workers now had access to the delta, it was difficult to move goods out to the scattered villages, a number of which could be reached only by long rides in small boats. Many of the foreign aid workers were also struck by how little infrastructure had been in place previously. Outside the towns, there were no phones, no electricity and almost no healthcare centres. Nevertheless, over the course of a year, international organizations were able to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance and help reconstruct infrastructure.

While the authorities and government-connected organizations did provide relief and reconstruction supplies too, they approached the situation differently from international relief organizations and Burmese voluntary organizations. According to Burmese workers involved in non-governmental relief work, there were a couple of reasons for this.

First, the regime perceived the needs of the cyclone survivors and the responsibility of the government to assist them as far more limited than the relief organizations did. Even though a large percentage of cylone survivors had lost all their food stocks and their seed reserves, the generals originally thought of providing food assistance only in the short term, not for a period of several months or a year. In addition, the generals did not think about the need for specialized care for those suffering from psychological trauma, and particularly for the children who had lost their parents.

Second, the higher-level authorities in general were less concerned about monitoring the distribution of the relief supplies than the relief organizations were. As a result, some lower- and middle-level authorities sold relief goods rather than giving them for free, favoured relatives and friends in the distribution of aid, or did not check to see that religious leaders and headmen in charge of village-level distribution discharged their responsibilities fairly.

The referendum

The referendum went ahead on 10 May for most of the country, and was held on 24 May in forty-seven townships in Rangoon and Irrawaddy Divisions, which had been hit hard by the cyclone. The referendum was conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation and harassment and plenty
of vote-rigging. Many people did not vote either out of apathy or in protest, so in some places the authorities simply voted for them.

Some defiant voters, particularly in the cities and the ethnic states, voted no, but their votes were easily cancelled out. There were plenty of voters who decided to vote yes because they feared punishment if they voted no. Voters had to write their addresses and ID numbers on the ballot, so the authorities would be able to trace how individuals had voted. Others voted yes because they figured that having a partially elected legislature and a constitution might lead to a somewhat better situation than the current one in which the military ruled by decree.

In some government offices and state enterprises, employees had to vote in advance, in front of their bosses. Meanwhile, the authorities used a variety of other techniques to ensure that there were sufficient yes votes. Methods varied from place to place but included being handed pre-marked ballots, having local authorities, USDA officials or
Swan Arr Shin
members closely watching voters, moving the ballot box for no votes to an area surrounded by military officials, and having voters fill out only their addresses and ID numbers and the authorities mark the ballot for them.
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Journalists were not allowed into the polling areas. When the results were announced, citizens were told that 99 per cent of the eligible voters had voted and, of those, 92.4 per cent voted yes.
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Everyone knew that these numbers had little to do with reality, but protesting seemed pointless.