01 October 2007

What's in a Name?


Senior General Than Shwe

It is quiet in Rangoon today. Troops are in the streets, and the golden pagodas are open under watchful eyes. “Quiet” is not quite the right word for it, though. A hundred thousand people were in the streets last week, and there are many more dead than the official count that the government announced, including four journalists.

There is even a uTube clip of a Japanese photographer being shot and killed, which is fanning old fires of resentment. So the relative calm may be quiet, but it needs another name that includes equal components of unease, and wariness. I'm sure the Burmese have one.

The Burmese do not have surnames; each person has his or her own individual name, of course, but Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has prefixed her father's name to hers to make the relationship crystal clear. The generals don't like it, and have done everything in their power to discredit her.

The Junta has a regular party line on who the evil-doers really are. They assert that it was elements of British Intelligence who were behind the murder of The Lady's father, along with seven of his prospective cabinet ministers in 1947. They point to the marriage of The Lady to an Englishman conclusively proves that she is somehow part of a plot by the former colonial power to repress the Burman people.

The military propaganda machine charges that The Lady's marriage to Michael Aris diluted the purity of the race, though that claim must perplex the ethnic Shan and Karen people, who feel they have been systematically oppressed by the Junta, who are largely Burman in ethnicity.

We had a letter from Mr. Aris to the SLORC, pleading for a visa so that he could visit his wife, who was sequestered in her compound under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. She had been under arrest since her party won the elections in 1988. The Generals refused to grant him one, even though he had some health problems, which the letter clearly delineated.

Mr. Aris passed away last year. He never got a chance to see The Lady again. There is so much sadness in her story, and so much sacrifice. We made a call on Vice Admiral Maung Maung Khin to plead the case for her liberty. He was Deputy Prime Minister for foreign affairs at the time, and reputedly one of the reasonable members of the SLORC. The Congressman tried to reason with him in the reception room at the old colonial building that morning, and although there were several smiles from the Admiral in his white uniform, there was nothing at all like a conversation.

The Admiral seemed to be genuinely surprised when the Congressman got up and abruptly left the room, the rest of us trailing along in confusion.

There is a long tradition of that in dealing with the military leadership. The UN dispatched Mr. Ibrahim Gambari again to reason with the Junta this weekend. He has made no progress in several visits, and got no further than we did, though he actually was permitted to spend some time with The Lady. The Generals gave him an hour of her time, which is precisely an hour more than we got.

She had returned to Rangoon from London in 1988 to care for her ailing mother, though I suspect she had more on her mind at the time. Her mom passed away in December of that year, even as The Lady's political party was winning the only free elections the SLORC was foolish enough to permit. The cancellation of the results was an embarrassment, though there is a different Burmese name for it.

The Lady was placed under house arrest after the rioting that followed the decision, and she had been there ever since.   

The SLORC would have been happy for her to leave town and join Michael back in London. They made the offer several times- if she would just agree to leave, they would permit her to do so, no problems.

Of course, if she departed, she would not be coming back. Michael died last year, and The Lady never saw her husband again. That should give an indication of the level of her determination.

After the meeting, Mr. Gambari had to take a plane up to the administrative capital, Naypyidaw, two hundred miles north of Rangoon, to meet the government. He could have taken the train, but that only leaves twice a day from the old Colonial station. It takes around nine hours to make the trip, and on his timeline there was no way to accommodate that.

When he got to Naypyidaw he did not get to meet Senior General Than Shwe, and had to be content with an audience with some of the Deputy Prime Ministers. It is not surprising, considering that rumors are flying that the General and his family fled the country last week. There has been talk for years of his failing health, and the current crisis may reflect a consolidation of power in a new and implacable Junta.

Of course, it could also mean something is going to change.

It is hard to say, though Mr. Gambari got the same treatment we did, though the impact of the Congressman's visit was to get The Lady sprung from her compound for a few months. She could not leave the country, which had the practical effect of making her prison cell a little larger.

The Generals said her five-year sentence was up, and the visit had nothing to do with it. When she became inconvenient again, they forced her back into her house in 1996. She has been there ever since. I don't know what the Burmese name for inconvenient might be.

Back then, we did not have to take the train north to see the government, since the new capital did not exist. The SLORC Junta has renamed itself the “State Peace and Development Council,” and built itself a whole new complex for the ministries and the defense establishment starting only two years ago. The government was literally air-dropped into a field near the village of Pyinmana, which is strategically located adjacent to the homeland of the Karen people to the east, and the Shan to the north. The move was made official on November 6, 2005, at a time and date apparently chosen by an astrologer close to Than Shwe,

The military is comfortable with the location. Access is tightly controlled. There are no students and no monks. It also has an association with the glorious past of the Burmese military establishment; Pyinmana was the base of Aung San's Pro-Japanese Burma Independence Army, which was later renamed the Burma Defense Army, a puppet force of the invaders.

The decision to double-cross the Japanese invaders and support the returning British under Field Marshal Slim is viewed as a great victory by the military. The official celebration does not reference that decision by Aung San in late March of 1945. Instead the uprising against the invaders is called “Armed Forces Day,” which is every bit as significant as the changing of the name of the old capital, and inventing the new one.

The sprawling empty town is now called Naypyidaw, which means "Royal City" in Burmese. It can also be translated as "abode of kings," if you are inclined that way.

The vast concrete parade ground for military ceremonies is overlooked by three enormous statues of ancient Burmese Kings.

Officially, the Generals will tell you that Rangoon was too congested and there was no room for the government to grow. Practically, the remoteness of the new capital serves to remove any threat to the regime from the people it rules. The new name is intended to confer eternal gravity on the place.

The new capital may outlast the Junta, even if it is inconvenient to get to. There has been a lot invested in the construction, and that is where the ministries are now, even if many of the bureaucrats did not re-locate their families to the wilderness to join them. The whole matter is up to the military, and the only ones who seem to be able to talk to them are the Chinese.

Goodness knows what they will say. The relationship between the Chinese and the Burmese Generals has always been cozy, dating back to the special deal General Ne Win cut with the Communists in 1958. It was all a little complicated, since the Chinese Nationalist 5th Army was still holding the hilltops in northern Shan Province.

In fact, some of them are still there, and active in the opium trade. The sons of the members of the KMT 93rd Division are well entrenched, since an exile this long makes it seem like home. Living in northern Burma and Thailand was preferable to "liberation" at the hands of Mao's Red Army.

The old Chinese army is active in agricultural activities besides the cultivation of poppies. They produce a variety of the ultimate tea, called “oolong.” The name means "black dragon" in Chinese. I don't care much for it, though it is said to have a subtle floral aroma, a complex taste, and an agreeable aftertaste.

The Chinese have the only real levers to pull with the Burmese military, and what happens next will probably pivot on them. The subtle approach probably won't get far with the generals, and this long extended post-colonial affair will have anything but an agreeable aftertaste.

I think the Burmese probably have a name for it, though no one is speaking.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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