Uprising in Rangoon

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and the fear of the scourge of power those who are subject to it." The person who wrote this is a frail, highly sensitive woman, deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, and who has been under house arrest in Rangoon for the past five years, Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Her fault? Her emergence as Burma's voice of conscience.

It seems that the people of her country, who have repeatedly displayed remarkable courage by peacefully demanding democracy despite being put down each time by a savage ruling military junta, have shed fear once again. Outrage over the junta's announcement on August 15 of a 500 per cent hike in the price of Compressed Natural Gas and of 100 per cent in those of petrol and diesel, about 500 pro-democracy activists demonstrated in Rangoon on August 19. The junta reacted by arresting 150 pro-democracy activists and student leaders. Then the Buddhist monks, who wield enormous influence in the country, joined the protest on August 28.

Events took a significant turn on September 5 when 500 monks marched through the streets of Pakhokku in central Rangoon's Magwe division. The arrest of three monks that day with the help of junta-sponsored organisations Union Solidarity and Development Association and Swan Arrshin enraged the monks who, on the following day, detained several Government officials who had forced their way into the town's monastery complex. They were released in exchange of the three monks arrested the earlier day.

The demonstrations, however, continued and spread to the country's largest city and commercial capital, Rangoon. On September 18, hundreds of monks marched through the city's streets and have been marching since then. The number rose to around 20,000 on September 22 when hundreds of them arrived in front of the house where Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for the last five years. She prayed with them.

In a new development on the following day, 100 Buddhist nuns joined 2,000 of their male counterparts at prayer in Burma's holiest shrine, the Shwedagon Pagoda, and marched with 5,000 of them towards the centre of the town. About 1,000 of them held a prayer vigil outside Aung San Suu Kyi's residence who was prevented from mingling with them by soldiers wielding metal shields.

Monday, September 24, saw two mammoth demonstrations, unprecedented in recent years, and involving an estimated total of 130,000 people, marching through Rangoon. On the following day, another march, estimated to be about 100,000-strong, meandered through the city. So far the demonstrations have been remarkably peaceful. The junta, on its part, has not yet launched the kind of murderous onslaught it did in August 1988. There, however, have been reports of tear gas shells being exploded and shots fired in the air. According to a Xinhua news bulletin on September 25, officials have been patrolling the city and calling upon "unlawful" gatherings to disperse.

Earlier on September 24, Burma's Minister for Religious Affairs, Brigadier-General Thura Mynt Maung, alleged that "external and internal destructive elements" had engineered the recent protest demonstrations by young monks. Stating that the demonstrations would not only undermine the stability of the state but also destroy the image of Burmese monks, he warned that action would be taken against those who did not obey their religious rules.

The junta's unusual restraint in the present instance is attributed to its fear that an attempt to crush the demonstrations by the monks through mass killing, imprisonment and torture, would severely recoil on itself given the enormous influence the men and women in saffron enjoy in a devoutly Buddhist country. The question is: What happens if the demonstrations continue to grow in strength and threaten to turn into a massive upsurge against the junta's rule? The latter will then have to choose between either of two courses - unleash the troops on the monks and nuns and drown their protest movement in a sea of blood or negotiate for a peaceful settlement.

By their march to Aung San Suu Kyi's residence on successive days, the monks have demonstrated their identification with her and her demand for a democratic Burma. The junta's past record shows that it has little time for democracy and even less for Aung San Suu Kyi who it has hounded for the past 18 years, of which she has spent 12 in detention. In this it has consistently defied world opinion, including those aired by the United Nations and the ASEAN. The world, therefore, has every reason to fear the worst, particularly after the junta has deployed troops in the streets and imposed curfew.

In anticipation of a crackdown, US President George W Bush has already announced a slew of fresh sanctions on the junta, including visa restrictions on its leaders. India has remained deafeningly silent, ever since it honoured Aung San Suu Kyi with the Jawaharlal Nehru Award in 1995. This has been attributed to New Delhi's 'Look East' policy launched in 1992 involving, among other things, active economic cooperation with the military regime. The reason, one has been repeatedly told, is realpolitik. If so, then it has been realpolitik of a singularly stupid kind.

Burma has gained not only through economic cooperation but from the respectability and legitimacy that close ties with a genuinely democratic India brings. India has got very little. The junta has not flushed out the north-eastern insurgents, including those belonging to the ULFA, who operate from its soil with impunity. It has also blighted India's hopes of importing gas from the offshore Arakan fields. The right to do so has gone to China.

Worse, India's efforts to ingratiate itself with the junta reflect an old weakness of its foreign policy framers: Their frequent inability to see beyond their noses. At a seminar last year, an Indian diplomat told this writer that Aung San Suu Kyi was a thing of the past. It was clear on September 22 and 23 that this was by no means so. Nor can one take the junta's permanence for granted. For a long time few thought that Mr Nelson Mandela would one day come out of the prison and lead South Africa to democracy and harmony. The same may well happen with Aung San Suu Kyi. What will New Delhi tell her then?

Cat got our tongue? - "Why is the voice of Indian democracy silent about the momentous struggle for liberty and rights in neighbouring Burma? A long suffering people led by their valiant monks have launched a silent, but powerful, movement for the restoration of democracy. But instead of supporting them, we are standing aside. Why are we unwilling to speak out? Why have we suppressed what should be our natural, instinctive, automatic support for democratic struggle anywhere in the world? Because we are scared of the bemedalled generals, of the very men who torment their people, and fear that we may incur their wrath if we express any criticism."

Code Pink of all groups is planning a protest against the Myanmar government. This is outrageous since the oppressive Military regime in Myanmar is a socialist government which is exactly the type of governments Code Pink usually supports.

Myanmar even calls it's government the State Peace and Development Council Office. Yeah, they have a Department of Peace. Will anyone in the media question Code Pink about this? Nope.

"Why is the voice of Indian democracy silent about the momentous struggle for liberty and rights in neighbouring Burma?"

Mostly for the same reasons that the voice of American democracy hasn't done anything substantial to bomb the Saudis into the 21st century... national interests.

China and India share nearly equal lengths of border with Burma. India has a Chinese-sponsored insurgency along this border region. India supported Aung Sang Suu Chi quite prominently after the '88 uprising there. What happened hence? China slept with the ruling junta, established radar watching points in the Coco Islands to keep a watch on Indian naval activity, helped the insurgents establish training camps inside Burmese territory, and worse of all, the powerful states of the world that could do something if they so desired(read the US) did next to nothing.

So what happened next? India realises that the Junta is not going to go away, they need to be cajoled so as to help ward off Chinese influence, and fight the insurgents.

Very, very unfortunately for the average Burmese, it costs them their freedom. Burma has a thousand-to-one chance of being a sustainable democracy than Iraq, yet, the world rolls differently.

“Why is the voice of Indian democracy silent about......”

The government maybe silent but “Indians” are never ever silent. Indian democracy is never silent. Its the most noisy and chaotic democracy in the world. Indians themselves are the most gregarious race on the planet even at time when the issue discussed has nothing to do with them and does not affect them.

Moreover Indians are first to tear apart their own government when they see them doing something as stupid as is currently happening and also when the government actually manages to do things right. Yes there are every shade of opinion except for one ......”silence”.

With America its exactly the opposite. People dont care. The public opinion (or whatever goes by that term) is shaped by the media and the media is actually a propaganda tool. Do we see any criticism of the US government for supporting the junta in Pakistan the most volatile and dangerous part of the world? None, zip, nada, zilch.

Actually the media hails it as a grand success story about how Bush made Pakistan the front line country on the so-called WOT. And there are people all over the US who will buy that line believe it or not.

“Mostly for the same reasons that the voice of American democracy hasn’t done anything substantial to bomb the Saudis into the 21st century... national interests.”

Actually guess what? America has done something very substantial on the issue of Burma......

“U.S. pushes China to use influence over Myanmar”
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN26251953

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