Burma Is It Time to Say Goodbye?

By Susan Tifft

When the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party met for a three-day congress in Rangoon late last week, it was expected to focus on long-overdue economic reforms and a housecleaning of the organization's sclerotic bureaucracy. But General Ne Win, the wily strongman who has ruled Burma since 1962, had a surprise in store. In a nationally televised address after the congress convened, Ne Win, 77, offered his resignation as chairman of his insular country's only political party. He also called for a referendum within 60 days on ending the country's single-party government.

The move came after ten months of increasingly violent discontent with Ne Win's regime and with his "Burmese Way to Socialism," a system that has led to economic stagnation, food shortages and dizzying levels of foreign debt. If the resignation offer proves to be more than a ploy, it could mark an ideological sea change in Burma's government and might presage the gradual ! reopening of a country of 38 million people that has determinedly isolated itself for decades from the rest of the world.

That could be a big if. In his speech to more than 1,000 congress delegates at Rangoon's old walled racetrack, Ne Win cited age and poor health as his reasons for offering to resign. He also asked the congress to approve the resignations of five top party leaders, including Party Vice President San Yu, 69, who has served as Burma's President for the past seven years.

The general added that his offer to resign should satisfy those who have taken to the streets -- a reference to protests that reached new peaks in June, when thousands of antigovernment demonstrators marched in Rangoon. Ne Win threatened to call out the army if protesters rallied again. If that happened, he warned, the "army will shoot straight, not up in the air." Said a Western diplomat in Rangoon: "That doesn't sound like a man resigning. That sounds like a man who is very much in control."

Ne Win's authority has rarely been in doubt since he took power as part of an unopposed army coup in 1962. In 1973 his Burmese Way to Socialism became constitutional doctrine when the country officially proclaimed itself a socialist republic. In 1981 Ne Win handed the country's presidency over to San Yu but retained power as party chairman.

In the years since then, the strongman has grown more reclusive and his country more xenophobic -- and poorer. Per capita income stands at only $200 a year, well below that of China and the Philippines. Once the major rice exporter of South Asia, Burma is now barely self-sufficient in that staple. Rangoon is a seedy, decaying city where paint peels on once grand Victorian mansions; a Western visitor to the capital last week found that little had changed in the past five or six years.

One thing that may be different, however, is Burmese willingness to tolerate the stagnation. Demonstrations erupted in September 1987, when the government withdrew most of the national currency from circulation; scores died in recurring clashes. Since June, the country has once again been quiet, but a visitor last week remarked on an atmosphere of "underlying tension." Cautious Burmese listened to Ne Win's resignation speech with "rapt attention," he noted, but reacted with little passion. Said he: "People have adopted a wait-and-see attitude."

With reporting by William Stewart/Hong Kong