Monday, Nov. 21, 1988
Burma "A Nakedly Military Government"
By JAY BRANEGAN RANGOON
In Rangoon, one of Southeast Asia's more dilapidated capitals, workmen are busily scrubbing years of grime from the curbstones. Newly painted red-and- white pavement glistens, and gardeners are trimming shrubs in Maha Bandoola Park, next to the Sule Pagoda. All that effort by Burma's seven-week-old military government is part of an official campaign to "Keep Rangoon Pleasant." The cleanup is an attempt to polish the military's tarnished image -- and that has doomed it from the start. "They think we will like them if they clean up the city," says a shop clerk on Merchant Street. "We will never forget or forgive what they have done."
The military leadership is almost universally despised since its ruthless suppression of what became known, in a variation on Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring, as the "Rangoon Fall." Western diplomats estimate that troops killed some 2,000 unarmed civilians in street clashes following the takeover by General Saw Maung, who took power in a coup last September. Since then, more students and other protesters have been arrested or shot. Government employees deemed sympathetic to the democracy movement are being purged from their jobs. Troops are everywhere, even in the compound of the Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's holiest shrine. "They have stripped away the pseudosocialist camouflage that ((former President)) Ne Win put over the army in the 1970s," says a Western observer in Rangoon. "It has always been a military government. Now it's a nakedly military government."
Under the guns, Rangoon is returning to normal, at least on the surface. Stores are open, tea shops are busy, and hopelessly overcrowded buses lumber unsteadily through the streets. But the mood is sullen. "We are like a dormant volcano: calm on the outside, boiling inside," says a government worker. A group of monks has circulated a leaflet calling for a peaceful protest this week unless the generals set up an interim civilian government, and there were reports that some monks had been arrested. A 9-p.m.-to-4-a.m. curfew is strictly enforced. Prices have risen by 100% or more on most goods. Gasoline is in short supply; filling stations are under armed guard, and buses are checked by soldiers to keep the drivers from selling their fuel ration on the black market.
While maintaining a choke hold on the country, the government talks up economic reform and democratic elections, as yet unscheduled but expected to be held in February or March. Newspapers are filled with announcements, widely ignored or disbelieved, of new rules encouraging private enterprise and foreign investment, and Burma is no longer officially termed a socialist republic.
After 26 years of one-party rule, new political groups have been forming at an astonishing rate: as of last week, more than 100 were registered. Volunteers compile membership lists, sell buttons and recruit organizers, even though the government harasses and sometimes detains lower-level party workers. The most prominent party, the National League for Democracy, which claims a membership of 450,000, is a coalition of convenience for three of the best-known opposition figures: former Generals Aung Gyi and Tin Oo, and the highly popular Aung San Suu Kyi, the British-educated daughter of independence hero Aung San.
While some of the students who participated in the Rangoon Fall demonstrations have gone underground, others have formed political organizations. Foremost among them is the Democratic Party for New Society, which says it has 100,000 members. Former Prime Minister U Nu, ousted by Ne Win in 1962, has declared a "parallel government," consisting of old officials like himself. Even the former ruling Burma Socialist Program Party has transformed itself into something called the National Unity Party.
Burmese dismiss fears that the profusion of political banners might indicate a dangerously splintered opposition. "By the time of elections, there will be only three or four choices," predicts La Kyo, a leader of the Arakan League for Democracy, one of a score of ethnic minority parties that have sprung into existence. Some alliances have already formed, and interparty cooperation is growing: two weeks ago, for example, 43 parties sent a petition to the military, demanding formation of an interim government.
Despite the activity, few believe that in the end the military will allow truly free elections; preparing for that possibility, the opposition parties say they will not take part in any balloting under current repressive conditions. "We are trying to change the government without bloodshed," says Moe Thi Zun, 26, head of the Democratic Party for New Society. "If the government won't accept that, we will have to try something else, but we will not retreat."
There is a widespread conviction that the regime cannot survive for long -- at best until the rice harvest early next year. The government has virtually no foreign reserves. Exports have almost vanished. Western governments and Japan have cut off all their assistance, which is necessary to supply the military and maintain the decrepit industrial plant, while ethnic insurgents are applying pressure along the borders. "Logically, the government cannot hold on," says a young Burmese intellectual. "Unfortunately, there's not much logic in this government."