Tima Magazine:Cover story on Aung S

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Subject: Tima Magazine:Cover story on Aung San Suu Kyi



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Time Magazine
International Edition
Feb. 28, 1994

Cover story on Aung San Suu Kyi

Cover photo: Color photo Aung San Suu Kyi overlaid on two-tone
green image of Khin Nyunt

Caption: THE LADY AND THE GENERAL:
         Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and Khin Nyunt



Looking for an Exit

A U.S. Congressman's visit brings hope of a dialogue between Aung
San Suu Kyi and the junta.  But while the economy stirs, political
change is unlikely soon.

by James Walsh


The commuter traffic along Rangoon's University Road was flowing
much as usual one morning last week when events very much out of
the ordinary occurred.  At 9, a truckload of photographers and TV
cameramen for the state-controlled media pulled up at the gates of
No. 54, an address exuding an almost visible aura of taboo.  By the
time a convoy of four government cars swung into the compound an
hour later, a cluster of watchful Japanese and American journalists
had materialized across the street.  So sensational was this
presence at a house under the strictest of official anathemas that
curious motorists slowed to a near halt.

By evening the capital was abuzz with speculation: "The Lady," as
No. 54's resident is called by sympathizers who fear to speak her
name, might be released from house arrest shortly.  As it turned
out, that notion was decidedly premature.  What had happened was an
extraordinary but far from conclusive visit by a U.S. Congressman,
accompanied by a U.N. representative, to Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1992
Nobel Peace laureate and the world's most famous prisoner of
conscience.  The meeting did produce suggestions that a dialogue
might result between Suu Kyi and Burma's military junta.  Even if
the regime is more self-confident lately, though, it still regards
real political compromise as a traffic stopper for Burma' higher-
octane economy.  Of the possible dialogue, a sidewalk vender
scoffed, "It sounds good, but it will come to nothing."

In her discussion with Congressman Bill Richardson, who had been
pressing for the visit since last August, Suu Kyi seemed to
entertain no illusions about a miraculous meeting of minds.  A
petite woman whose voice alone has galvanized the resources of a
police state against her, she reaffirmed to her visitor that she
would not accept freedom on the junta's condition of quiet
departure from her homeland.  According to an account by New York
Times correspondent Philip Shenon, who accompanied Richardson at
Suu Kyi's special request, the 48 year old democracy champion
remarked, "The concept of driving people out of their own country
is totally unacceptable to me."  Still, she held out the
possibility of negotiating all other issues dividing her and LTG
Khin Nyunt, the junta strongman she has met only once, during her
mother's funeral.

Richardson, a roughhewn New Mexico Democrat of polished political
instincts, professed to see some room for accommodation.  He said
Khin Nyunt, the former military chief who is no "unquestionably the
one who calls the shots here," has "a good mind, political savvy,
and hi is intellectual for a military leader."  But whether
"Secretary One," as the regime's first among equals in commonly
called, would bow to Washington's insistence on Suu Kyi's
unconditional release seemed doubtful.

Richardson's rendezvous was nonetheless dramatic.  Until last week,
Suu Kyi's sole visitors, aside from a junta-assigned lieutenant
colonel known as "the baby sitter," had been her British husband,
Tibet scholar Michael Aris, and two sons, who have flown in from
England under only occasional privileges.  The visitation rights
granted to Richardson may have been intended to head off any
condemnation of Burma that the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights may consider when it meets this week in Geneva.  Chiefly,
though, Rangoon seemed to be angling for a Vietnam-style
breakthrough in the U.S., the keystone in an international wall of
disapproval that has dammed up aid and discouraged investments
since 1988.

"Geneva is a factor, but not the main factor," a foreign diplomat
in Rangoon acknowledged.  The large goal is some degree of
relenting by Washington that would uncork Japanese aid to Burma,
along with credits and loans from multilateral financial
institutions like the World Bank.  What could Suu Kyi win in
return?  A source close to the talks said the government "wants her
to leave ten country for five years, after which it would allow her
to come back."  Short of expulsion, an insider calculated, the
authorities at best may let her go free as "a political leader but
not a candidate," that is, some sort of party figurehead who does
not run for office.

Genuine democracy, in short, is still not on the general's agenda. 
What they are avidly touting is market reforms, which in the past
two years have begun to lift one of Asia's most resource-rich
countries out of a quarter-century of impoverished socialism.  The
junta--which calls itself the State Law and Order Restoration
Council, or SLORC, and which wants the world to call its land
Myanmar instead of Burma-has also managed to outmaneuver some of
the most important of a dozen decades-old guerilla movements among
ethnic minorities along the borders.  With these achievements in
hand, SLORC appears now to be waging a charm offensive against its
heavyweight critics overseas.

The task will not be easy, as Richardson acknowledged.  While a
promising sign, the Congressman said, his visit "should not be
construed as sufficient, for instance, for the United States to
change its policy.  We need to see deeds, not just words.  Many of
SLORC's deeds to date have been distinctly ugly.  Having seized
power in 1988 amid a bloodbath--solders killed at least 3,000 pro-
democracy demonstrators--it proceeded to allow free elections in
1990 but annulled the results after a landslide victory by Suu
Kyi's democrats.  The regime jailed many of the winners, force
other democracy campaigners to flee into exile and carried out
brutal warfare against frontier minorities.

On the credit side, the junta's selling point is an economy that
grew at 10.9% in the fiscal year that ended last March, according
to official figures.  Foreign investments have entered in a
gingerly way, most of them focused on the extraction of fish,
timber, gems, oil and gas.  Even the consumer market has picked up
noticeably.  New cars cruise Rangoon, formerly a somber grid of
dilapidated buildings and nearly empty road.  Shots and street-
market stalls whose shelves were bare a few years ago are laden
with imported goods, most of them courtesy of recently legalized
border trade with Thailand and China.

"You can get everything in Rangoon now if you have the money," says
an American company manager who has braved the obloquy to set up
shop in Burma.  Says Set Muang, an economist who was called out of
retirement to serve sa the regime's financial adviser: "We have
created a miracle in just a short period of years.  If this were
really a democratic government, there would have been so much
bickering.  A certain amount of authoritarian rule is beneficial to
economic development.  Look at Singapore and Taiwan."

But Singapore and Taiwan have not created 300,000 refugees and
political exiles.  Nor have they uprooted whole civilian
settlements from border regions and forced the inhabitants to build
roads.  Most important, each of their economies is an outstanding
success, not an invalid that has regained partial use of its legs.

Real lift off for Burma would require a full-scale upgrading of the
country's primitive infrastructure, its roads, railways, ports and
communications.  Loans and credits for such projects in turn depend
in large measure on how SLORC treats its highest-profile political
prisoner.

The daughter of Aung San, the martyred hero of Burma's
independence, Suu Kyi was arrested in July 1989 amid her outspoken
denunciations of Ne Win, the former dictator.  For 4-1/2 years she
has been a solitary prisoner in her villa on the shores of Inya
Lake.  Up to a few weeks ago, soldiers were posted forbiddingly in
plain sight around the home.  Shuttered against the tropical sun,
the house last week remained under the discreet scrutiny of
plainclothes guards lurking behind trees.

Richardson made two shuttles between the University Road compound
and the Defense Ministry offices of Khin Nyunt in an effort to
gauge what latitude each side might offer in bargaining.  It did
not seem to be great, especially in any face-to-face dialogue. 
Noted a young doctor who co-owns on of Rangoon's several new
private clinics: "Between a strong acid and a strong base, you need
a buffer."

For a moment, at least, Richardson filled that role.  A member of
the U.S. House of Representatives Select Intelligence Committee, he
visited Burma for the first time five months ago to witness a much
vaunted burning of two tons of seized Golden Triangle heroin.  He
made a special point of asking Khin Nyunt and colleagues to see Suu
Kyi.  The Congressman recalled last week, "I pushed very hard, and
they said if I come back they might let me."

According to a knowledgeable source in Rangoon, the straight-
talking American "engaged Khun Nyunt more successfully than
others."  As deputy majority whip in the House, Richardson was also
valued for his access to President Bill Clinton, who has been under
pressure from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to resume crop-
substitution aid to Rangoon.  Golden Triangle poppies grown partly
along Burma' lawless northern frontier account today for an
estimated 60% of the American heroin market.  If a direct dialogue
between SLORC and Suu Kyi comes about, U.S. drug-control money
appears likely to be the first reward Clinton would offer.

Another might be the appointment of a U.S. ambassador to a post
that has been left vacant since former envoy Burton Levin retired
in 1990.  Richardson, who conveyed a strongly supportive personal
letter from Clinton to Suu Kyi, hinted in Bangkok , that the start
of any authentic, sustained dialogue between her and the regime
will represent progress.  "I believe  that it will be a positive
gesture that would require some American response," he said.  Japan
especially has been agitating for a U.S. signals that would enable
Tokyo to resume development aid without a loud chorus of censure. 
Some Burma watchers in Washington think the five-month delay after
Richardson's August request to see Suu Kyi was strategic.  In their
view, SLORC has already mapped out its next few moves.

One possible gesture could be an invitation to Yozo Yokota, a
Japanese rapporteur for the U.N. Human Rights Commission to follow
up Richardson's visit to University Road.  Such a further
demonstration of openness would give heart not only to Japanese
investors but also to U.S. companies like UNOCAL, Amoco and Pepsi-
Cola, which have faced recent shareholder resolutions calling on
them to end their Burma ventures.  The White House wants to sustain
human-rights pressures but suspects it may not be able to hold
together a global united front.  Says a U.S. expert on Burma: "The
Chinese and Thais are not going to play, and the Japanese are
getting restive, so I don't think coalition building has much
potential."

Burmese authorities have hinted at one possible break for Suu Kyi,
whose detention could be extended by law for one more year after
the expiration of her current term this July.  The option of
freeing her this year could be a useful bargaining chip in whatever
U.S.-monitored talks come about. Chief Justice Aung Toe pointed out
to Time last week that the right existed to appeal a sustained
detention and arrest order to the Supreme Court.

Would such moves simply be cosmetic?  The junta of late has proved
to be noticeably more subtle and astute than the ham-fisted crowd
of generals who first usurped power in 1988.  Those ill-educated
field officers were led for a time by Senior General Saw Muang, who
came to liken himself to the gilded Burmese kings of old.  Saw
Muang was pensioned off on official grounds of ill-health in April
1992 and succeeded by smother Defense Academy graduates.  Asian
diplomats are inclined to be more sympathetic than Western
governments to this new SLORC.  An envoy from a neighboring country
observes of Suu Kyi's verbal assaults on the aged Ne Win that "in
Asia, you don't do things that way."

Well, maybe not in some parts of Asia.  Indian democracy has been
rife with all manner of political vituperation against leaders for
nearly 50 years.  The new democracies of Taiwan and South Korea
also feature the boldest of exchanges, and their systems are not
heading off the rails.  Burma's economic liberalizations, moreover,
are not entirely as adventurous as they have been advertised. 
Foreign companies must still do business with the SLORC-controlled
Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings.  May of the businesses that
generate bug returns in foreign exchange-oil and gas, notably, as
well as gems and timber-remain "reserved" state sectors.  Even
officially deregulated markets are often dominated by well-wired
military men in the guide of entrepreneurs.

Politics, in other words, is hardly the only field over which SLORC
fears losing control.  An Asian diplomat admits,"every regional
commander wants his own joint venture, and most private industries
want the government to remain involved in business because it's
easier to get things done that way."  More than five years after
the Bloody September, Burmese who had pushed for democracy no
longer hold out great hopes for real change.  Most seem to be
settling for small measure of economic freedom.

A cabdriver in Rangoon remarked last week, "I don't care anymore
whether it's socialism or democracy.  All I care about is a job." 
A young entrepreneur explained, "There's an old Burmese saying, 
'water flows, fish follow.'  That sums up the mood of businessmen
who have learned to survive in any political situation."  A
university student who took part in the 1988 protests now sells
real estate in his spare time.  "All we do is study and do
business," he says, "because we can't do anything about politics
anyway."

One thing the junta has done about politics has been to hold a
national convention on the grounds of the old British racetrack in
Rangoon.  The 695 SLORC-approved delegates are broadly
representative of regions and minorities but march in lockstep all
the same."  "Recommendations" to the assembly from Chief Justice
Aung Toe call for a strong President who would be "supreme" but
nonetheless under the military's ultimate authority.  The 286,000
strong armed forces would also get their own chamber in a three-
part legislature.  The qualifications for President?  In Aung Toe's
words, "It is most necessary that this person, parens, spouse,
children and their spouses do not owe allegiance to foreign power."

In short, no Suu Kyi, whose husband and sons are British and who
lived in Oxford for many years.  The Lady last week called the
convention a "sham" and a "farce."  To ethnic peoples like the
Karen, whom SLORC has isolated by persuading Thailand to cut off
their support bases, even the prospective dialogue with Suu Kyi
looks like a show.  Said Arthur Shwe, vice-secretary fm foreign
affairs for the Karen National Union: "I don't know whether it's
useful for Burma or the people, but it's useful for SLORC."

After he left the country, Richardson read a message from the
University Road prisoner to her compatriots: "Be courageous, and
democracy will win."  In the privacy of their homes, shops and
vehicles, many Burmese still harbor at least a flicker of hope for
that cause.  A shopkeeper exclaimed,, "Aung San Suu Kyi! She is the
only one who is not afraid!  She has no gun, only her mouth to
fight 300,000 soldiers."  Of his own lack of courage, he added, "I
am ashamed."  Perhaps if the economy continues to pick up, a
measure of true political liberalization will follow, as Burma's
near neighbors hope.  In the short term, though, the traffic going
by Inya Lake is not likely to stop soon for a Lady re-emerging
under the Burmese sun.

Reported by Sandra Burton/Rangoon, J.F.O. McAllister/Washington and
Grant Peck/Bangkok.