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The NLD-U.S Joint Exercise (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 27 Sep 1996 04:58:21 -0400
Newsgroups: soc.culture.burma
Subject: The NLD-U.S Joint Exercise



 The NLD - U.S. Joint Exercise


	Not surprisingly, we have again witnessed the Myanmar authorities
preventing the NLD from holding a political congregation in Yangon. Such
an act committed by the Myanmar Government is deemed as undemocratic and
repressive against the opposition party by western standards. Accordingly,
the United States has enacted an act which threatens Myanmar with various
sanctions if the Government of Myanmar has physically harm, rearrest for 
political acts, or exiles Daw Aung San Su Kyi or has committed large-scale
repression of or against the Democratic opposition.

	In spite of the U.S. pressure and threats it is very interesting
to observe the stance the Myanmar Government has taken and it would be of
much interest to Myanmar watchers to learn more about the activities going
on inside Myanmar.

	With this in mind I managed to meet with U San Win, who is a
Myanmar government official and I was quite amazed to learn about the
other side of the story from him which does not get much or any
international media coverage at all. Well, for the benefit of my fellow
readers I would like to print the conversation I had with a Myanmar
Government Official on the current political situation in Yangon.

Mr. J. Miles	Is the Government of Myanmar considered
		to be democratic and what role is the regime playing
		today.
U San Win	The Government of Myanmar is not a democratic
		government and the government itself has never
		mentioned that it is so.In fact, the authorities have
		repeatedly said that they are merely a transitional
		government or a caretaker. The role the State Law
		and order Restoration Council is playing seems to
		be quite obvious if one looks at it with an
		objective perception. The present Myanmar
		Government or S.L.O.R.C. is trying to
		oversee the smooth transition from the
		previous One Party Socialist System with
		Socialist Economy to the Multi Party
		Democratic System with Market Oriented
		Economy.
Mr. J. Miles	Why was there an election in 1990 and why
		was the N.L.D. that won a land slide victory
		not given the power to run the government.
U San Win	A good question, but unfortunately the answer
		to it was never given any serious attention by
		the media or may be they just refuse to accept
		 it for various reasons. Well, let me explain
		some background history of the country
		briefly before coming to the 1990 elections.
		Myanmar previously had (2) constitutions,
		one was drafted before her independence in
		1947 by General Aung San who is the George
		Washington of the country. It was drafted
		hastily under the British rule. Since the British
		had colonized Myanmar for over a hundred
		years and had also successfully implemented
		their divide and rule tactics in the country
		where there exist 135 different ethics groups.
		It was no secret that General Aung San and
		the leaders of various nationalities had to unite
		all the different nationalities and sub
		nationalities to obtain independence from the
		British altogether. In July of 1947 while
		General Aung San and his cabinet were
		holding a meeting a group of assassins
		massacred General Aung San and the future
		leaders of Myanmar leaving the country
		exposed to turmoil and instability. Myanmar
		regained her independence in January 1948
		and from the very beginning of her
		independence she had to face with internal
		rebellion. Then after 10 years later due to the
		weakness in the constitution some of the
		ethnic groups started to work out for secession
		from the Union with the country on the verge
		of disintegration. Consequently, the military came 
		into the scenario with a coup and later on a new 
		constitution was being drafted for the country, the 
		original constitution which was based on the One 
		Party Socialist System with its economy based on 
		Socialist Economy. At the present situation the 
			Military Government has discarded the Socialist
			Constitution and had promised to fulfill the
desire of 			the people by moving towards a Multi Party
Demo			cratic System with Market Oriented Economy. At 
		present the country theoretically has no constitution 
		and the current Military Government is under the 
		obligation to create a new constitution that will be 
		compatible to the political and economic system 
		which the newly elected government shall be 	
		implementing or practising. In order to do this, in 
		1990 the Military Government held a general 	
		election where the winning party was to take the 
		role in drafting the new constitution. Unfortunately, 
		after the election the winning party went back on its 
		words and instead of taking the steps as all the 
		contesting parties had initially agreed upon. It 
		demanded the transfer of the state power and all the 
		unnecessary complications arose as a result of it. 
		Logically, speaking, for any government to run a 
		country there should be a constitution or something 
		similar to it. It cannot be understood how the NLD 
		will run the country without any constitution in a 
			country with (135) different nationalities and 
			subnationalities. Myanmar is quite unique in a
sense 			that it has not only a wide range of different
ethnic 			groups but the geographical 
		location is also very important and delicate. In the 
		drafting of this new constitution the NLD was 
		given the highest number of seats in the National 
		Convention and the process has been in progress 
		for over (3) years already. The Convention has 
		made a lot of progress during these years and it is 
		now working on the important chapter called   
		Power Sharing   Once this main topic has been 
		agreed upon it is assumed that the rest of the 
		chapters can be covered quite quickly. So, to sum 
		it up the Military Government is playing not only 
		the role of a transitional government but also is 
		putting the country on the track to democracy in a 
		systematic step by step manner.

Mr. J. Miles.	Is the situation in Myanmar peaceful and what is 
		your concept on U.S Anti-Narcotics Activities.
U San Win.	The situation in Myanmar is very much peaceful 
		and stable by itself. Especially, with all the 
		successful peace negotiations it had achieved 
		with almost all of the former insurgent groups and 
		more interestingly, after the unconditional 
		surrender of the drug war lord Khun Sa, the 
		Myanmar Government can now tell the world that 
		the method the Military Government had 
		implemented was the best and it actually worked. 
		The best way to prove its success is that the 
		world media have now claimed that Columbia 
		has taken over the heroin market of South East 
		Asia. Statistically speaking, a kilo of heroin at 
		Myanmar-Thai border use to 
		be 100,000 baht ( 4000USD) during April of this 
		year while in September of the same year a kilo of 
		heroin has rose up to 700,000 baht (28000USD) . 
		This is a clear, undeniable indication proving that 
		supply and production has lessen extensively in 
		the Golden Triangle Area. The United States 
		unfortunately has to spend billions of dollars each 
		year in its efforts to eradicate this drug problem 
		but not much success has been achieved yet. While 
		it has not made any progress in this cause seems 
		not so difficult to guess. The US policy on 
		anti-narcotic matters are based too much on 
		theories and superficial solutions. Secondly, the 
		anti-narcotic policy which is of high national 
		importance is overshadowed by the interest of a 
		few politicians who place their interest above the 
		nation s. Of course, this is not to say that the US is 
		not doing anything to get rid of the drugs. In fact 
		the US is spending billions of dollars each year 
		but what I want to stress is that the US policy is 
		like giving a cough medication to a person who 
		had suffered from a gun shot. The US does not 
		have a policy which is pragmatic and realistic 
		instead they are wasting their tax payers money.

Mr. J. Miles	There has been reports coming out on the recent 
		arrest of the NLD elected representatives and 
		other members on the celebration of their 
		foundation day.

U San Win	Yes, some of the NLD elected representatives
		were called in for questioning and it has been 
		learnt that they are now being placed temporarily 
		in various local guest houses before they can be 
		sent back home. Actually, the founding day of the 
		NLD is on the 30th of September but to coincide 
		with the U.N General Assembly and also to 
		coincide with the date the U.S president gives 
		approval for the enactment of the Cohen 
		Amendment Bill the NLD has held its Foundation 
		Day on the 27th of September. Under the pretext 
		of the celebration of the NLD Founding Day, the 
		NLD had planned to hold meetings and mass 
		rallies without obtaining prior permission from 
		the concerning authorities. In Myanmar, there are 
		several political parties and all such activities has 
		to be properly and orderly executed. The 
		Myanmar Government on its part cannot give in to 
		this attempt by NLD to destabilize the current 
		peaceful situation in the country. This is a kind of 
		challenge to the government and also a threat to 
		the peace and stability done with a full knowledge 
		that if the government prevents their activities 
		they will be backed and supported by the U.S 
		Government. But if their challenge went 
		uncountered they will keep pushing until the 
		government is pushed into a corner. Is Daw Su 
		Kyi doing this because she lacks confidence on 
		the NLD and has come to realize that when the 
		election comes the NLD has a slim chance of 
		winning because of the many blunders they have 
		done which the voters have already noticed. Some 
		quarters also say that since she is not eligible to 
		contest in the coming elections as in the previous 
		one, her main aim is to create chaos and problems 
		so that if another unfortunate chaotic incident like 
		the one Myanmar encountered during 1988 arises 
		again. She probably believes that she is in a 
		better position to exploit the incident and who 
		knows, her dream to become a political leader of 
		Myanmar may come true. The Myanmar 
		Government is like any other government, it has 
		the obligation to make certain that the national 
		interest of its people are protected and that no 
		foreign countries can create conditions that are 
		harmful to the people of Myanmar, directly or 
		indirectly through local politicians or 
		organizations.

Mr. J. Miles	What sort of message do you want to convey to 
		the western world especially the United States.

U San Win	I would like very much for the west to look at 
		things in a realistic way. They have been 
		exploiting the word Democracy and Human 
		Rights and have been using it as a pretext to 
		create a government of their choice in Myanmar. 
		If they really wish to deal with countries that are 
		supposed to be Democratic, and values the so 
		called Western Human Rights then is it right for 
		them to have relationship with, to mention a few, 
		Pakistan, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Nigeria, 
		Latin America countries with military 
		governments, Kuwait & Saudi Arabia. The United 
		States has even supported and cooperated with 
		former enemies who still profess communism while 
		Myanmar who have discarded its Socialist System 
		for a Multi-Party Democratic System has been 	
		relentlessly bashed. More importantly, Myanmar as 
		a third world country has further promoted the basic 
		human rights of her country which is (a) Security (b) 
		Food and (c) Shelter. Without fulfilling this basic 
		requirements and to jump over to much advance 
		human rights is like making a toddler run before 
		she even learn how to walk properly. We do not 
		believe in jumping over the required steps at this 
		very early stage when the majority of the rights of 
		the people of Myanmar must be given priority. 
		Please do understand that the west especially the 
		U.S is not a role model for us. There are things 
		which we would like to have in our country but 
		there are many which we do not want to have. We	
	even do not believe that the people in the U.S are 
		enjoying its basic human rights properly. We, in 
		fact feel sorry for the Americans who are living 
		there under these harsh conditions. For example, 
		do the people in the U.S enjoy peace and security. 
		If the answer is yes, are they safe to go out on the 
		streets after dark and do the U.S government 
		guarantee the security of her own people in the 
		United States of America. In Myanmar, the 
		security of its people are guaranteed. Even in big 
		cities, people are safe to go out at anytime of the 
		day and to anyplace they like. Now, let us move 
		on to another very important rights which is food. 
		The U.S is very rich and developed compare to 	
		Myanmar but there are a lot of people starving in 
		U.S which leads to more crime. In Myanmar 	
		nobody starves and crime rate is negligible. Finally 
		lets talk about another basic human requirement 
			called Shelter. We understand that there are many
			homeless people in the U.S. People even freeze to
			death because they have no place to live during
the 
		winter season. In Myanmar, everybody has a 
		place to live and the government has implemented 
		various housing projects for her people of various 
		classes. So, please do not accuse us of breaching 
		human rights just for not allowing freedom of 
		speech or freedom to exercise some political 
		rights. These advanced human rights shall be 
		practised when Myanmar comes into that stage but 
		not before. In conclusion, I would like to say that 
		interfering in Myanmar s internal affairs will not 
		bring democracy to Myanmar but it will only 
		hinder the systematic democratic process that has 
		been successfully taking place. Well, is it 
		practical democracy you want to promote in 
		Myanmar or just to install a candidate with 
		democracy as a pretext.
Mr. J. Miles	Thank you very much for this frank discussion.


(Mr. J. Miles is a former free Lance reporter and he is now doing business
in Hong Kong, Singapore and Yangon.)