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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.)