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EDITORIAL OPINION-Burma has little
- Subject: EDITORIAL OPINION-Burma has little
- From: BurmaJapan@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 13:13:00
EDITORIAL OPINION-Burma has little enough to celebrate
Sunday 4th of January, Bangkok Post
Fifty years of
"independence"
would appear to
have given the
Burmese people
precious little to be
grateful for, and even
less reason for
optimism. Rather
than any sense of
growing
enlightenment, the
anniversary brings
only gloom.
Bedeviled by internal dissent,
scorned by the international
community, strapped for cash,
Burma has little if anything to
celebrate today, the 50th
anniversary of its
independence.
India and Pakistan, though
politically at sea and leery of
each other's intentions
regarding Kashmir, could at
least justify their own
independence day fireworks
earlier this year. Both were
rapidly becoming hefty players
in the beleaguered Asian
money markets and both had
played generous if not
altogether charming hosts to
Britain's Queen Elizabeth.
Burma may have to settle for a
hand-held sparkler. At least it
found a rather bewildering role
to play this year in the
Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, although the European
Union's door still remains
locked to Burma and Burma
alone.
The generals of the State
Peace and Development
Council will no doubt claim
much more as the banners
flutter aloft today.
They will point out that
reconciliatory negotiations
began this year with the
opposition National League for
Democracy. They will not
mention that those talks came
to an abrupt halt as soon as it
became clear to the League
that its leader, Aung San Suu
Kyi, remained persona non
grata to the powers-that-be.
The generals will note that
government corruption was all
but wiped out with November's
cabinet reshuffle under the
regime's new title. They will not
acknowledge that a State Law
and Order Restoration Council
is by any other name still a
"Slorc".
Nor will they concede that the
only corruption the world really
cares about when it comes to
Burma is that of its iron-fisted,
morally bankrupt rulers who
refuse to grant their people
basic human rights, and in fact
repeatedly cheat their citizens
out of their rights.
Nor will they address the
fundamental error in recent
Burmese history: denial of the
NLD's overwhelming victory in
the 1991 election and the
subsequent imprisonment of
Suu Kyi and other leading
"dissidents".
Nor will the generals discuss
the fundamental irony in recent
Burmese history: that Suu Kyi,
the Nobel Peace Prize winner
who remains under virtual
house arrest, is the daughter of
Aung San, the late national
hero whose efforts 50 years
ago produced exactly the
reason for today's
commemoration.
Ever since Ne Win grabbed
power in 1962, the armed
forces have been the key to
maintaining law and order. The
world was a different place
then; the military's continuing
dominance is an anachronism
today.
Celebrate independence? How
does one celebrate freedom
while in chains? Suu Kyi cannot
move about without
harassment; she is truly in
chains. The Burmese people
have seen their currency vanish
and foreign reserves dry up;
they are enslaved to the
government's ideology of
desperation. The country will
not be admitted to other
international cooperative
ventures anytime soon; it is
enchained to old ways and
diehard regimentalism.
"As I see it," one
Burma-watcher told AFP this
week, "things have for better or
worse sedimented into a
situation reminiscent of
pre-1988 ... empty bellies,
empty state coffers and moral
degradation."