select3 : AB99-7 (r)

[publisher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Ladies and gentlemen:
I do hope that you have been following "newsforum.com".
Despite the Balkans, we have managed for the past six weeks to focus on some
issue concerning Burma. It has been our "Issue of the Week" for five of the
lass\t six weeks. Please let me know if you have followed so that I can put
you on a special list. Thanks, Joe Coggins

Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe wrote:

> No.99-7                                           Analytica Burmanie
> THE CENTRAL ISSUE IN BURMA POLITICS: WHO "OWNS" THE STATE?
>
> Unfotunately, we hear a lot of noise, a babble of sound, whenever Burma
> is mentioned -- in newspapers, magazines, TV reports, UN debates, in
> cabinet rooms, at foreign offices, the diplomatic cocktail circuits,
> among jet-set UN do-gooders, or wherever. It does seem that a lot of
> people are fixated with a dozen and one pet obsessions, and they all
> skirt, or rather cleverly, even brilliantly, prance around the central
> issue in Burma politics.
>    The central issue in Burma politics boils down to one single point:
> who "owns" the state, and therefore possesses the right to exercise power
> and shape the fate of people living in Burma?
>    Since 1962, the military -- just one element of the state --
> "captured" the state, and it has since monopolized power. It has used
> this power to enrich generals and top officers (and their cronies,
> family, relatives, et al). And worse than that, men in uniform have --
> with TOTAL IMPUNITY and IMMUNITY -- raped, murdered, tortured, imprisoned
> without cause or fair trials, pillaged, looted, burned, exploited,
> extorted, moved people forcibly like cattle and sheeps, and so on.
>    The unusual, or most sickening way the military and ruling generals
> have used power has however been ignored, or not properly focused on by
> the international community, various pundits, policy makers, and UN civil
> servants (jet-setting all over the place, conferencing in luxurious
> settings).
>    It is as if the way power has been used (or rather criminally misused
> and abused) by ruling generals and lawless men in uniform is the norm, or
> something small, so insignificant, that should be overlooked, with winks
> and sly nudges, by wise and knowing men and women of the world.
>    The struggle in Burma -- over 30 years -- is the struggle of the
> people to cure the country of the military cancer. The struggle is about
> taking the state away from uniformed killers, babdits, rapists.
>    Yet, well-fed, well-dressed, safe and secure, worldly-wise men and
> women of the world do not seem to get it. Instead, they talk, with long
> faces, about the "humanitarian crisis" in Burma, about how different
> Asian (and Burmese) values are, or about personalities -- Ne Win, Suu
> Kyi, Michael, Khin Nyunt, and so on, as if politics in Burma is a TV
> drama. Some even scream of not having electricity in Rangoon (how
> inconvenient), shake their heads and talk about the necessity for
> economic development and investment (as if investment is charity, purely
> for the benefit of the Burmese people, to uplift them, poor things).
>    The Rangoon generals and their uniformed goons are not about to give
> up the state and power vested in it -- it is so pleasurable to be able to
> do what one pleases with the lives of the people, their property, land,
> houses and homes, their bodies (and labor), and their daughters, wives,
> sweethearts. Why would those reaping the benefits of lawlessness, backed
> by guns and bayonets wish, to return to the barracks? They may be
> intellectually challenged, but they are certainly not that stupid.
>    The entrenchment, at gunpoint, of the military within the state is,
> unfortunately, not a matter that the worldly-wise wishes to address, or
> even acknowledge (it is too uncomfortable, bad for digestion). It is so
> horrible, so exhausting. Let the Burmese deal with it as best as they
> can, seems to be the consensus. It is their nightmare, not ours.
>    Yet, truth to tell, the people are not allowed to deal with the
> nightmare. They are, rather, urged to fight bayonets, tanks, mortar and
> artillery shells with their bare hands, with only their voice, with ink,
> and with chests bared.
>    The international consensus is "no violence" -- not even in
> self-defence, not even if you are evicted at gunpoint from your homes,
> your women raped and killed, your children orphaned or slaughtered.
>    It is time perhaps for the U.N. to pass a meaningful resolution on
> Burma, a resolution which says, clearly and loudly, that the people of
> Burma have an unequivocable right to defend themselves, their property,
> livelihood, their family and children, and their women. How about it?
>    A U.N. resolution firmly recognizing the right of the people of Burma
> to defend themselves might do more for Burma than nintendo bombs and
> missles, stealth bombers, and F-16s -- not that their deployment
> vis-a-vis Burma, is even remotely contemplated by anyone.
>
> Analytica Birmanie
> 25 March 1999
> ----------------------