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BURMA - The Army Digs in



FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW - September 2, 1999

BURMA
The Army Digs in
Rangoon's neighbours hoped its junta would yield to 'constructive
engagement.' Instead it's gearing up for more repression.

By Bertil Lintner in Bangkok
Issue cover-dated September 2, 1999

Burmese dissidents in exile are predicting that September 9--the
numerologically significant 9-9-99--will be the day the masses in Burma
again rise up against the junta. They base their hopes on a similarly
auspicious date 11 years ago--August 8, 1988--when massive pro-democracy
demonstrations began in Rangoon and spread across the country, until
they
were brutally crushed by the army a month later.
Most political analysts, however, see more tangible signs that precisely
the
opposite will happen: The Burmese opposition has no chance of organizing
any
protests because the rulers in Rangoon have set their face against
dialogue
with their opponents and are tightening their grip on the impoverished
country. Already, the government has rounded up 120 pro-democracy
activists
all over the country in the run-up to September 9, according to a
statement
issued by the underground All-Burma Students' Democratic Front.

But the most unmistakable sign of the junta's intentions is the
expansion of
the armed forces, especially the powerful military-intelligence
apparatus.
In the late 1980s, before the August 8 uprising, Burma's armed forces
totalled about 195,000 men. Today, the number is 450,000, according to
Maung
Aung Myoe, a Burmese researcher completing his doctoral thesis on
Burma's
military at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The army alone now has 422 infantry battalions supported by three
artillery
divisions and one armoured division--more than twice as many as 11 years
ago. The number of military-intelligence battalions, meanwhile, has
increased to 33 from 23 in 1988. The military-intelligence apparatus
also
includes nine special departments, based in Rangoon, that look after
such
areas as foreign relations, information coordination, counter-terrorism
and
strategic planning. In the past decade, the government has bought vast
quantities of military hardware--jet fighters, tanks, anti-aircraft
guns,
artillery pieces, naval patrol boats--mainly from China.

The build-up of all this military muscle contrasts sharply with the
belief
of many governments and multilateral agencies that conciliation and
mediation will persuade Burma's generals to negotiate with its
democrats.
The European Union and the United States insist that diplomatic and
economic
pressure will push the generals to the negotiating table. The
Association of
Southeast Asian Nations argues that "constructive engagement" with the
junta
will work better than sanctions and condemnation. On an August visit to
Rangoon, Australia's human-rights commissioner, Chris Sidoti, even
proposed
that the Burmese government set up its own human-rights body, modelled
after
a commission established in Indonesia in 1993 when the Suharto regime
was
still solidly entrenched.

Diplomats and Burma-watchers in Southeast Asia dismiss these hopes as
pious.
Rangoon's leaders are military men, says an Asian diplomat based in
Bangkok.
"As far as they are concerned, they have won the battle against the
democracy movement and they see no reason why they should give that up
by
accepting some kind of compromise with the opposition. And if there's a
dialogue, it's a dialogue of the deaf, because only the opposition, and
foreigners, are doing the talking. The generals talk only to
themselves."

The junta has acquired increasingly sophisticated means to maintain its
grip
on power. A vital part of its military-intelligence apparatus is the
information department, dubbed the "cyber-warfare centre" by
Burma-watchers.
Western intelligence sources say the centre, located in the Defence
Ministry's compound in Rangoon, is the largest computer facility in
Burma.
According to Desmond Ball, a professor at the ANU and an expert on
signals
intelligence, the centre can intercept all sorts of telephone and fax
messages as well as e-mail and radio communications.

International telecommunications with Burma pass through two satellite
ground stations in Syriam, a town across the river from Rangoon. Robert
Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, says: "Perhaps
two
years ago, a new capability was introduced, allowing Burma's military
intelligence to monitor even satellite phones . . . by using Inmarsat
and
similar direct satellite-telecommunication systems." The equipment,
intelligence sources say, was supplied by a Singapore-based company,
which
is also providing on-site training. Adds an Asian diplomat in Rangoon:
"Since Burma has no external enemies, this build-up is meant for only
one
purpose: to make sure that the military remains in power and that it
would
never again have to face the kind of massive, popular outburst of
anti-government sentiment it did in 1988."

Significantly, many of the 33 military-intelligence battalions are
stationed
in towns and cities in the Burmese heartland, the centre of opposition
to
the regime, rather than in the frontier areas, where ethnic insurgents
were
active for many years but now have been largely defeated or
marginalized.
"Moreover, there are informers in every neighbourhood, every school
compound
and every Buddhist monastery in the country," says a Western
intelligence
source. "This makes it almost impossible even to organize any kind of
political movement, even underground cells."

Even a collapsing economy is not denting the junta's hard line.
Contracted
foreign investment in Burma has fallen to $29.5 million so far this year
from $774 million last year, according to a recent report from a Western
embassy in Rangoon. Inflation is running at 40%, with the consumer price
index for rice--the key staple--up an annualized 60% in February.
According
to the embassy's report, plans for Burmese gas exports to generate
foreign
exchange are foundering: Burma and Thailand can't agree on payment terms
for
supplies from a giant gas project that is being developed off the
Burmese
coast by Total of France and Unocal of the U.S.

But the junta has an answer to the collapse of its experiment with
free-market economics: It's now putting more emphasis on raising
agricultural output than meeting the concerns of foreign investors, the
embassy report says. Foreign businessmen say visas for Burma are now
harder
to get.

The new focus on agriculture seems to be aimed at boosting paddy output
and
achieving self-sufficiency in rice. The generals seem to believe that
food
security, massive intelligence gathering, intense surveillance of the
population, intimidation and arrests will enable them to remain in power
indefinitely. Meanwhile, they pay lip service to outsiders'
overtures--agreeing to "consider" Australia's proposal for a
human-rights
commission, for example--while wishful thinkers continue to look for
signs
of change.