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SPDC: Asia's cruellest conmen



SPDC: Asia's cruellest conmen
by Lu Libra (18-9-99)

   The military socialist regime in Burma survived for 26 years (1962-1988) 
through the aid provided by the so-called Burma Aid Consultative Group 
consisting of Japan, West-Germany, Britain, Canada, France, US, the World 
Bank, IMF and ADB.  Although foreign aid had little or no effect on the lives 
of the people of Burma it enabled the military socialist regime to entrench 
itself in power until 1988.
Suffice it to say that the Burmese military socialist regime simply believed 
that the Group was full of suckers eager to spend their money on Burma.
 
   Thus the Burmese military socialist regime was never left on its own nor 
isolated from potential helpers and donors. It has been and still is able to 
survive through outside help. The Burmese military had given socialism a bad 
name. Now they can't make head or tail of the ideas of democracy and 
capitalist economy they denounced for 26 years. However,
since 18 September 1988 the SLORC/SPDC regime has lingered on through the 
support of communist China, ASEAN and unscrupulous foreign companies.
But providing aid to the Burmese military regime or investing in Burma is 
like "going with a package and parcel to a place where there are thieves."  
(Thakho shi ya wun doap wun poo ne thwar)

   The Indonesian military has spent more than twenty years murdering a third 
of the East Timorese population. When Indonesian army seized East Timor in 
1975 the UN declared the seizure illegal and did nothing.  Indonesian 
colonialism in place of Portuguese imperialism was considered acceptable. 
Western democracies, instead of standing idly by, provided weapons and money 
to the Indonesian authoritarian regime which sent
Muslims to colonise East Timor and oppress its Christian population.

   While Indonesian political elite talked about so-called Asian value, some 
250,000 people, or a third of the 1975 population of East Timor, were 
estimated to have been killed by Indonesian troops, genocide far worse than 
Bosnia or Kosovo. The estimate of the people killed in Burma since the 
military came to power in 1962 could reach millions. To think that this kind 
of army would simple pack up and return to the barracks at the UN's 
insistence is shockingly naive. 

   Recent events in East Timor have proven that what the authoritarian 
governments say cannot be taken literally. The UN spent $50 million to 
educate the East Timorese voters. This could be a model for a country where 
the government places some value on its citizens.  But this is not what 
Indonesian and Burmese military want. Taking a leaf out of
Indonesia's book the SPDC is now playing with the idea of starting its own 
way to their own brand of "democracy" without people's representatives.

   When a civilian government in Jakarta made a stuttering start in 
democratic reform this year and accepted a UN-monitored referendum for East 
Timor, people with a bit of knowledge of the region did not believe that the 
outcome would be peaceful. Because everybody knows that Indonesian army in 
East Timor is as corrupt as Myanmar army in Burma.  Both have killed and 
driven hundreds of thousands of ethnic people out of their ancestral homes 
into neighbouring countries. 

   Cash-starved Burmese troops rely on armed robbery, looting, abduction, 
levy, tribute and demand to fill up their coffers while the SPDC military 
elite try to con foreign companies and governments into believing in what 
they said. For many years they have defied UN authority. They have lost 
hundreds of thousands of soldiers and killed innumerable numbers of civilians 
in civil war and committed atrocities for which war crime is too kind a term. 
But they sincerely believe that the world could be talked into anything. 
Therefore their foreign policy is a play on words.

Lu Libra (18-9-99)