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Asia Times - May 10. 2001.
WHISPERS OF CHANGE Part 1: Yangon rumor mill turns quietly By Lucy Murray YANGON - Something may be stirring in Yangon, Myanmar's crumbling capital.
Since last October, the ruling military junta has been meeting in secret with
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the beleaguered National League for Democracy (NLD).
Myanmar watchers were taken by surprise when Razali Ismail, UN special envoy to
Myanmar, announced news of the talks earlier this year. Frustratingly, since
Ismail's announcement, there has been no further news.
For years there had been little contact between the junta, known as the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), and the NLD. The NLD won the last
election, held in 1990, but the generals refused to implement the result,
instead stepping up efforts to wipe out the party.
Ismail stressed that neither side planned to comment on the talks,
describing them only as a confidence-building measure. The generals - who rarely
talk to the press - are keeping quiet. As for Suu Kyi, she was placed under
house arrest once again last year and even senior diplomats and party members
are unable to visit. As a result, no one really knows what she and the junta's
representative, the powerful General Khin Nyunt, are discussing behind closed
doors. A visiting EU delegation able to meet Suu Kyi in January confirmed that
talks had taken place, but could not shed any light on their content.
Yet despite the news blackout, many in Yangon are optimistic. There have
been some small signs of improvement - the state press has stopped its
vilification of Aung San Suu Kyi, and some 85 NLD members were released from
detention earlier in the year. Talk in Yangon is that further changes are
imminent. One businessman who meets regularly with both sides believes the junta
could announce a change in government as early as this month. Others expect to
hear something by the end of the year.
No one is expecting miracles. The most common scenario being discussed is
that the junta will announce a new government lineup, but will leave extreme
hardliner General Maung Aye, currently vice chairman of the SPDC, in control of
the army. The junta has tried this move before. It attempted to rebrand itself
in late 1997, changing its name to SPDC from the more sinister-sounding State
Law and Order Restoration Council, and reshuffling some government posts.
Critics dismissed those changes as meaningless, since power remained firmly in
the hands of the same top generals. This time there is talk that the NLD may be
allotted some junior posts in the new lineup, perhaps to be followed by
ministerial posts within a year or so.
Allowing the NLD even a small role in government would be a radical
departure. However, in itself it would do little to weaken the junta's grip.
Pessimists fear that the talks with Suu Kyi are simply a sideshow designed to
reduce international pressure without bringing meaningful change. General Khin
Nyunt has already stated that the country will not follow a Western democratic
model. Rather, the junta has hinted that it plans to move slowly toward a fresh
election, one designed to ensure continued military control. A junta-appointed
committee is working on a new constitution that will reserve around one-third of
all parliamentary seats for the armed forces.
The junta is also building up a variety of pro-military parties. Its mass
membership organization, the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA),
now has some 12 million members, or about 35 percent of the adult population.
Sources also confirm that the junta is trying to rejuvenate the National Unity
Party, the pro-military vehicle that lost so badly in 1990.
NLD members fear they would be at a real disadvantage in any future poll.
Many members have been detained and most party offices forced to close. Yet even
critics believe that support for the NLD - and especially for its charismatic
leader - remains strong, perhaps strong enough to deliver another election win.
According to one foreign resident, "people in the countryside don't know the
NLD's policies - but they will vote for Aung San Suu Kyi". Win Gyaw, an urbane
Burmese businessman, agrees: "Support for the USDA is a mirage - it will
evaporate at the polls."
Given that risk, skeptics query why the junta - which has resisted
international pressure for years - should have had a change of heart. Some
suggest that deepening economic problems may have helped push them to the
negotiating table. The currency is plunging and a power crisis has left much of
the country without electricity. Diplomats also suggest that the threat of
intensified sanctions by members of the International Labor Organization, which
censured Myanmar for labor abuses in late 2000, may have shocked the junta into
action.
Some also think that the elderly and ailing General Than Shwe, prime
minister and chairman of the SPDC, wants the talks to succeed - if only because
he hopes to secure a peaceful retirement, free from the threat of mass uprisings
and war crimes tribunals. His shrewd ally, General Khin Nyunt, may hope that by
leading the talks, he can secure a place for himself in any new political order
that eventually emerges.
Yet many among the military remain strongly opposed to even modest
political change. General Maung Aye, according to one contact who knows him
well, "still believes we can withstand sanctions by closing the door to imports
and growing our own rice. He does not understand that times have changed." The
powerful regional military commanders, also members of the SPDC, may also oppose
reform, fearing that any change would weaken their control over lucrative
regional fiefdoms.
Diplomats believe General Khin Nyunt would not have risked starting talks
with Suu Kyi without General Maung Aye's consent. Yet the divisions within the
junta remain real and deep. Indeed, the two sides cannot even agree on a
successor to Secretary-2, General Tin Oo, who was killed in a helicopter crash
in mid-February. Rather than add to the tensions, the post may simply be left
empty.
The talks could also divide the NLD. Critically, party leaders will have to
decide whether to give up their demand for the 1990 election result to be
implemented. NLD members in exile are asking whether Aung San Suu Kyi may be
preparing to relax her stance on this issue. If she does, she risks alienating
some within the party. If she does not, the talks are likely to stall.
For now, friends in Yangon remain cautious. Discussing politics by
candlelight - the electricity off again - one says: "We've gone down this road
before - never so far, but the talks could still stop at any moment." Most hope
that no news is good news. But with both sides determined to keep quiet, Yangon
remains in the dark.
Some names have been changed or withheld. |