DSIF ARCHIVES

(most recent first)

DSIF OUTED

In all the years I have been an admirer and recorder of the exploits of DSIF (the Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot, a senior and effective agency of SLORC/SPDC) its operatives have been mysterious and faceless.

No longer. Stand forth Col. Hla Min, doughty saboteur of the SPDC's ILO campaign. What sublety of thrust. What perfect timing!

Imagine the scene: Two days before the ILO Governing Body is due to decide whether to impose the MEASURES (not sanctions, please note, but MEASURES) and after the good generals had gone as far as they could to accommodate the "suggestions" of the Technical Cooperation Mission of the International Labour Organisation regarding doing away with forced labour, (without which the army in the field could not survive).

Heavy Myanmars are in Geneva, as they have been for the past couple of weeks. They are not here to view the last of the Autumn colours against the misty mountains across the lake, streaked with the new snow, like any normal bureaucrat. No, they have been pulled back from lofty international responsibilities to answer their country's need; to meet in intense consultation with the helpful Japanese, doing their last-minute calling in of favours or whatever diplomatic lobbyists do, to defeat the neo-colonial interferers who plan to impose MEASURES on them and strolling with apparent nonchalance (not quite whistling, but almost) past a notorious anglo-saxon axe-handle deep in conspiritorial conversation with an equally notorious workers delegate in the ILO coffee lounge.

And Hla Min's coup? He sends a fax to the BBC in Bangkok saying that Myanmar "will not provide the country's national media with the text of new directives allegedly outlawing forced labour, "since many Burmese people are illiterate and are too poor to own radios". Can you imagine? In a single sentence he dispels the myth of the economically prosperous country the generals have been at such pains to uphold, and tells the world that all this last three weeks' pussy-footing about producing an Order (endorsed by Secretary-1, no less) so that people don't have to be slave labourers any more under the legislation drafted by the last generation of interfering colonialists is going to end up on dusty police-station shelves. They are not going to tell the people the glorious news that the colonial slave-labour laws have been abolished.

13 November 2000

______________________________________

ICFTU ONLINE...

Burmese junta's new order prohibiting forced labour is to remain secret, says ICFTU 13/11/00

Brussels November 13 2000 (ICFTU OnLine): Burma's ruling State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) will not provide the country's national media with the text of new directives allegedly outlawing forced labour, "since many Burmese people are illiterate and are too poor to own radios", a military junta spokesman said today. "Instead", he said, "the directive has been sent to police stations all over the country". The directive, known as "Supplementary Order to Order 1/1999" , was presented last week by Rangoon as a major concession to the International Labour Office (ILO), which has demanded that Burma amend its laws allowing for the exaction of forced labour, eradicate the practice and punish those guilty of imposing it. The startling announcement came in a fax sent this morning by SPDC spokesman Lt. Col. Hla Min to a foreign radio correspondent in Bangkok, according to the underground Federation of Trade Unions - Burma (FTUB), which maintains an office there. Lt. Col Hla Mins's fax was in response to FTUB attempts to ascertain that the "Supplementary Order" had been made available to the population via the country's mass media. On Sunday 12th November, a Voice of America (Burmese section) reporter spoke to major Burmese newspapers and to the domestic service of the national radio station. None had heard of either Order 1/1999, a similar directive issued last year under ILO pressure, or the recent "Supplementary Order" dated 1st November 2000. An official of the Myanmar News Agency - Radio section who was on duty on November 1, denied having heard anything about government instructions against forced labour. The FTUB-VOA inquiry with the Kyemone [Mirror] newspaper and the "New Light of Myanmar", the junta's official mouthpiece newspaper, drew a similar blank. According to the Geneva-based Burma Peace Foundation, "serious doubts now exist as to the whether the junta has produced a Burmese version of the "Orders" at all". In his letter to ILO Director General Juan Somavia of November 1, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt listed Myanmar's Official Gazette as one of the 18 authorities and institutions which had received the "Supplementary Order". Meanwhile, in Brussels today the ICFTU said "fresh evidence of forced labour is pouring in from Burma's border areas". It said the latest testimony it had received was that of a textile worker from Rangoon, who escaped on Friday November 10 2000 from forced labour as a porter for the 203rd Light Infantry Battalion, based in Karen State, on the Burma-Thai border.

For further details please contact ICFTU ++.32.477.28.63.04 (GSM) or FTUB, Information Secretary ++.66.1.668.38.58

DSIF SETS BURMA UP FOR A BEATING AT THE GA

With a brilliance of timing we have come to expect, the Burmese junta's Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot (DSIF) is making a major effort to embarrass Burma at the UN General Assembly, which begins in New York today (6 September) with the Millennium Summit.

In pursuit of public humiliation in what is probably the most prestigious UN meeting ever, the DSIF has been working hard to underscore and amplify Burma's pariah status. First, in full knowledge of what was likely to happen, it organised the 9-day roadside blockade of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues, in the process embarrassing ASEAN and demonstrating the junta's political insecurity within the country. The blockade brought about the desired international condemnation but, no doubt fearing that it had not alienated every government -- Japan, for instance, hardly reacted at all, in public, at least --, DSIF arranged a brutal end to the rustic "holiday" in Dala, with Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo reported to have been handcuffed and forced into cars and their supporters beaten up and imprisoned. Finally, having "escorted" the NLD leaders back to Rangoon, it looted the NLD offices, took away documents, placed Daw Suu and colleagues under incommunicado de facto house arrest, made further threatening moves against the NLD, and even managed to man-handle the British Ambassador.

In this case, the junta followed through superbly with a classical blaming-the-victim accusation that in trying to visit Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Ambassador had "overstepped the universal diplomatic norms." This brings to mind the junta's growing international role as a mentor on human rights. One of its pupils, Australia, is already applying the lessons it received from the generals at the human rights trainings in Rangoon, and is well on its way to joining Malaysia, Burma et al in embracing "Asian values", putting the UN Special Rapporteurs in their place and getting off the hook of universal standards and treaty obligations (see the Human Rights Watch press release of 31 August, "Australia undermining global human rights").

Will the DSIF's exploits be enough to ensure a humiliating condemnation at the Millennium Summit and in the GA resolution on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar? Probably, but since the junta is a true masochist, and wants to make sure there is no way out, we can expect further provocations over the next weeks.

Caveat

It would be a mistake, of course, to view the activities of the DSIF as irrational or historically eccentric. Shooting oneself in the foot is, after all, a practical way to avoid battle and potentially more serious injuries or death. And provoking attacks from outside to justify crackdowns, impose internal "unity" on the people and get the elite to close ranks, has been in the political toolbox for millennia.

6 September 2000

The Friends of DSIF* are launching a quotable quote competition.

The quotations should be from BSPP/SLORC/SPDC sources, and be clearly identified by date, source, and name and rank of speaker, where appropriate. The context may also be given.

The competition will be ongoing, with the best quotes chosen by netapplause. If enough are posted, they will be turned into a little book, published in Burma magazines and/or placed on a website.

Please post your favourites -- as many as you want.

Here are a couple to kick off with:

" ....It is unfortunate that the Government in every positive move or steps in the right direction has been challenged, ridiculed and impeded creating unnecessary obstacles in her orderly transition to a multi-party democracy. Fortunately, Myanmar is now at a point where a stable democracy is achievable. But if the country loses the basic peace and stability it had achieved, the groundwork for democracy may be lost...."

(Myanmar Information Committee, Yangon, Myanmar Information Sheet No.B-1509( I ) 31st August, 2000 , posted by Okkar on Burma listservs)

"Martial Law is neither more nor less than the will of the general who commands the army. In fact Martial Law means no Law at all."

(Major General Khin Nyunt, Secretary-1 of SLORC and head of Military Intelligence, 14 May 1991, quoted in "The Working People's Daily" of 16 May 1991) _____________________________________________

*The SPDC's Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot,

1 September 2000

DSIF GEARS UP FOR THE GA

It's silly season again down on Signal Pagoda road, as the DSIF* stalwarts rack their brains and read up their manuals to find new actions that will do the greatest amount of damage to the regime. October is always a busy time for DSIF, since this is when the New York diplomats are gathering material for the Burma resolution at the General Assembly. DSIF usually tries to arrange an atrocity or two for this occasion, but this year it seems to be aiming at a double -- to be heavily condemned at the GA and piss off the Thais as well. This seems to be the logic behind the reported massing of troops along the Burmese/Thai border in the wake of the Embassy occupation. The Department may even be going for a bonus -- a resolution at the Security Council** if the anticipated attack on the camps in Thailand is seen as enough of a threat to international peace and security for the Thais to call in the prefects.

* For the uninitiated, DSIF is SPDC's Department of Shooting Iteslf in the Foot, whose exploits I have followed for several years. I enclose a couple of earlier reports.

** An accomplishment it has not even approached since Bangladesh PM Khalada Zia came to New York in early 1992 with a 5-point SC draft resolution on the Burmese troop buildup and the influx of Rohingya victims of ethnic cleansing , only to be deflected by Boutros-Ghali's offer of good offices. This in turn led to Jan Eliasson's visit to Dhakar and Rangoon and the 3 bilateral deals between HCR, Bangladesh and Burma that facilitated the forced repatriation of up to 220,000 Rohingyas.

12 October 1999

Dear readers,

As fans of the SPDC's Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot (DSIF) will observe, this powerful body is still alive and well, and doing its utmost to counter the efforts of the junta's American PR firms (which recently withdrew for non-payment of fees) to use a barrage of anti-drug rhetoric, drug seizures and threats against the Wa to enhance the SPDC's standing with the international community, particularly the US. (SPDC military action against its Wa allies, by the way, might well cause a number of the other cease-fires to break down, with unknown consequences inside and outside Burma.)

As the regime's anti-PR unit, the DSIF's latest campaign is to portray the regime as brutal and utterly lacking in the Buddhist qualities of compassion and tolerance. Its current tactic is to delay, or even refuse, a visa for the dying husband of Aung San Suu Kyi to come and meet his wife for the last time. This gesture, presumably a Macchiavellian ploy to pressure Suu Kyi into making a trip to Oxford from which she would not be allowed to return, is likely to arouse a greater repugnance from Burmese and international opinion than any other single action the regime has taken since 1988. The DSIF is indeed in good form….

21 March 1999

SETBACK FOR DSIF

In a reversal of recent policy, the SPDC’s Department of Shooting its Self In the Foot (DSIF) has been taken off the case of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and has been replaced by the newly-formed Department of Sweetness and Light :

MYANMAR INFORMATION COMMITTEE INFORMATION SHEET N0.A 0562(I/L) 16th August 1998

Government Provides Ms. Su Kyi with Cakes and Drinks

Ms. Su Kyi, U Hla Pe and their two chauffeurs still continuing their rest in a camping vehicle near Anyarsu village outside Yangon today. Ms. Su Kyi left Yangon on August 12 on her way to the city of Pathein, but regrettably, recent threats of violence have made travel there by prominent persons inadvisable at this time. Until safety conditions improve, Ms. Su Kyi is visiting Anyarsu, a small but picturesque village outside Yangon while the Government of Myanmar continues to make every effort to ensure their comfort and safety. In addition to the amenities and entertainment provided by the government to Ms. Su Kyi in helping her pass the time comfortably government officials provided imported cakes, cookies and soft drinks this morning and is also in the process of setting up a mobile bathroom near her camping vehicle to ensure her maximum comfort and welfare.

BANGKOK, Aug 16 (AFP) Although the standoff is widely interpreted as a protest against the military regime's restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi's movements, a junta spokesman on Sunday said the opposition leader was in a "camping vehicle" and was "visiting Anyarsu, a small but picturesque village outside Yangon."

"Ms Suu Kyi left Yangon on August 12 on her way to the city of Pathein, but regrettably, recent threats of violence have made travel there by prominent persons inadvisable at this time," the junta spokesman said in a statement received here.

"Until safety conditions improve, Ms Suu Kyi is visiting Anyarsu, a small but picturesque village outside Yangon, while the government of Myanmar continues to make every effort to ensure their comfort and safety."

The junta earlier said it had supplied musical cassettes including religious songs and recordings by Madonna and Michael Jackson for Aung San Suu Kyi's enjoyment, as well as an ambulance in case of an emergency.

"In addition to the amenities and entertainment provided by the government to Ms Suu Kyi in helping her pass the time comfortably, government officials provided imported cakes, cookies and soft drinks this morning," the statement said.

"(It) is also in the process of setting up a mobile bathroom near her camping vehicle to ensure her maximum comfort and welfare."

19 August 1998

DSIF TRIUMPHS IN GENEVA

(analysis by Burma Peace Foundation)

DSIF STRATEGY

Since Burma joined ASEAN last year, the junta's most effective institution, its Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot (DSIF) has stepped up its vigorous and successful campaign to alienate the neighbours, increase Burma's status as a pariah State and thus its international isolation (I leave it to the professionals to undertake the psycho political analysis of these events, but I would not be surprised if they were to find a high degree of institutional sado masochism at play(1)).

Means employed include the renewed cross border attacks into Thailand by the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia aligned with the ruling State Peace and Development Council SPDC as the Burmese junta now calls itself). These attacks are specifically designed to embarrass Thailand's military and political leaders. Another DSIF ploy has been to unilaterally block cross border trade, causing economic damage to China and Thailand. Other successes have been the continuation of massive exports of heroin and AIDS and the continued flow of refugees into neighbouring countries. In an effort to further irritate the international community, the DSIF has continued to refuse access by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, and continues its harassment of the NLD (National League for Democracy the party that won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections and is still waiting for the junta to transfer power), including the recent sentencing of elected NLD representative Daw San San to 25 years imprisonment for being interviewed by the international media. Other tactics have been atrocities against the ethnic minorities, including the massive forced relocations in Shan State and a degree of forced labour which has caused the ILO (International Labour Organisation) to activate its most severe measure, a quasi judicial Commission of Inquiry on Forced Labour in Myanmar (only the tenth since the ILO was founded in 1919). The Commission of Inquiry is expected to report in July or August.

THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

These devices have succeeded in their aim of further isolating the junta. The extent of this achievement was seen on 21 April when the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) meeting in Geneva, adopted a resolution on the "Situation of human rights in Myanmar" which was stronger by several degrees than any of the previous years' resolutions.

I have been watching Burma at the CHR from the first resolution in 1989, through its two years under the Confidential Procedure (1503), to the annual public resolutions adopted from 1992 onwards. For the past five years or so, the drafting process has worked something like this:

A mechanic from the Foreign Ministry of the drafting government since it is a European Union (EU) resolution this would normally be the EU Presidency, though France was entrusted with the job from 89 to 96 goes down into the basement, takes last year's CHR and General Assembly (GA) resolutions off the shelf, puts them on the bench, splices them together so that any new language coming in at the GA is incorporated in the new CHR draft (it doesn't quite work vice versa), hunts around for any "good" or "bad" things that have happened over the past year to insert, does a bit of trimming and consolidating to get the draft down to size, passes it round the office with the sandwiches, and sends it out to the other EU members, who add their comments, some of which are then incorporated into a 2nd draft. (Before doing the first splice, the mechanic may have flipped through a few piles of stuff which various governments, NGOs and others have sent in. An important input is the report of the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. Recommendations by the Special Rapporteur frequently find their way into the resolution.)

The EU diplomats at the Commission discuss the draft and prepare another text which goes to potential co sponsors (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, Eastern Europe and South American countries). After further input from them, a new draft is normally circulated to the "opposition" i.e. the Japanese, the ASEANS, SPDC etc, who try and water it down, cut out the politically strategic language, and add new "good" things to balance the new "bad" paras. During all this time, the representatives of the Burmese democracy movement who come to Geneva for this purpose, are watching the process, and along with NGOs make modest suggestions for improvement/ strengthening of the text.

But this year it didn't happen like this. This year, Burma's usual allies were silent. There was almost no objection to the new, strong language which had found its way into the draft. Hardly any watering down. When I saw the text, I was amazed that it could achieve consensus. But it did. Though many factors were at play, including the fact that Indonesia was busy doing deals on an East Timor text and ASEAN as a whole had its mind on financial matters, the main accolade for this notable achievement must be accorded to DSIF.

Well done, Well done, Well done.

__________________

(1) On the other hand, as a short footnote, I should add that it is possible to see DSIF's achievements as rational. For instance, the reluctance of the junta to abandon its grip on the rickety State Economic Enterprises and the priority it gives to military control over virtually everything, including rice farming, education and the sending of faxes, are factors in destabilising the economy and discouraging international aid or investment which far outweigh any economic sanctions imposed or contemplated. To those sceptics who would stress the irrationality of such a policy, I would point out that keeping the country poor, isolated and fragmented makes perfect sense once one accepts the premise that this is the only situation in which the junta can continue to stay in power, and that staying in power is the point. DSIF, far from being an aberration, is thus pursuing the central policy goals of the Burmese leadership. Some people might even see this approach as a heroic resistance to globalisation and the grip of transnational corporations. Let us not forget that shooting oneself in the foot has the personally rational goal of avoiding worse injuries or death in battle].

26 April 1998

MORE TRIUMPHS FOR SLORC’s DSIF

To The Editor, “The Nation”

Dear Sir,

In my letter published in “The Sunday Nation” of November 17, I listed some of the accomplishments of SLORCs Department of Shooting Itself in the Foot (DSIF, the junta’s most efficient department, along with DDSI, the Department of the Defence Services Intelligence, -- Military Intelligence). I would like to highlight some further exploits of this excellent institution for the entertainment and instruction of your readers:

The forcibly-conscripted dancing girls made to perform all day in the full heat of the sun on November 18 for the opening of Visit Myanmar Year 1996 had hardly recovered from their ordeal (some collapsed of exhaustion and the heat) when DSIF had tanks and armoured personnel carriers on the streets of Rangoon. The aim was ostensibly to intimidate and arrest students protesting against the detention, beating and alleged torture and deaths of some of their colleagues, and calling for the right to form student unions. However, given the agenda of DSIF, these troop deployments were more likely a heroic attempt to sabotage Visit Myanmar Year 1996 and increase international pressure on SLORC.

The actions have already scored an early success in the form of a Travel Advisory issued by the US State Department stating that US citizens should not visit Burma at this time unless absolutely necessary (I wonder how US travel insurance companies will deal with tourists who ignore the Advisory, and how European and Japanese companies will react; I would imagine that insurance premiums for going to countries the US State Department considers risky could be extremely high). In further attempts to discourage tourists, DSIF has closed Shule Pagoda, one of the prime tourist sites of Rangoon, and has reportedly taken to beating up foreigners who are in the wrong place at the wrong time in the Land of Pagodas.

According to press and other reports, DSIF, in a robust effort to explain Asian Values to the world, has seized film from tourists who may have photographed incorrect subjects -- soldiers beating up unarmed students, for instance; has subjected a Dutch travel writer to a three-hour interrogation, complete with spotlight and up to 20 men in the room with her; refused to extend the visas of a number of accredited journalists, confiscated film shot by TV Asahi and AFP, and the tapes and entire equipment of the BBC Southeast Asia Correspondent.

The Department has issued its own Travel Advisory to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, that “for her own safety” she should not leave her house; has prevented her from meeting two visiting US Congressmen, and turned back the senior US diplomat in Rangoon, Kent Wiedermann, on his way to visit her. DSIF is also the author of the threats against Aung San Suu Kyi which appear regularly in the SLORC-controlled “The New Light of Myanmar”.

The success of these actions can be seen both internationally and domestically. Internationally, there is the wavering of ASEAN regarding the date of Burma’s accession to the Association; the increased possibility of US sanctions; the likely effect on the European Union’s decision on whether to withdraw Burma’s GSP privileges (to be considered by the Council of Ministers on January 18); and the deterrence of tourists. Domestically, DSIF’s skillful refusal to meet the students’ rather moderate demands has increased student frustration and provoked a radicalisation of action, which in turn has been met by stronger crackdowns.

These political/military actions complement DSIF’s strategy of sabotaging the economy in general, and in particular Burma’s rice-producing capacity. Last year Burma defaulted on most of its promised rice exports, and even what was exported was not surplus, but forcibly extracted from poor farmers. DSIF’s sabotage of Burma’s rice economy is being achieved by a number of devices including arbitrary, crippling rice taxes and draconian paddy-procurement policies, of which the World Bank has said “Reforming these paddy policies would help to reduce poverty and enhance equity because they imply large income transfers from the rural poor to the urban elites, including the military” (World Bank Report No.14062 BA, of October 16, 1995). Other forms of economic sabotage engaged in by DSIF include forcing farmers from their fields to contribute “voluntary” labour on military, commercial and “development” projects; massive extortion and looting by the military, and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of the rural population, particularly in non-Burman areas.

The relocations, in turn, have produced refugee flows which are disturbing Burma’s neighbours, particularly Thailand and Bangladesh, and drawing international attention to the civil war. All in all a splendid set of achievements unsung by the Burmese people or the international community.

And how soon will these efforts be crowned with ultimate success? Difficult to say, but it appears that in Rangoon’s Chinatown, the gamblers are now betting three to one that SLORC will fall by February. DSIF is to be congratulated on its masterly work.

18 December 1996

IN PRAISE OF DSIF

For several years I have observed two efficient departments in the SLORC Administration: Gen. Khin Nyunt's Department of the Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI) - Military Intelligence -and SLORC's Department of Shooting-Itself-in-the-Foot (DSIF).

With its latest coup, the attack on Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy of 9 November, including a knife attack on Suu Kyi herself, DSIF once again demonstrates its genius for timing. The attack, carried out by 2,000 USDA thugs trucked in from the townships, the military conspicuously taking no preventive action, but rather allowing the mob to assemble in the forbidden area behind the road-blocks, was carefully synchronised with ASEAN Secretary-General Ajit Singh's visit to Rangoon. The purpose was clearly to cause ASEAN maximum embarrassment, and thus help reduce Burma's chances of entry. The attack was also designed to trigger the US sanctions on Burma, which are conditional on an attack against Aung San Suu Kyi and/or the Burmese Democracy Movement. The brilliance of the timing can also be seen in light of the forthcoming APEC meeting in Manila on 25 November, followed by a top-level ASEAN meeting. By this and other actions, DSIF has ensured that Burma will be high on the agenda.

DSIF has been very active this year, with the superbly orchestrated arrest of 250 NLD supporters in May, as they were on their way to a meeting at Aung San Suu Kyi's house, and the September arrest of another 800, including NLD Deputy Chairman U Kyi Maung. It was these events, together with certain economic factors for which DSIF may justly claim some responsibility, which provoked the split in ASEAN regarding Burma's readiness for membership. Previous coups include the attack on Karen positions in Saw Hta in 1992, one day after Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw had announced to the UN General Assembly that SLORC had declared a unilateral cease-fire with the Karen National Union. Another had the same Ohn Gyaw, who is frequently involved in DSIF operations, saying that Burma has no human rights problems, precisely one day after the SLORC attack on Halockhani on 21 July 1994. SLORC's failure to pay its oil bill to Mitsui, a company considering massive investments in Burma, is another achievement which may be credited to DSIF.

Would anyone be interested in producing a little book recounting the exploits of DSIF - or perhaps a regular column on reg.burma and soc.cult.burma - or why not both? Readers are invited to post their favourite examples. Another exercise would be to guess what the next one will be -- perhaps a major attack on the KNU (to encourage the peace process) with massive refugee flows carefully timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly resolution on Burma.

Geneva, 9 November 1996