The Burmese Fairy Tale ( comment )

[yu148683@xxxxxxxx]

Attntion : Dr. Donald Seekins

Dear Sir,

It is painful to face the truth.

As those who have had a chance to meet her personally, I believe both of
us are certian that she is sincere, honestly wants to learn new things and
eager to be flexible on dealing with everybody constructively. 
However, we need to admit that she has been a sort of heaven-sent, sent
into a very unstable polity. If somebody were to blame for this, this
would be the whole of pro-democracy Burmese people, including us, who put
her in this place. She would be the last person to be blamed. We looked
for somebody who could challenge the stature of Ne Win in the height of the 
uprising. The only person who could beat him is Gen. Aung San alone. But
he is no more. We have longed for Aung San Oo, his son, to take this role.
But he also was unavailable. 

She was, thus, thrust into the struggle by the strong hand of our history. 
But she did not succumb from the call of our history. That really is her
beauty. Apart from that, we expected that her six years of custody will
make her learn all the dirty tricks of politics and becomes a realist
rather than an idealist/moralist. It was unfortunate she failed to learn
much from Nelson Mendela who, though owes much to the West personally,
refuse to comply all the West ask from him in return for their support to
his personal rise and glory.

I felt that since she has seconded Clinton's move on sanction on Burma,
she has gone astrayed. I could agree that Clinton himself was reluctant to
take this step. He was just responding to please certain quarters, the
domestic pressures. This sanction was a minimal measure, practically
affecting almost nothing on the Burmese regime. But it costs her a great
deal to articulate in appreciation of his move, to which she was obliged
to respond.

Those of us living outside the reach of SLORC/SPDC can fight aginst it
uncompromisingly forever. In fact most of us are weekend democracy
fighters whose major mode of struggle is sitting in front of a computer
and jeer. Life inside Burma is, especially inside Insein, is quite
different. The price for a mistake is not tolerable any more for them.  

Every moment I think about Ne Minn, my former prison inmate, a lawyer who
is back to prison serving a 14 year term now; every other moment I
remember Ye Tun Than, ( Secretary, NLD Kyee Myin Dine township), my
another prison inmate who also is back in Insein serving a 10 year term
now, I am afraid of committing a mistakes from here thus making their
prison days longer. ( It is easy to be brave from a safe distance._ a
moral from Aesob's Fables). 

I believe Ma Thien Gi's utterance reflect pubilc feeling inside Burma.
However, nobody is perfect and I also believe DASSK will not fail to make
reconsiderations on strategy and tactics. It is difficult for her
since SLORC has stripped all her qualified aides out. People like Thakin
Tin Mya, Ko Htwe Myint, U Win Tin etc. 

Thank you for your fair and positive anlysis.

Sincerely,

Myint Shwe