Hardship, Compounded. Donald M. Seekins

Transcription

1 MYANMAR IN 2008 Hardship, Compounded Donald M. Seekins Abstract Cyclone Nargis struck Burma s Irrawaddy Delta on May 2 3, 2008, and claimed as many as 140,000 victims, the largest natural disaster in the country s history. However, the State Peace and Development Council proceeded with a referendum on a new constitution on May 10 and 24, which it claimed was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters. Keywords: Burma (Myanmar), SPDC, Cyclone Nargis, USDA, Karen National Union Two thousand and eight was a year of anniversaries: the 60th year since Burma s independence from British colonial rule in 1948, the 20th anniversary of the massive anti-government demonstrations of 1988 that led to the collapse of the socialist regime of General Ne Win, and the first-year anniversary of the Saffron Revolution protests led by Buddhist monks in September As sensitive dates such as August 8 (the beginning of the Four Eights movement general strike two decades earlier) drew near, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) junta tightened security, especially in Rangoon (Yangon). But the anniversaries failed to mark a turning point in Burma s long history of military rule. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi s 14th year of house arrest began on October 24, while over 2,000 other political prisoners languished in jail, including Buddhist monks and members of the 88 Student Generation group involved in the 2007 protests. Many endured terrible hardships: detained labor activist Su Su Nway was placed in solitary confinement after requesting medical Donald M. Seekins is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Meio University, Okinawa, Japan. <kenchan@ii-okinawa.ne.jp>. Asian Survey, Vol. 49, Issue 1, pp , ISSN , electronic ISSN X by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press s Rights and Permissions website, at DOI: AS

2 MYANMAR IN treatment for serious health problems. 1 In November, Ashin Gambira, a monk leader of the Saffron Revolution, was given a 68-year jail sentence. U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari s efforts to promote political dialogue were so ineffectual that a frustrated Daw Suu Kyi refused to meet him during his visit to Burma in August 2008 (he also failed to get an appointment with SPDC Chairman Senior General Than Shwe, the most powerful junta figure). The one bright spot was the September 23 release of 79-year-old journalist Win Tin, Burma s longest incarcerated political prisoner. Freed after 19 years in jail, the former aide to Daw Suu Kyi vowed to continue the political struggle. But 2008 witnessed not only the deeper entrenchment of military rule with the completion of a carefully stage-managed referendum on a new SPDC-backed constitution, but also the largest natural disaster in Burma s recorded history. For Burma s people, the year of anniversaries was one of hardship, compounded. Cyclone Nargis and the Flowering of Bamboo Cyclone Nargis emerged in the Bay of Bengal in late April and tracked across the low-lying delta of the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) River on May 2 3, passing just north of the old capital of Rangoon before dissipating in the vicinity of the Burma-Thailand border. According to the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment compiled by officials of the U.N., the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Burmese government, 84,537 people died, 53,836 were missing, and 19,359 were injured. 2 Since the great majority of the missing people were presumed dead, victims of a fourmeter-high storm surge that made it impossible to recover or identify their bodies, the total number of fatalities is estimated at nearly 140,000. The storm surge was strongest in the areas where the cyclone first struck land on May 2 with sustained winds of 121 miles/192 kilometers per hour: over 136,000 of the dead and missing lived in the townships of southwestern Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) Division (especially Laputta and Bogalay), while the number was far lower in Rangoon (Yangon) Division to the east. 3 Farmers in the Irrawaddy Delta produce most of Burma s rice crop, which was largely destroyed by the cyclone when saline water from the storm surge contaminated an estimated one million acres (404,858 hectares) of cropland, 1. Wai Moe, Labor Activist Gets Solitary as Prison Conditions Worsen, The Irrawaddy online, July 8, 2008, at < accessed July 9, Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (N. p.: Tripartite Core Group, July 2008), p. 1. Nargis, meaning daffodil in Urdu, is the official name of the storm. 3. Ibid., p. 172.

3 168 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIX, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 undercutting future productivity. 4 Houses and other buildings made of thatch and bamboo were flattened, fishing boats sunk, and fish farms d estroyed. Some 2.4 million people in the delta were severely affected by the storm, left without food, water, and adequate shelter. There were reports that people in the disaster area had to obtain water from ditches and streams where the remains of humans and animals had been left by the storm, unburied. Fortunately, it was evident by mid-2008 that a much-feared secondary disaster with many additional deaths caused by hunger and disease had not occurred, because of the resilience and self-help efforts of the local people as well as the provision of aid from outside sources. The international community promised a coordinated aid effort similar to that following the Indian Ocean tsunami of December On a May 23, 2008, visit to Naypyidaw, the new capital, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon received assurances from Than Shwe that all foreign relief personnel would be allowed unrestricted access to the disaster area. But the army-state placed major obstacles in the way of both foreign and domestic providers of aid, including the delayed granting of visas to foreign experts entering the country. The U.S., British, and French navies had vessels anchored off Burma s coast but their offers to bring in relief supplies by helicopter were flatly refused because the SPDC viewed such intervention as an intrusion on national sovereignty. Local civil society groups attempted to help cyclone-affected people but were frustrated by regime roadblocks, confiscation of relief supplies, and even arrest. On June 4, the authorities detained the popular Burmese comedian Zargana, who had organized a volunteer group of several hundred persons to bring supplies to the remotest parts of the delta. Long associated with the opposition, he was charged with anti-state activities and given a 59-year jail sentence in November. Buddhist monks were the most effective aid bringers, because a network of monasteries in the delta could be used for shelter and for the distribution of goods; officials generally refrained from impeding their activities. By October the aid presence in the delta was substantial (US$240 million, or $100 for each cyclone survivor). 5 But the SPDC regarded any relief effort it could not control as a potential threat, because the working together of foreign and domestic aid providers and local populations carried the risk of opening up social space in which people could organize more effectively against the regime. Memories of the previous year s Saffron Revolution were still fresh. 4. Ibid., p Post-cyclone Aid Divides Myanmar, New York Times, October 21, 2008, < com>, accessed October 21, 2008.

4 MYANMAR IN Mountainous Chin State, one of the remotest parts of Burma, bordering India, suffered a different but equally serious natural disaster: a plague of rats caused by the flowering of a species of bamboo that occurs in 50-year intervals. Gorging on the bamboo fruit, the rat population exploded and after the rodents completely consumed the fruit they attacked croplands and granaries. The last such Mautam ( Flowering of Bamboo, in the Mizo language) in the late 1950s caused between 10,000 and 15,000 deaths from starvation, and experts estimated in 2008 that 100,000 people were severely affected. 6 The Constitutional Referendum While the survivors of Cyclone Nargis were making their first efforts to recover from the devastation and look for lost family members and friends, the referendum on a new SPDC-sponsored constitution went ahead on schedule throughout the country on May 10, although it was postponed to May 24 in the 47 townships most affected by the cyclone. According to some sources, troops sent to provide relief in the delta were recalled so that they could be used to prepare for the all-important constitutional vote. 7 The validity of the referendum was dubious: people were given ballots already marked yes, officials voted for them (checking the yes box), and voters in some localities were required to write their ID card numbers on their ballots. In many places, especially the cyclone-affected areas, observers saw very few people actually voting. According to local reports, the yes vote was only 53% of the total in Yenangyaung Township in Magwe Division, 67% in Meiktila Township in Mandalay Division, and even lower in some parts of Shan State. 8 Yet, at the end of May, the SPDC announced that countrywide, 98.12% of qualified voters participated and the yes vote was 92.48%. 9 The referendum was the culmination of a long process that began with the first meeting of a National Convention (NC) in January 1993 to discuss the basic principles of a new constitution. Convening at an extremely leisurely pace over the next 14 years, the NC completed a set of constitution-drafting guidelines in early September 2007 and the 194-page 6. Rats and Kyats: Bamboo Flowering Causes a Rat Plague in Chin State, Project Maje, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., < accessed August 21, Larry Jagan, Democracy and Death in Myanmar, Asia Times online, < com>, accessed June 2, Nem Davies, A Smattering of Poll Results Trickles In, Mizzima News, Delhi, India, May 11, 2008, at < accessed October 23, Ian Holliday, Beyond Burma versus the World, Far Eastern Economic Review 171:5 (June 2008), p. 48.

5 170 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIX, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 draft constitution was completed in February Than Shwe originally used the constitutional drafting process as a delaying tactic to offset domestic and foreign demands for genuine political liberalization. But after the Saffron Revolution, the Senior General made it his top priority, a means of deflecting international criticism and assuming a mantle of legitimacy based on multi-party democracy and the rule of law. According to Aung Naing Oo, a political analyst, The new constitution is Than Shwe s exit strategy.... He knows he has to provide a façade of civilian rule, but retain most of the power. This constitution gives the Burmese people perhaps 5% to 10% freedom. 10 The Constitution s most controversial provisions include the requirements that one-quarter of all members of the bi-cameral national legislature be army personnel appointed by the commander-in-chief; that members of the post-1988 military junta be given immunity from criminal prosecution; and that persons married or once married to foreigners cannot hold political office (a measure aimed at Aung San Suu Kyi, whose late husband, Michael Aris, was British). The Tatmadaw (armed forces) commander-in-chief also has a decisive say in the appointment of the president and two vicepresidents of the Union of Myanmar and the army has exclusive control over important portfolios such as Home Affairs and Defense. Also, the Tatmadaw s commander has the authority to dismiss a civilian government and reestablish martial law. One constitutional article that is likely to be popular, however, is a prohibition of demonetization, which caused much hardship to ordinary people in September The elite-level politics behind the political transition is complex. The Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a mass organization established under the patronage of Than Shwe, is expected to play a central role in democratic politics through a surrogate political party or parties: multi-party elections are scheduled for 2010, the first since May The USDA has already become extremely powerful through its control of funds used for local welfare and infrastructure projects. It is believed that the USDA will not run under its own name because it is unpopular for its violent attacks on oppositionists, especially during the Saffron Revolution and the May 30, 2003, Black Friday ambush of Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters in Upper Burma. Many Tatmadaw officers also reportedly dislike the USDA because it exists as a power structure independent of the army. Although it is unlikely that the mainstream National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party under Aung San Suu Kyi will play a major role in the new constitutional order (it urged a no vote 10. Jagan, Democracy and Death in Myanmar.

6 MYANMAR IN in the May referendum), other non-military groups, such as a possible NLD breakaway group and a pro-regime faction of the 88 Students Generation, may become prominent collaborators in the democratic system after the 2010 election. Ethnic Minorities With the constitutional referendum completed, the SPDC asked cease-fire groups to lay down their arms and form political parties in order to participate in the election. This is a controversial request, because few of the 17 major cease-fire groups fully trust the junta. It is unlikely that the stronger ones, especially the drug-financed United Wa State Army (UWSA), which can put 20,000 soldiers in the field and controls much of the Burma-China and Burma-Thailand border area in Shan State, will want to relinquish their autonomy. The junta s request was met with ambiguous responses from the UWSA, the New Mon State Party, the National Democratic Alliance Army- Eastern Shan State, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), and the Kachin Independence Organization. The new Constitution establishes legislatures in each of the 14 states and divisions, but like the national legislature, a large percentage of the seats is reserved for the Tatmadaw. Thus, it is unlikely that the new law-making bodies will serve as anything more than window dressing. The assassination of Pado Mahn Sha La Pan, secretary-general of the Karen National Union (KNU), by unknown gunmen in the Thai border town of Mae Sot on February 14, 2008, was a crippling blow to the most important armed group that has still not signed a cease-fire and continues to fight the SPDC. A figure widely respected for his promotion of consensus among the ethnic resistance, Pado Mahn Sha was apparently targeted by a KNU splinter group known as the KNU/KNLA (Karen National Liberation Army) Peace Council, which signed a cease-fire with the SPDC in 2007, although government agents and the DKBA may also have played a role. On October 17, 2008, the KNU 14th Congress elected Zipporah Sein to be Pado Mahn Sha s successor as its secretary-general. The KNU s first woman secretary-general, she has served as head of the Karen Women s Organization. The plight of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, most of whom are ethnic minorities, received international attention after an abandoned container truck containing 121 persons was discovered in Ranong Province in April; the migrants were being taken to the resort island of Phuket, where they hoped to find unskilled employment. Fifty-four of them, men, women, and children, had suffocated to death because the truck had insufficient ventilation, and most of the 67 survivors were put in detention by Thai

7 172 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIX, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 authorities. Economic relations between Burma and Thailand flourish, but the situation for the over one million Burmese migrants, deeply indebted to labor contractors and bullied by Thai employers and the police, continues to worsen. Cyclone Nargis has caused an influx of many more economic refugees from the Irrawaddy Delta into Thailand. The Two Economies In simple terms, Burma s economy can be considered a two-tiered structure: a top level, based on the export of high-value raw materials (teak, gemstones, and especially, natural gas) to neighboring countries, primarily benefits the SPDC and its network of domestic and foreign crony capitalists. The bottom level, the ordinary economy (domestic agriculture, industry, and services), sustains the great majority of the country s 50 million people. Fed by foreign investment, especially by Western and Asian oil companies, the top level prospers as revenues generated by exports of natural gas expand: natural gas earnings grew to $2.5 billion, compared to $2.03 billion the previous year, with some observers estimating a much higher figure of almost $4.5 billion. In 2007, as much as 90% of Burma s foreign investment went into the energy sector, with Thailand, China, and India moving aggressively to get a share of natural gas output from offshore fields being developed in the Andaman Sea, Gulf of Martaban, and Bay of Bengal. 11 Plagued by erratic policy making, underinvestment, and poor infrastructure, the bottom-tier economy was deeply affected by the devastation Cyclone Nargis caused to Burma s rice basket, the Irrawaddy Delta. According to one foreign relief official speaking in early August, The vast majority of families [in the disaster area] simply do not have enough to eat. 12 Outside the delta, rice sold in city markets has become scarce and prices have risen, while the government plans to export up to 2.5 million tons to countries such as China and Bangladesh. Given the long-term nature of Cyclone Nargis s damage to croplands (inundation of paddy fields with saline water), high prices for rice in the Southeast Asia region, and the historical connection between rice shortages and popular unrest (most notably in 1988), the cycle of explosive protest and regime crackdowns is likely to continue, even after the general election is held in Brian McCartan, Myanmar Signs up Energy Partners, Asia Times online, <www. atimes.com>, accessed July 9, Irin, Burma Food Shortages Significant, The Irrawaddy online, August 5, 2008, at < accessed August 5, 2008.

8 MYANMAR IN In mid-may, a kadaw bwe (thanks-offering ceremony) was given in honor of Than Shwe in his new capital of Naypyidaw, which was left undamaged by the cyclone. The Senior General was praised for his wisdom in decreeing the relocation of the capital from vulnerable Rangoon to a secure inland location in At that time, Than Shwe s personal astrologer reportedly advised him that if he remained based in the old capital, his government would fall. 13. Senior General Praised for Profound Wisdom, S.H.A.N. (Shan Herald Agency for News), May 29, 2008, at < accessed June 20, 2008.

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