D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 2002, p. 21-22)

Bagan, Burma, Birma, Myanmar - the names are codewords for changing rulers and regimes. Formerly British colonial paternalism, today military rule by a local junta. The people of the Southeast Asian country have been repressed for centuries. In May this year the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her 19 month-long house arrest. A sign of hope? Rüdiger Siebert visited Burma and came back with this report.

"Democracy is the best policy." This message, in large letters on a wall, expresses what the military rulers want to prevent with all their power. Their policy of intimidation is noticeable throughout the country. Also and especially in the office of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in a town in North Burma. It is the party of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose name remains unspoken because people refer to her only as the "Lady" when they talk about her. Several pictures of her hang on the wall next to the praise of democracy. A picture of her father, Aung San, the legendary fighter for Burma's independence, is also there. He was assassinated in 1947. His daughter took up the struggle for Burma's freedom in his name. It is a struggle that is far from over, one full of setbacks.

Frustrated opposition

The office of the legal but completely powerless party is modest, merely one of the usual wooden houses. A table, a few chairs on which some men - craftsmen, traders, simple people - are sitting. We are welcome. We are greeted with friendly smiles, but questions about politics trigger like everywhere else in Burma the same spontaneous reaction. The facial expressions darken, the people become reserved, remain silent. In such a room, which after all is a meeting place of men who are followers of the Lady and write the word 'democracy' on the wall as the key concept of their ideals, the atmosphere makes the country's political climate perceptible in an especially depressing way. We have the impression that we have ended up in a waiting room, meeting people who missed the boat years ago and are totally frustrated by not getting anywhere. The men appear scared, passive. May we take photographs? Of the room, yes. The slogans on the wall, too, if you like - but please no faces.

The conversation gets going only hesitatingly. What do they think of the new constitution the military has promised for years as a first step on the way to a de- mocratic fresh start? Dismissive gestures of the hand. "Why a new constitution? Our party presented a draft during the elections back in 1990 that's still usable," says one of the men. Like the others, he also asks not to be named. And fresh elections? Once again, these weary gestures of resignation. "We don't need fresh elections, the regime must only finally recognise the results of the elections in 1990. We of the democracy movement won those elections. Clearly. The National League for Democracy won 392 seats out of 485. But the elected parliament was never allowed to assemble." The voice remains quiet, subdued. We feel as if we are at a conspiratorial meeting; it is impossible to say who here observes and spies upon whom.

In no other Southeast Asian country is contrast so striking as in Burma. The warm friendship of the ordinary people on the one hand, and the omnipresence of the military power apparatus on the other. Whoever travels through the country cannot fail to see the soldiers' camps, so widespread are they across its provinces. And whoever, mostly vainly, tries to talk to the people about their real situation behind their smiling faces realises how deeply they have internalised their political exclusion. Their reply is a helpless shrug.

On the propaganda boards set up everywhere the pithy messages are peeling for lack of fresh paint. But their thrust remains clear. "Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy." And: "Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views." And: "Oppose those trying to jeopardise the stability of the State and progress of the nation." Such slogans - also printed as the "People's Desire" in all newspapers and books - illustrate the atmosphere of "Big Brother is watching you."

Repression instead of democracy

The generals have ruled Burma for 40 years. When after the 1990 elections, which took place in an atmosphere of a cautious political opening, they were faced with the real mood in the country - with the people's outcry for democracy - the military slammed the door through which the wind of change was blowing over the land and bolted the gates of the prisons into which their challengers were thrown. The dead of the massacres of those years are not forgotten. At that time the new old rulers renamed Burma Myanmar and changed the name of the capital from Rangoon to Yangon.

In more recent times hundreds of political prisoners have been released, but many others are still paying for their convictions. Exact figures are unknown, but estimates put them at 1,500. It is an ongoing subject for Amnesty International (AI), which accuses the Burmese military of torture, suppression and forced labour. In July this year AI published a report which described the plight of the minorities in the border areas as particularly worrying. Those Mon, Karen, Karenni and Shan and other ethnic groups, who account for more than one-third of Burma's total population of 50 million and who are treated by the government as second-class citizens. But the AI report also mentions the criminal energy of some of the combat units of the minorities' armies which have challenged Rangoon for decades, but also make deals with the leaders there when it comes to drug trade.

Interestingly, it is always Buddhist monks who speak to us as we travel through their country. They seek an exchange of views and denounce the conditions in Burma. The Buddhist tradition has left its imprint on the country which stretches for more than 2,000 km between the Bay of Bengal and the eastern foothills of the Himalayas. The golden pagodas dominate the scenery of the towns and villages. The leaders of the monastic communities have more or less come to terms with the military. Photographs in some temples of men in yellow robes and others in green uniforms standing or siting harmoniously next to each other manifest this neighbourliness. But the young monks express their annoyance; they have no power, no direct influence, and are bound by their vow to political neutrality. But precisely because of this neutral position they are able and willing to collect and interpret facts.

The conditions of entry into Burma for foreigners, provided they are not journalists, have been eased. Tourist groups that are easy to control are especially welcome. So should Western tourists visit Burma at all? One of the monks opposed this categorically. "Their entry backs the military. Their foreign currency supports the corrupt system from which only those at the top benefit." Every tourist must exchange US$ 200 upon arrival regardless of whether they wish to stay for a few days or the permitted maximum of four weeks. These dollars obtained by obligatory exchange are highly welcome for the rulers.

Burma is potentially rich in natural resources: oil, precious stones, arable land and fishing grounds. But the military have mismanaged the country. The overexploitation of the tropical forests which they practice themselves and tolerate of others is leading to a sell-out of the valuable timber. The trade in opium and, since recently, chemically-produced drugs in the Golden Triangle with which Burma is flooding the Thai black market would be impossible without the active participation of the military. The Burmese inflation rate is about 40 per cent, and foreign investment has been declining for years. The pent-up demand for repair, renewal and investment is obvious. That applies both in the material sense with regard to the funding required, and in the cultural-intellectual respect of spiritual revival. But a fresh start cannot be seen. On the contrary.

General backwardness

Entering Burma from Thailand gives the impression that an imaginary time machine has transported you back by decades. Take Internet cafés for instance: there is none. In some Rangoon hotels one can retrieve e-mails, but under supervision and state control. Private online connections are banned. Parts of public life such as transport, hotels and trade have been privatised, but where business is lucrative the military have their hands in it. "We had bad experiences with socialism, and what we have now is corruptly administered capitalism," said an academic who drives a taxi because it pays more than a job as a university lecturer. The universities were closed for years because the military feared they were the breeding grounds of intellectual protest. Now the country lacks several generations of experts for its development.

The military have driven Burma into isolation. Only the ASEAN countries, whose policy has always been not to interfere in the internal affairs of other member states, withhold criticism and foster friendly contacts with it. Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad reaffirmed that to the Burmese rulers during his visit to Rangoon in August this year. He was demonstrably not interested in talking to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta can also rely on the Chinese government for support. But the EU member countries well distanced themselves from the Burmese military many years ago.

Cautious liberalisation

It was only the country's miserable economic data and the realisation that their policy to date was driving it ever closer to the abyss that moved the military to end Suu Kyi's house arrest. Rangoon hoped the step would gain it some prestige and thus foreign investment. The problem is that the men in uniform are not prepared to go beyond such cosmetic concessions for foreign consumption only and get real reforms underway. Freeing Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest has also made no substantial change to the tense situation in Burma. "But the process of Myanmar's liberalisation has been implicitly agreed upon with her release," said The Straits Times in Singapore in summing up the hopes it raised. "It cannot be turned back save at a horrific economic and diplomatic cost to the isolated nation. Therefore, a prolonged delay by the ruling generals in talking reform and governance with the victor of the election would be a breach of faith, a terrible injustice to the Myanmar people."

But the generals are profiting too much from their sinecures to give them up voluntarily. Every public confrontation is unwanted and punished. Burma's press and publishing companies are still firmly in the grip of the military and their followers. Commenting on Suu Kyi's application to found her own newspaper, Burmese foreign minister Win Aung said: "At the moment I personally cannot see Aung San Suu Kyi with a newspaper in which she carries out public criticism. The government is very cautious." The ordinary people of Burma are equally cautious, because they are forced to be.