Maureen Aung-Thwin: One free in Burma, fifty million to go
After Aung San Suu Kyi's release, the world must keep the pressure on if Burma's many other political prisoners are to realise their struggle for freedom and democracy.
The release of Burmese democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest last week is indeed cause for celebration. However, it is also a time to remember the over thousand or more political prisoners who remain incarcerated for such "serious crimes" as talking about democracy or distributing banned literature. The rest of the Burmese populace is in effect still a hostage of the military regime. There is no aspect of daily life that is not regulated or scrutinized by the government. For example, overnight guests - even one's own relatives, if they are not part of the official household - must register with the neighborhood prefect.
The international community's opprobrium, along with the military regime's incompetence, played a huge part in getting the generals controlling one of the world's most repressive regimes to the negotiating table. A week after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from 20 months of detention - basically for trying to buy a train ticket out of Rangoon - some companies and aid organizations are already calling to lift the various sanctions against aiding and trading with the regime. Only the vigilance of the international community and the threat of continued opprobrium will keep the generals talking with Daw Suu towards a genuine and irreversible political transition.
Burma's military, founded by Daw Suu's father, General Aung San, was once beloved and revered for liberating Burma from both British and Japanese colonial rule. Today even without an external threat, the Burmese army is one of the la rgest armed forces in the region. It will undoubtedly continue to play a major role in the country's future, but it must so do in its historical role as protectors, rather than predators of the people.
Non-Burmese who follow world events are usually entranced by the long struggle for democracy in Burma because of the charisma and elegance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Few are aware of the hardship and daily indignities endured by the average Burmese, the quiet courage of those languishing in prison or the humor and creativity of citizens who have learned to survive the system. Daw Suu is the first to acknowledge this. She told a reporter in one of her first interviews after her release, "Many have suffered more than I have, much more. I don't have the right to complain."
Largely unknown to the international community, Burma's most prominent political prisoner after Daw Suu is Min Ko Naing. This is the nom de guerre meaning "Conqueror of Kings", of Paw U Tun, the fiery student leader of the nationwide uprising in the summer of 1988. Throughout the 1980s, as a student at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University, Min Ko Naing had somehow managed to build a nationwide political dissident network in the dangerous shadow of one of the world's most watchful police states. In 1988 his passion and oratory at rallies brought out millions of Burmese into the streets. Min Ko Naing was arrested early in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Although his sentence was reduced to 10 years-now completed-he remains in jail in ill health. Though suffering in solitary confinement for most of these years, Min Ko Naing is defiant. On the rare occasions he was able to send a message outside, he simply said, "Don't give up."
Poet and essayist U Tin Moe, who is in his 60s, fared better. In 1991, the year Daw Aung Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize, U Tin Moe, who headed a committee of Daw Suu's National League for Democracy (NLD), was arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison. In jail U Tin Moe was prohibited from possessing any reading or writing materials, so he was comforted by the discovery of one of his short poems scratched on the dirty walls by a previous prisoner, a poem for which he was famous: "The cigarette's burnt down, the sun is brown, will someone please take me home now."
U Tin Moe's colleague and contemporary, U Win Tin, who is still in jail, once expounded publicly on the poem's relevance: He said: "There are large numbers of important people who don't know that they should say 'Please take me home now.' Today there are many, many political problems in our country, so many insurmountable difficulties, so many unspeakable matters - and why? Because if some leading people knew when their cigar was burnt down, when the sun was brown and knew when they should say 'Please take me home', then our country's politics would not have gotten into such a mess."
U Tin Moe wrote another poem that greatly annoyed the authorities. It was about Dr Michael Aris, Daw Suu's British husband, the renowned Tibetologist who died of cancer in England soon after the junta refused a visa for him to go to Burma one last time to say goodbye to his wife. When the authorities started warning him against helping the NLD, U Tin Moe decided he was too old to survive another possible incarceration and decided to leave the country and join his daughter who lived in Belgium.
Obtaining passports in Burma is not a civic right. What's more, passports cost exorbitant brokerage fees and require cunning to get one, especially for national treasures like poet laureates who are barred from leaving the country without permission. Fortunately for U Tin Moe, neither the passport broker nor the immigration officials had enough literary savvy to recognize the poet's real name - U Ba Gyan - which his passport carried. No one even knew he had fled. The escape was discovered when they heard him being interviewed on the Burmese Service of the BBC.
The Min Ko Naings and U Tin Moes of Burma deserve to see their struggle through to the proper end. If the international community is genuinely interested in helping to end Burma's 40 year old nightmare, Burma policy among the major players should be coordinated, consistent and clear. Europe, the United States and Japan at least should have a common position on Burma that promotes a genuine transition to eventual civilian rule. For example, there should be no major aid or investment in Burma until all political prisoners have been released, freedom of expression and association is guaranteed. In other words, until real and irreversible political and economic reform has taken place.
Burma today is beset by a host of problems after forty years of military dictatorship: A ruined economy, a devastated education system, political uncertainty and a burgeoning hiv-aids epidemic. But the country is not Afghanistan or East Timor. It is blessed with a vast abundance of natural resources, and even after decades of neglect, possesses a bright, youthful population who are tired of civil war, hungry for knowledge, and eager to rejoin the world. Burma is in an enviable position to draw from the successes of other transitions and learn to avoid the pitfalls of others.
Maureen Aung-Thwin is Director of the Burma Project and Southeast Asia Initiative of the Open Society Institute.
The release of Burmese democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest last week is indeed cause for celebration. However, it is also a time to remember the over thousand or more political prisoners who remain incarcerated for such "serious crimes" as talking about democracy or distributing banned literature. The rest of the Burmese populace is in effect still a hostage of the military regime. There is no aspect of daily life that is not regulated or scrutinized by the government. For example, overnight guests - even one's own relatives, if they are not part of the official household - must register with the neighborhood prefect.
The international community's opprobrium, along with the military regime's incompetence, played a huge part in getting the generals controlling one of the world's most repressive regimes to the negotiating table. A week after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from 20 months of detention - basically for trying to buy a train ticket out of Rangoon - some companies and aid organizations are already calling to lift the various sanctions against aiding and trading with the regime. Only the vigilance of the international community and the threat of continued opprobrium will keep the generals talking with Daw Suu towards a genuine and irreversible political transition.
Burma's military, founded by Daw Suu's father, General Aung San, was once beloved and revered for liberating Burma from both British and Japanese colonial rule. Today even without an external threat, the Burmese army is one of the la rgest armed forces in the region. It will undoubtedly continue to play a major role in the country's future, but it must so do in its historical role as protectors, rather than predators of the people.
Non-Burmese who follow world events are usually entranced by the long struggle for democracy in Burma because of the charisma and elegance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Few are aware of the hardship and daily indignities endured by the average Burmese, the quiet courage of those languishing in prison or the humor and creativity of citizens who have learned to survive the system. Daw Suu is the first to acknowledge this. She told a reporter in one of her first interviews after her release, "Many have suffered more than I have, much more. I don't have the right to complain."
Largely unknown to the international community, Burma's most prominent political prisoner after Daw Suu is Min Ko Naing. This is the nom de guerre meaning "Conqueror of Kings", of Paw U Tun, the fiery student leader of the nationwide uprising in the summer of 1988. Throughout the 1980s, as a student at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University, Min Ko Naing had somehow managed to build a nationwide political dissident network in the dangerous shadow of one of the world's most watchful police states. In 1988 his passion and oratory at rallies brought out millions of Burmese into the streets. Min Ko Naing was arrested early in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Although his sentence was reduced to 10 years-now completed-he remains in jail in ill health. Though suffering in solitary confinement for most of these years, Min Ko Naing is defiant. On the rare occasions he was able to send a message outside, he simply said, "Don't give up."
Poet and essayist U Tin Moe, who is in his 60s, fared better. In 1991, the year Daw Aung Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize, U Tin Moe, who headed a committee of Daw Suu's National League for Democracy (NLD), was arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison. In jail U Tin Moe was prohibited from possessing any reading or writing materials, so he was comforted by the discovery of one of his short poems scratched on the dirty walls by a previous prisoner, a poem for which he was famous: "The cigarette's burnt down, the sun is brown, will someone please take me home now."
U Tin Moe's colleague and contemporary, U Win Tin, who is still in jail, once expounded publicly on the poem's relevance: He said: "There are large numbers of important people who don't know that they should say 'Please take me home now.' Today there are many, many political problems in our country, so many insurmountable difficulties, so many unspeakable matters - and why? Because if some leading people knew when their cigar was burnt down, when the sun was brown and knew when they should say 'Please take me home', then our country's politics would not have gotten into such a mess."
U Tin Moe wrote another poem that greatly annoyed the authorities. It was about Dr Michael Aris, Daw Suu's British husband, the renowned Tibetologist who died of cancer in England soon after the junta refused a visa for him to go to Burma one last time to say goodbye to his wife. When the authorities started warning him against helping the NLD, U Tin Moe decided he was too old to survive another possible incarceration and decided to leave the country and join his daughter who lived in Belgium.
Obtaining passports in Burma is not a civic right. What's more, passports cost exorbitant brokerage fees and require cunning to get one, especially for national treasures like poet laureates who are barred from leaving the country without permission. Fortunately for U Tin Moe, neither the passport broker nor the immigration officials had enough literary savvy to recognize the poet's real name - U Ba Gyan - which his passport carried. No one even knew he had fled. The escape was discovered when they heard him being interviewed on the Burmese Service of the BBC.
The Min Ko Naings and U Tin Moes of Burma deserve to see their struggle through to the proper end. If the international community is genuinely interested in helping to end Burma's 40 year old nightmare, Burma policy among the major players should be coordinated, consistent and clear. Europe, the United States and Japan at least should have a common position on Burma that promotes a genuine transition to eventual civilian rule. For example, there should be no major aid or investment in Burma until all political prisoners have been released, freedom of expression and association is guaranteed. In other words, until real and irreversible political and economic reform has taken place.
Burma today is beset by a host of problems after forty years of military dictatorship: A ruined economy, a devastated education system, political uncertainty and a burgeoning hiv-aids epidemic. But the country is not Afghanistan or East Timor. It is blessed with a vast abundance of natural resources, and even after decades of neglect, possesses a bright, youthful population who are tired of civil war, hungry for knowledge, and eager to rejoin the world. Burma is in an enviable position to draw from the successes of other transitions and learn to avoid the pitfalls of others.
Maureen Aung-Thwin is Director of the Burma Project and Southeast Asia Initiative of the Open Society Institute.
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