At every other intersection in Rangoon there stands a giant, multi-coloured doll, with the inscription "Welcome to Myanmar." The doll is the only plump thing I encountered in former Burma (now called Myanmar). There is something rather sinister about it; perhaps it is by association with the military regime known by the bizarre, Ian Fleming-like acronym of SLORC, which stands for "State Law and Order Restoration Council."
The doll represents SLORC's endeavours to promote tourism in Burma in the face of opposition from the Oxford-trained Nobel prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who won four fifths of the votes in a free election seven years ago. The result of that election was disregarded and the military has ruled ever since, keeping Suu Kyi under house arrest during most of that time. She has urged foreign tourists to ignore the regime's blandishments and to stay away until SLORC improves its human rights record. She also wants the west to impose trade sanctions.
To many people Suu Kyi is the new Mandela and her appeals have not gone unheeded, especially in the US. At the end of April one of the first actions of President Clinton's new secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, was to impose an embargo on any new US investment in Burma. This will not, however, affect existing US interests there. (Ironically, one of the biggest concessions already operating in Burma, Dunkin' Donuts, is reported to be 50 per cent owned by Tun Tun Naing, the son of General Than Shwe, head of SLORC.) The embargo has also, inevitably, raised allegations of hypocrisy: if Burma, where the US has few economic interests, is worthy of an embargo, why not China too, where the hu-man rights record is hardly better but where US economic interests are much greater?
At the time of writing (early May) the US is still on its own. Burma is unlikely to be a priority for Labour's new foreign secretary, Robin Cook. Japan, a big investor in Burma, is hanging back. So is France where governments are seldom moved by human rights issues. French hoteliers are busy running up tasteless concrete blocks in both Rangoon and Mandalay.
Meanwhile, Burma could become another battleground in the war of "Asian values" against western hegemony. In Singapore last February, the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) foreign ministers backed Burma's entry into the Asean regional pact. "In Asia," declared Singapore's foreign minister Shanmugam Jayukumar, "we marry first and expect the bride to adapt her behaviour after the marriage." Asean powers such as Indonesia already bridle at western criticism of their own human rights record. The likelihood is that Burma will be formally admitted at the next Asean meeting, to be held in Kuala Lumpur in July. Conflict will then loom next spring, when the Asean foreign ministers are scheduled to meet their EU opposite numbers in London; Britain currently vetoes visas for representatives of SLORC.
BURMA'S BLOODY PAST
Burma is about the size of Britain and France combined, with a population of 46m, making it the largest mainland country of southeast Asia. Its people are (for the most part) devoutly Buddhist, handsome, smiling, and justly renowned for their hospitality towards foreigners-of whom they have seen so little over the past 50 years. With great rivers such as the 1,300 mile long Irrawaddy, the Salween and the Chindwin, a rich soil that can yield three crops of rice a year, vast teak forests, and mineral wealth in oil, rubies and jade, it nevertheless remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
Although blessed by geography, Burma has been cursed with a terrible history. From early times rival kings and countless wars kept the Burmese in feudal conditions. They fought 44 wars against the Thais, winning all but three, but at an impoverishing cost. Vast pagodas and palaces, such as 18th century King Bodawpaya's cyclopean folly at Mingun, were built by slave labour, with the loss of thousands of lives. In the mid-19th century, King Mindon was burying alive subjects (notably hand-picked pregnant women) beneath the foundations of his new Xanadu in Mandalay, in order to deter evil spirits.
Such excesses gave imperial Britain a pretext for moving in, from India-which the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, did on 1st January 1886. The pretexts were as flimsy as any in British imperial history, thinly concealing commercial motives. Thereafter Burma was always a poor relation under the Raj. The British had to deal with head-hunting Nagas, institutional slavery and human sacrifice but bequeathed Burma a road and rail network (little improved upon today), and created in Rangoon and Mandalay modern colonial cities that were small clones of Delhi. More significantly, colonialism gave the country 50 years of peace and a semblance of prosperity, for about the only time in its turbulent history.
In 1942, the Japanese arrived. In the terrible retreat of that year, the British left a scorched earth behind them, firing oil wells and blowing up bridges. In 1944-45, the defeated Japanese repeated the process; while the RAF bombed what remained. Initially, many Burmese nationalists, such as Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, greeted the Japanese as liberators. They were swiftly disabused. Aung San, then still only in his late 20s, switched sides and launched the Burmese "resistance" on the side of the returning British.
The two Burma campaigns cost the British and (mostly) Indian Army 74,000 casualties; but nobody bothered to count the dead Burmese, of whom some 100,000 slave labourers are said to have died building the railway from Thailand. The war left Burma devastated and broke, and the Attlee government was happy to grant the country the full independence Aung San was pressing for. Burma needed money for reconstruction which Britain was no longer willing to find. Then in July 1947, Aung San-the one political hope for Burma-was shot down, together with all his cabinet, by fanatical rivals.
There followed years of civil war, with two brands of communist guerrillas, the "Reds" and the "Whites," fighting each other and plundering the economy. Separatist minorities such as the Kachins and the Karens (each claiming-not without reason-that the British had promised them autonomy in return for wartime services) waged their own ceaseless wars against the government. A special brand of inward-looking socialism removed Burma from the comity of nations, making it one of the world's most inaccessible regions, comparable with Tibet-from which a large proportion of the Burmese originated.
In 1953 an eight year plan inauspiciously called Pyidawtha (happy land) collapsed, as a result of internecine party disputes. After a series of disastrous regimes, an army warlord called Ne Win took over in 1962. For the next 12 years he ruled by decree. Tourist visas were limited to 24 hours. A manifesto was published, called The Burmese Way to Socialism, but Ne Win's policies were also influenced by superstitious dogma. Believing his lucky number was nine, he had banknotes issued in denominations of 45 and 90 kyat.
In 1979 Ne Win's Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma surprised the world by withdrawing from the non-aligned movement, in protest at the "big powers... exerting influence on the movement." This was symptomatic of Burma's obsession with external interference, and it withdrew further into its shell. The economy took another dive, and in 1987 Ne Win's currency reform wiped out 80 per cent of the money in circulation. The same year the UN accorded Burma, a country potentially far richer than its prospering neighbour, Thailand, the dubious status of "least developed country."
In summer 1988, economic collapse precipitated demonstrations which were savagely crushed by the military. Under both internal and international pressure, the regime proposed elections and a multiparty system-assuming that it could win them. It was a similar gamble to that taken by Pinochet in Chile that same year, and which he also lost.
MEETING THE MANDELA OF BURMA
Ne Win's regime was now replaced by SLORC, an even harder-line military junta. Suu Kyi (she is married to an Oxford don, Michael Aris), who was in Burma to tend her ailing mother, found herself caught up in the events. Although untrained in politics, "the lady"-as she is known throughout Burma-formed the National League for Democracy (NLD), and in May 1990 it won a landslide victory with 81 per cent of the votes.
SLORC, however, refused to recognise the results, demanding that first a new constitution be drafted by a national convention. Seven years later, no such constitution has yet been drawn up. Meanwhile, Suu Kyi, arrested before the elections, endured house arrest for six years. In July 1995 she was released, not having seen her husband and two young sons during most of this time. But, as I discovered on a recent visit to her, her circumstances have not improved much since. She is truly a bird in a cage-a cage that is far from golden.
Her "compound," as she calls it, at 54-56 University Avenue, Rangoon, is still sealed off by the army, and visitors can only enter by special appointment. Carrying a parcel of books (including an autographed copy of Mikhail Gorbachev's memoirs), photos and other articles from her husband, my wife and I were harassed at two separate road blocks manned by armed soldiers and plain-clothes "guards." We were also photographed, and forced to sign a registration book.
Suu Kyi's compound is surrounded by the dramatic red flags of her party. Inside is a once elegant, but now badly decayed stucco house (her late mother's), overlooking a lake on whose banks some of the worst atrocities occurred in the massacres of 1988. A hut by the lake serves as a SLORC security post (it became evident later that our conversation had been bugged from it). While we were there workmen were building a small conference centre for a rally the following week (in the event, half of the estimated 5,000 NLD supporters who arrived were turned away by the police).
The sparsely furnished room where we met is dominated by a large portrait of the late Aung San. Despite the rigours of recent years, Suu Kyi looks younger than her age. A slender woman of delicate beauty, she is wearing a pretty purple jacket with a fresh rose in her hair and an embroidered silk longyi (the long sarong worn by Burmese men and women). She laughs gaily when I say I intend to photograph the guards when we leave. Underneath there is a steely seriousness.
She still has an Oxford manner; her perfect, musical English is spiced with expressions such as "rather miffed." SLORC has tried to exploit the Oxford connection, attacking her "foreignness" and claiming that she knows nothing of Burmese politics. "But the trouble is that I know too much," she counters, "I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to what was going on."
"Are things getting better?" I ask. "No, it was worse over the past year, with more arrests of our people in the middle of the night." Some of them received seven year sentences; "You won't see people arrested at night, but now you have seen a little of what it's like, outside." She herself receives letters only four times a year and relies on the BBC World Service for contact with the outside world. "Every day they write something nasty about me in the newspapers-particularly about my western contacts."
Amnesty International confirms the personal attacks on her are becoming "increasingly strident." When she goes out she is accompanied, front and rear, by escorts from the military intelligence-"they say it's for my own safety!" In November her motorcade was attacked by thugs with iron bars.
Pressure from outside has helped. "SLORC is not impervious to international opinion," she says. She contests the idea that sanctions hurt her people, claiming that most of the income from tourism and foreign investments only finds its way into the pockets of SLORC. Does she think that, like Pinochet in Chile, the generals will go one day? "No, they don't have Pinochet's self-confidence." Perhaps the generals are fearful of retribution? "We have said many times that everything is negotiable."
Leaving, we asked about her everyday life: "It's taken up with politics-three meetings this morning, now your visit this afternoon, then another meeting this evening. I have books and videos but I don't have time to read or watch them." As we leave, Suu Kyi gives my wife a silver "fighting peacock" brooch, the symbol of Aung San's rebellious students in the 1930s.
Looking back at the fragile grille on the windows, and the few frail men from her NLD party guarding the entrance to the compound, one appreciates just how at risk she is. Some of her supporters fear she may be assassinated, like her father. But what she most fears is to be forced into exile like Solzhenitsyn.
It is hard to see the way ahead for this solitary and courageous woman. When she says that "everything is negotiable," she may mean it, but will her supporters? The instinct for revenge against the principal human rights abusers or a demand for corruption trials against those in SLORC who have amassed fortunes, may prove far harder to resist than it was among those moderate-minded Chilean liberals who succeeded Pinochet. In which case, would any general in his right senses contemplate quitting? They show no signs.
Suu Kyi and her NLD are also in difficulty when it comes to offering autonomy to the fractious minorities, the Kachins and the Karens, that is acceptable both to them and to the majority of Burmese. She points to her electoral successes in these regions and repeats that all will be open for negotiation once her party is in power. But the Karen rebels say openly that they would prefer a weak, democratic government in Rangoon.
HOW BAD IS BURMA?
Amnesty International has assembled a devastating dossier of human rights abuses against SLORC. They comprise forced labour and chain-gangs, forced portering and atrocities in operations against minority rebels, brutal relocations of communities, and arbitrary imprisonment-usually for seven-year terms-of Suu Kyi's deputies, some of whom have died in prison.
Confirming Suu Kyi's remarks to us, the latest Amnesty report (12th February 1997) rates 1996 as the "worst year for human rights this decade." In February, the army launched a new offensive against the Karen rebels in the east, driving many thousands of civilian refugees into Thailand. Recent UN reports claim that some 1m Burmese in the border area have been forced out of their homes over the past decade. And a recently retired British ambassador, describing the horrors of forced porterage in the Karen areas, told us how his cook's son had been conscripted into a group that was literally worked to death.
How can a casual visitor assess the validity of these reports? In Mandalay one is confronted by SLORC slogans as nasty as anything from Russia at the height of the cold war: "Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views." What about the imprisonments and executions? In Mandalay I had a glimpse of a police truck inhumanly packed with prisoners. Late one night there was what sounded like the chanted slogans of a demo, but we were told the next day that it was police drilling. And at Mingun I saw armed soldiers supervising the building of a road. Other than that I saw nothing, but even the experts of the Red Cross failed to detect torture by the Greek Colonels.
After a visit last November Glenys Kinnock claimed never to have seen "such deprivation and malnourished children." Yet we met with few of the obvious signs of malnutrition, even off the tourist track. It might also be argued that there are fewer beggars in Burma than in London, and that there is a more manifest paramilitary presence at Heathrow than at Rangoon airport.
In the tranquil villages of Burma, it is hard to detect a sense of repression; perhaps this relates to the prevailing Buddhist philosophy. At least by comparison with eastern Europe during the cold war, or even Algeria under Boumedienne, Burma does not have the smell of an unhappy country. Wages are low and conditions harsh; a policeman may earn less than $10 a month, and it is painful to see tourists haggling over $16 for a piece of silk which will have taken two 18-year-old girls ten days to weave. But is this slave, child or forced labour? The same reproaches apply here with equal force to India or Pakistan; and at least Burma is free of the awful sex trade in juveniles that disgraces Thailand.
Although they are not allowed to travel 25 miles outside of Rangoon without permission, some western observers see the SLORC record as not all bad. The SLORC head of intelligence, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, was trained by the Israelis and is said to be open to western ideas. In recent years there has been a great deal of building and foreign investment, from France, Japan, China and the US, with Unocal building a billion-dollar gas pipeline. Is all this helping to create a new middle class, as in Franco's Spain?
SLORC claims some success in combating the opium trade in the "Golden Triangle." It also claims to have concluded ceasefires with most of the rebel factions (although Suu Kyi disputes that these are genuine and the Karen National Union is alive and kicking hard on the Thai frontier).
Robert Gordon, the British ambassador, considers it his duty to promote human rights first and business interests second. But he regrets the failure to reach any compromise between SLORC and the opposition. Suu Kyi criticises SLORC for refusing dialogue but is herself wary of accepting a deal by which SLORC might concede power, with the proviso that the military retain 25 per cent of national assembly seats. Her public stance is tough, but in private she stresses-as she did to us-that everything is negotiable once SLORC engages in real dialogue.
THE SANCTIONS DISPUTE
What can outsiders do to help bring about that dialogue? One prominent US businessman told us that sanctions would be counter-productive and drive SLORC back into the introverted shell from which Burma has just begun to emerge. In his view, tourism and more contact with the outside world are the best ways of reforming SLORC. He pointed to parallels with neighbouring Cambodia, where "the country is a shambles with two prime ministers, abject poverty and an active Khmer Rouge force. Is that what Suu Kyi and Amnesty International want for Myanmar?"
For all my admiration for Suu Kyi, I also doubt whether she is right to tell foreign tourists not to come. Open windows let in the air and light. I have visited and written about other countries with odious regimes-from Pinochet's Chile to Honecker's East Germany-and where are they now? One supporter of "the lady" in Mandalay provided another reason for opposing sanctions: if the west pulls out, she said, the Chinese will take over. Her fears were confirmed a week after the US sanctions announcement when it was reported that China and Burma had reached a deal on developing the Irrawaddy river.
Yet following the US decision, the tide, for now, is with the sanctions supporters. As a former US ambassador said to me: "'We regard Suu Kyi as the legally elected head of Burma; therefore, if she calls for sanctions we must do what she wants."
