Burma: Going, Going, Going … Where?

A presentation by Timothy Syrota to the Australian Institute of International Affairs (Melbourne), August 2002. Also speaking, former Australian Ambassador to Burma, Mr Garry Woodard.
 
 
There is a town in North Eastern Burma called Hsipaw. It is in Shan State, on the Shan Plateau, a thousand metres above sea level. It is a pretty region, a region of mists and hills and fertile growth. Hsipaw itself is only small, fifteen minutes bicycle ride from one side to the other. But it is a town on the road linking Mandalay in Upper Burma to Lashio on the border of China’s Yunnan Province. Significant also is the fact that Hsipaw was the centre of one of the Shan princedoms into which Shan State was divided prior to the military coup in Burma in 1962.
 
I was first in Hsipaw in 1997 taking photographs and gathering notes for a book. I returned in July / August 2001 in order to film a documentary. Between these respective journeys, changes occurred in the town and I believe these changes are an interesting window through which the nature of current reforms in Burma can be viewed. And so tonight I will talk to you about the town of Hsipaw.
 
In 1997 the journey to Hsipaw was a long one, taking 10 hours to travel 140 miles. This, perhaps, was the best indication of how bad the road was; not so much a long and windy road as a heavily potholed one. Along the way, looking out of the windows of the bus, immediately apparent was how much land had been clear felled and then left, redundant once its obvious income earner, timber, was gone.
 
The town of Hsipaw itself had only recently been opened to independent travellers. The reasons for this were twofold (i) it was Visit Myanmar Year and the Military Government had adopted a policy of opening a few towns to independent travellers and (ii) the Burmese Military had recently signed a cease-fire with the Shan State Army North. One of the terms of this agreement was that the SSA would not relinquish their weapons. In 1997, as a visitor to Hsipaw, what this translated to was that whilst sitting and eating breakfast I could watch military patrols from the SSA armed with automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade launchers walking down the main street. Five minutes later I could see a patrol from the Burmese Army walking in the opposite direction. It was interesting to note that in most instances, it was the Burmese Military who had the less prominent hardware. Similar patrols were evident walking through the rice paddies outside Hsipaw and there was a Shan State Army base not far outside the town. And when invited to attend the wedding of the son of one of the generals of the Shan State Army, the circumference of the house was surrounded by groups of heavily armed soldiers.
 
By the time I arrived in Hsipaw I had already been travelling through Burma for five weeks and was well aware of the reticence of people, for example in Kachin State, to talk directly about the Burmese Military Government. Fear of informers was paramount. But in Hsipaw it was my impression that the people were more forthright and open in their condemnation of the regime. I would suggest that there were two reasons for this – (i) Shan dislike and mistrust of ethnic Burmans and (ii) the continuing presence of the Shan soldiers on the streets of Hsipaw.
 
So yes, in 1997 there was a cease-fire between the Burmese military and the SSA but it was a cease-fire with at least an element of tension. Indeed, during the two weeks that I was in Hsipaw, the Burmese military killed a Shan man on the outskirts of town and they raided a black market timber mill in the hills nearby, killing a number of people who worked there. Three hours walk out of Hsipaw and the cultivation of opium poppies was evident. In addition, forced labour, one of the many human rights abuses for which the Burmese Military Regime has been condemned, was rife. Villagers were being rounded up from villages and forced by armed soldiers to rebuild a bridge in the region, they were being used as army porters, and many were being forced to work on the road between Lashio and Hsipaw. At the time, a Chinese delegation was soon to arrive to assess direct overland transportation from Yunnan Province, through Lashio and Hsipaw and on to Mandalay, the Irrawady River and then out into the Gulf of Martaban and the Indian Ocean. The road was not a good one, the Burmese Military Government wanted to make a good impression and Shan Villagers around Hsipaw were being forced to leave their crops and do the labour.
 
So a ceasefire, yes, but an end to hostilities and animosity was still a long way off.
 
There are two more issues to which I would like to draw your attention with regard to life in Hsipaw at this time. The first of these was the one lane-bridge, built by the British, which crosses the Dohktawaddy River on the outskirts of the town. It should be noted that there are no viable alternatives but for crossing this bridge in order to progress through to the Chinese border. But what was significant about this bridge in 1997 was not so much the bridge as the queue of trucks and utilities that extended for over a kilometre back from it, reaching even into the town itself. In fact, it extended further still if one were to include the trucks that had been parked by the road-side and seemingly left. The story behind this queue goes something like this. The Burmese soldiers on the bridge were not letting traffic through because the bridge was under repair. But depending on who you were, the size of the load of your truck, and whether or not you could pay between 10 and 30 000 kyat to the military on the bridge, then the bridge was no longer under repair and you would be allowed to cross. This sum of money should be seen in the context of the fact that in 1997 a high school headmaster in Hsipaw was being paid 1,500 kyat per month. As such, it is understandable that many truck drivers, vehicles laden with goods, did not possess this amount of money and had little choice but to queue or park until they could raise the required funds. One truck driver to whom I spoke had spent two weeks trying to get across the bridge.
 
So this was the story of the bridge across the Dokhtawaddy.
 
The final issue upon which I would like to touch with regard to Hsipaw in 1997 is of a more philosophical nature. Prior to arriving in Hsipaw I had travelled through some quite remote areas in Northern Burma, areas where people were simple and had been exposed to minimal western influence. These people endured economic hardships and please remember, in this context, in 1997 school headmasters were being paid US$4.50 a month and the people to whom I am now referring were not headmasters but rural villagers. Anyway, few of these people live to be over 50 and during their lives they were subjected to obvious oppression, both as a result of local military whim and national Military Government policy. But despite these obvious hardships, these were people who nonetheless seemed to have a greater sense of ease and a greater capacity to smile and laugh than the majority of people one comes across in Western cultures. At least this was my impression and it was an impression which led me to question what poverty really is. And it was in Hsipaw that I found part of the answer. One day, walking through the villages outside the town, I came across a mother and her son. Very poor people, very simple people. On one side of his face, the child had a skin disorder which had developed into a wound, weeping and red raw. And when I saw this I thought, this is part of a definition of poverty – poverty is a mother who, for the sake of a half a dollar, cannot end the suffering of her child.
 
Anyway, those were a few elements of life in Hsipaw in 1997. When I returned to the town at the end of 2001 it was with the intention of capturing some of these elements of Hsipaw on film. What I did not expect was that during my four year absence quite significant change had come to the town.
 
The first of these changes are apparent on the bus to Hsipaw. No longer is it a ten hour bump and grind ride. Instead it is now a relatively smooth journey taking six hours. The road is still narrow, the edges are crumbly but by and large the potholes are gone. And beside the road, replacing the untended scrub, there is significantly more evidence of agricultural plots. Then, arriving in Hsipaw, there are no queues to cross the Dokthawaddy Bridge. In fact, at the bridge a cursory exchange of words occurs with the soldiers stationed at the entrance and then traffic passes through. No more bribes, no more informal levies. These have been replaced by a series of orderly toll stations – I can’t say for certain but I think there were two, maybe three and the sums to be paid are quite low, maybe something in the order of 80 – 200 kyat depending on the nature of the vehicle. I’m sorry for my imprecision but I was tired and not particularly well when I made this journey but whatever, the whole process was far removed form the thousands of kyat required in 1997.
In the town of Hsipaw itself further changes were evident. Most notably, no longer were there Shan State Army North soldiers walking down the main street bearing Rambo like military hardware. In fact, in the two weeks I was in Hsipaw I saw only one sign of the Shan State Army and that was a small vehicle which bore the letters SSA. It was parked in a driveway and my guess is that it was being used as a private vehicle. But that was it for a visible presence of the SSA.
 
Also notable was that walking around Hsipaw there were many new houses being built and they were not small houses, they were well constructed and obviously belonged to wealthier members of the community. And it was not that one or two were being built but that there were enough to attract ones attention to the amount of building going on.
 
A further point. In the house next to the guest house in which I have stayed on both occasions is a privately owned school. It had been there in 1997 but last year it was obviously flourishing. There were multiple classes running simultaneously in Maths and English and each class was full with forty to fifty students. Classes ran from seven until eight thirty in the morning before regular school and again at the end of the school day. And the students attending this school were noticeably well dressed, with nice shoulder bags, smart longii, and many had new bicycles. Clearly these were children from families with more money than average. The private school was a very different place to what it had been four years earlier.
 
These are only a few examples but I think a cursory conclusion that might be drawn would be that with a cease-fire in place, the improvement in the road, and an increase in trade and traffic to the Chinese border, Hsipaw was enjoying increased prosperity.
 
It is a fair conclusion but then a few further elements need to be thrown into the mix. The first concern the development of the road. No informal levies, no massive potholes, tollgates in place, more evidence of agriculture and a relatively clear route facilitating trade between China and Burma. That is all very well but the problem is this: the contract to build the road was given to Asia World Company, a company set up and run Lo Hsing Han and his family. In the 1970s Lo Hsing Han and his militia were the largest opium producers in Burma. It is a long story but in a nut shell he was arrested for by the Thais and Americans for his involvement in the trade, sentenced in Bangkok, and extradited to Burma where after three years the military released him and now he and his family run one of the most successful companys in Burma. During the 1990s Lo Hsing Han’s son, Stephen Law, was refused entry into the United States because of his suspected continuing involvement in drug trafficking. Even today, one of the factories owned by Asia World Company is a plastic bag factory importing the solvent Acetic Anhydride. It is suggested importation of this chemical is more expensive than would be the importation of plastic bags. But Acetic Anhydride also happens to be the chemical used in heroin refinement. Lo Hsing Han and Asia World have a friendly relationship with the Burmese military and the suggestion is that they are still involved in the drug trade.
 
So coming back to the road to Hsipaw and the increased prosperity that it brings, can this rightly be seen as progress in a positive sense? Is it progress when the Burmese Military Government grants contracts to people suspected of continuing involvement in the drug trade? And the same can be said of the Burmese Regime’s relationship with Khun Sa, the leading heroin producer during the 1990s, and the granting of contracts to his ‘legitimate’ enterprises. And now the Military Government also have amiable relations with the ethnic Wa, an ethnic minority notorious for its involvement in the opium and methamphetamine trades.
 
In this context, when reviewing the improvement to the road, is it such an improvement when it is undertaken by a company which certainly has had and likely still does have involvement in the drug trade. Or is it more a legitimisation of that company and by so being a deepening of Burma’s problems and an entrenchment of things foul?
 
Moving on to another point – the absence of soldiers walking around Hsipaw with heavy artillery on their backs. Can this be rightly seen as a sign of progress? Quite simply, let’s look at that with which it has been replaced. There are now three Burmese military battalions based within 10 kilometres of Hsipaw. In the town, in the market, in the restaurants, walking in the streets, the Burmese military are always present. Sometimes they are not armed but they are constantly evident. And it goes further than this. Every morning Burmese military trucks bring people into Hsipaw from outlying villages. Is this a free taxi service, a form of Burmese Military public transport or is there something sinister about villagers being put in the back of trucks which have armed soldiers sitting at the back? Taking this one step further, children from outlying villages are also taken into school in military trucks. These are children, five, six and seven years old, and once they have boarded the trucks, two or four soldiers armed with semi automatic rifles climb in and sit at the back. Yes, this does transport them to school but really why the need for armed soldiers. But again, it goes further than this. In Hsipaw a primary school to which these children are taken has been relocated inside one of the military battalions. The military say that these measures are for the protection of the children. It is a ludicrous proposition – I have heard no stories of ethnic Shan people killing ethnic Shan children and there seems to me little reason for the presence of the soldiers other than to send a clear message to the Shan people. To be perfectly honest, from a personal perspective, there is something both ugly and sinister about these scenes involving children and armed soldiers.
 
Additionally, two days before I left Hsipaw, a convoy of eight military trucks arrived in town. The (Burmese) soldiers on board were heavily armed and many of their guns had red scarfs tied to them, a symbol that they had recently returned from combat zones some 100 kilometres away.
 
So in Hsipaw, yes, no more Shan State Army soldiers. Instead, Burmese Military consolidation through pervasive presence in most facets of daily life. This poses the question, should this rightly be seen as progress?
 
Now let me turn to a final story. When I was last in Hsipaw I headed off walking into the hills as I had done in 1997. I spent time with villagers, I ate with villagers, and I drank with villagers. One afternoon I came across a young village boy fishing and I filmed him. Often when I had been filming there would be an initial reaction. Some people would stare at the camera, some people would be shy and some people would pose. But this boy, nothing, he continued to fish, unperturbed, whilst I filmed. When I spoke to him I asked him how he was and he answered, ‘I am hungry, I did not eat today.’ He wasn’t begging, he wasn’t asking for food, it was merely a statement of fact. I ask you, in the audience, ‘How are you today?’ and you answer, ‘I am feeling good’, ‘I am a bit tired’, ‘Not too bad,’ and this little boy answered just as routinely, ‘I am hungry,’ and then he gave me his spare bamboo fishing pole and we spent the afternoon together trying to catch fish in mud puddles in the rice paddies.
 
And this is the point upon which I would like to end. Whatever conclusion one might reach concerning progress in Hsipaw itself, go two kilometres outside Hsipaw, to where the villages start, and there is no sign of progress and the villages outside Hsipaw are representative of 80% of the population in Burma. In 1997 I focused on a mother with a child with a skin disorder as a symbol of poverty in Burma. On my last visit it was a boy with a fishing pole who when asked, ‘How are you?’ answered, quite simply, ‘I am hungry.’
 
And this leads to a significant question that we must address when looking at the ‘reforms’ that are currently occurring in Burma. Who are these reforms for? If they are genuine reforms they will surely have at their heart the desire and the intention to improve the lives of the people in Burma, like the child with the skin disorder and the boy with the bamboo fishing pole. And I ask, where is the evidence of this reform, reform which does not attract international attention but does help the impoverished and long suffering population of the country? And even today in the paper, as international criticism begins to mount concerning the absence of dialogue between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi in the months since her release, the military response is to once again say that they will release four political prisoners, four of the estimated 1,200 still incarcerated for supporting democracy in Burma. Once again this rates a mention in the international press but it does nothing for a little boy in Hsipaw who is hungry.
 
I have a good friend in Hsipaw, an elderly man, respected in the community, well spoken, and well educated. Before I left Hsipaw he said to me, ‘Reform? Reform in my country is only about making more pressure on the people.’ From my the time that I have spent in Burma and on the Thai Burma border, I am not inclined to disagree with this gentleman.