Floods, Fear and Reforms: Street Talk Inside Burma

A 2001 perspective about reform in Burma.
 
 
It is July 2001 and the newspapers in Bangkok hail ‘Junta, National League for Democracy to form government. Thai Defense Minister Chavalit optimistic about peaceful settlement between military leaders and opposition,’ (The Nation, Bangkok, July 7, 2001). The previous day, seven political prisoners had been released bringing to 129 the number of political prisoners set free since January 2001. There is also talk of releasing Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. In August, United Nations Special Envoy, Razali Ismail, is allowed once again to visit Burma and holds talks with both military leaders and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Meanwhile, ‘Secret Talks’ that began in October 2000 between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, head of Burmese Military Intelligence and Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) continue. This is the first direct dialogue between the military and the democratic opposition since 1994.
 
Small steps. Yes, definitely small and definitely steps. Along a path to reform and democracy? Maybe. And taken with sincerity? The questions only seem to become more difficult, especially when considered in the context of 40 years of military rule and a number of false starts along this self same path. But this time? From outside Burma, listening to the rhetoric of the military, reading the press releases of the United Nations, looking at the foreign media and the statements of regional politicians and foreign ministers, yes, maybe these are steps upon which to found hope.
 
But then turn it around, go inside the country, look from the inside out and see whether this perspective supports similar grounds for optimism. I first travelled to Burma in 1997, ostensibly as a tourist but working as a freelance writer and photographer. Most recently I returned from Burma in August 2001 having been filming a documentary on the lives of Burmese people. While engaged in this filming much of what I saw and heard in the country painted a sadly familiar picture.
 
In the cities of Rangoon and Mandalay a popular topic of conversation is the state of the economy. Taxi drivers, my hotel manager, a friendly corner-side betel nut man, a Muslim eye glass seller, a goldsmith, would-be tour guides and a wealthy businessman working in import and export, all very quickly turn to the same topic and the message is unanimous: Burma’s economy has floundered for decades but now it is going through particularly bad times. The national currency is subject to violent and unpredictable fluctuations, electricity is rationed, inflation is rampant, wages are low, foreign investors look elsewhere and the number of tourists visiting the country is dwindling. It is like 1988 but worse, my hotel manager says, and this scares her very much.
 
In March 2001 the national currency, the kyat, was traded on the black market at 350 to the U.S. dollar. By May it was trading as low as 920 kyat per dollar. In the first week of June it rose to 600 as two consecutive police raids on black marketeers were executed. Then, two weeks later, the military imposed a three day-day ban on the trading of any foreign currency. For tourists, it was not possible to obtain kyat. But the black market traders will be back and, as their confidence returns, so too will the value of the kyat once again plummet. The desire for hard currency dollars in Burma cannot be suppressed, even by the threat of lengthy jail sentences. One businessman asks me, ‘How can we do business when from day to day we do not know how much our money is worth? It is not possible.’
 
Another measure of the economic downturn is electricity rationing. In Pyay, a large provincial town between Mandalay and Rangoon, electricity is provided on an eight hour rotation scheme with different districts on different schedules. Today electricity runs from 2p.m. to 10p.m., tomorrow from 10p.m. to 6a.m. and the day after, from 6a.m. to 2p.m. The situation is the same in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city. And power failures, even on ‘up’ times, are not infrequent. My businessman friend says to me, ‘It is very difficult to do business when we cannot rely on the power supply.’
 
When I first arrive in Rangoon a taxi driver tells me that the price of petrol has tripled from 300 kyat per gallon to 900 kyat per gallon in five months. At its inflationary peak the price rises by 50 kyat per day. The taxi driver must increase his prices but people cannot afford to pay more money. Sometimes he can no longer afford to drive the streets looking for work. Instead he parks his taxi and waits for people to approach him. Sometimes he even has to ask for some of the fare up front so that he can buy petrol for the journey.
 
Speaking with a tour guide at Shweddagon Paya, I hear that in 1997 some 250,000 tourists visited Burma, but now the figure is around 150,000. There is very little work and the man is lucky to earn US$5 per week. Similarly affected by the dwindling number of tourists is the hotel in which I stay in Rangoon. Built in 1996 in anticipation of an increase in tourists coming to Burma for Visit Myanmar Year, it used to boast a reception staff of three or four during the day but now there is only one daytime staff member and one evening staff member and each is paid US$15 per month.
 
I meet a wealthy Burmese gentleman who works in import and export. As a sideline business he works in the black market business of organising documents, passports, visas and passage for wealthy people out of the country, including members of the military and their families. I ask him why even they want to leave and he explains, ‘There is no security in business, there is no secure future. Anyone who can leave, does. For the poor, they work only to exist. This is not life. The democracy uprisings in 1988, people wanted democracy but really everyone was sick of the economy being so bad. It is the same this year and in my country we are scared of what might happen. There will be change. We cannot continue like this.’
 
In Rangoon and Mandalay, the word is that economics will force change in Burma. Rural villagers speak with equal certainty about change, but their reasoning is quite different. In May 2001, in Meik-ti-la, a town south of Mandalay, a dam wall overflows and approximately five hundred villagers are drowned. In Nam San, near the Chinese border, there is a mudslide that kills two hundred people. In Northern Burma, on the line to the town of Myitkyina a bridge collapses while a train crosses and most of the passengers drown. And across Shan State, there is extensive flooding. These events are not reported in the state-controlled media but word spreads quickly and to the rural people from the forests and the hills and the fields such disasters are seen as powerful omens for change.
 
An elderly, well-spoken, and well-educated friend who has regular contact with village leaders tells me, ‘Politics is about talking. It takes place in rooms with lights and it doesn’t matter whether outside it is night or day, sun or rain. Floods have nothing to do with politics. But the villagers do not think like this. In 1986 there were floods and soon after there was unrest. Ne Win stepped aside and there was escalating tension leading to the demonstrations of 1988. The villagers said that the floods had been omens for this. And today the villagers believe further floods are omens for upheaval. They are sure of this. Perhaps they will be right again.’
Within Burma the military response to this belief in imminent change, whether it be founded on omens or economics, has been characteristic of its actions for decades. Primarily, its objective is to create division and fear amongst its own people, thereby trying to secure its grip on power.
 
In Mandalay on May 4, 2001 a bomb explodes in Zeigyo market. The national newspapers proclaim that Shan insurgents trying to disrupt the stability of the state are responsible. Mandalay people, however, tell a different story. Reports one man, ‘People knew that the bomb was there for half an hour before it exploded. The police station is five minutes walk from the market and the fire station is even closer. Why did they not come sooner? We know that it is the military who planted the bomb. It is a government trick.’
 
Equally sinister are events that occur on 22nd and 23rd of May 2001 in Taungoo, a town in central Burma. I hear this story piece by piece as it filters through to me. The first is about riots between Buddhist monks and Muslims. A military curfew is imposed. Buses bound for Mandalay are not permitted to go through the town. The central mosque has been burnt down. A senior Muslim leader has been killed. Others are also killed. Buddhist monks have perpetrated these deeds. Then I hear that they are not real Buddhist monks, they are military dressed up as monks.
 
The military uses the riots in Taungoo as a reason to increase its presence. In Mandalay, Eindawya Pagoda was the place where the poorest people of the city would stay and receive donations from monks. Now the pagoda has been overrun by the military. Each entrance is protected by armed guards. Inside the temple grounds three squads of soldiers reside and Military Intelligence officers are rife. What were not long ago meditation halls are now littered with the swags of soldiers – sleeping mats, boots, belts, helmets, and mosquito nets.
Beyond the pagoda is a monastery. I visit early one morning and a monk invites me to come up to the monks’ quarters. As I join him a soldier walks across and does not leave me for the duration of the time that I am with the monk. It is quite clear that he will not allow me any opportunity to speak with the monk in private. So we talk about meaningless things and then, when I have finished talking, the soldier escorts me off the premises.
In another monastery, this time in Pyay, more soldiers with rifles stand on guard. Few monks leave their residences and there is a noticeable absence of monks in the town. At night, military patrols walk the unlit back streets, helmets on, truncheons and guns in hand. It is a sinister sight.
 
Why such a military presence? Is it to safeguard against the possibility of further religious conflict? Or is it because the military does not want monks expressing their views on the events in Taungoo? Monks are capable of attracting widespread popular support in Burma and they have a history of opposing the military regime. Already it is a widely-held view that the military itself fosters the rift between Buddhist and Muslim populations in order to divert attention from political and economic realities. ‘We do not believe these are real monks making the problems,’ says my hotel owne in Mandalay, ‘real monks do not do this. If we see such people in Mandalay we chase them out of the streets. We know that they are not real monks because we have never seen them before in the town. So we chase them out of the streets because we know that they are trouble-makers who dress up as monks and do the work of the military.’
 
The military presence in and around temples and monasteries has a second function. It positions soldiers so that they are plainly visible to the general Burmese population, creating fear and acting as a pervasive deterrent against popular unrest.
The state of the economy, the floods, the feeling that there will be change, the bomb, the religious unrest – this is something of what goes on inside Burma today. But it is only something. What of the propaganda that for months decries the threat of a neo-colonialist, ‘ puppet-of-America-and the CIA’ Thailand invading its borders? What of the dismal state of education and the burgeoning drug problem? What of the workers of Burma in the streets and the rice paddies that earn US$10 per month? What of the World Health Organisation that rates the Burmese military as providing the second worst health care out of 191 countries assessed but still supports and equips a standing army of 400,000 soldiers? What of the rice shortage that the country faces? What of the truck loads of heavily armed soldiers moving through Shan State?
 
The Burmese military wants one type of news coming out of Burma: news of reform. Burma is economically moribund. It needs foreign aid and investment so the military must be seen to be making concessions. But the reforms it makes are to please the international community, they are not reforms that directly impact upon the lives of people inside Burma. Indeed, the lives of Burmese people are noticeably worse than they were four years ago and for them, current reforms seem only to equate to increased pressure from a military regime still reluctant to transfer any of its power.