Nyo Ohn Myint
October 2007
It has been almost twenty years after the “September Revolution” or Saffron Revolution” took place in Burma, the people of Burma and Buddhist Monks joined together to resist the suppression from military regime under the economic disaster in September 2007. Joining by political and religious leaders, the Burmese fulfilled the civic responsibility to resist the brutalization and sacrificed their lives, which surprised the whole world after almost twenty years of quietness. Indeed, military regime’s systematic suppression seemed working for nearly two decades. However, people’s power and resistance of military dictatorship seemed to be renewed, and hope is coming.
The history of Burma and its political landscape could be seen in the conflicts between ethnic minority and the majority Burmese as well as the military dictatorships and democratic movement lasting for more than five decades. Ethnic armed forces fought with the central government, but they never extended the war zone beyond their own ethnic areas. The civil war in Burma simply created stronger Burmese army and allowed those Burmese generals to become influential political figures in Burma’s political arena. Unfortunately, the rural areas’ economy became much worse due to the civil war and the so-called “Burmese way to socialism.”
After the popular uprising in 1988, Burma’s military dictators renamed themselves as “State Peace and Development Council” (SPDC) or de’ facto government and came to power. After this bloody suppression in 1988, this military regime had promised to initiate political reform by allowing people to form political parties (this right had been banned since 1962) and conducting democratic elections. In the 1990 elections, daughter of Burma independence hero, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, led National league for Democracy (NLD) and won 82 % of parliament seats, while the military regime supported former socialist government’s party, National Union Party, which secured only 3% of the seats. However, the military regime refused to transfer the power to NLD and arrested NLD top and first lineup leaders; thousand of supporters were also jailed.
Why could the regime refuse to do any political reform and economic liberalization? There was a similar case of Taiwan; however. Burma’s government has been receiving the People’s Republic of China’s support, just like the KMT regime in Taiwan received major political and bilateral security supports from the US government during Cold War. Since then, Burma’s military regime has enjoyed killing, arresting, and torturing dissidents, when international pressure seems to be ineffective.
Burma is the poorest country in Southeast Asia, although it was once the richest country in Southeast Asia. After gaining her independence from British colonial rule in 1948, Burma has been under the different forms of military predomination, and it mainly depends on agriculture and natural resources.
The military regime claimed that it introduced “open market economy” after the bloody crackdown in 1988 but instead created more economic hardship for the people of Burma, because the military regime still refused to change the previous socialist regime’s economic policy and to have an economic liberalization. The regime’s fake open market policy was unable to install any political freedom; these factors only allowed generals’ families and their cronies to enjoy benefits under the regime’s restrictions on rules and regulations of the market economy.
Alternatively, the people of Burma had to move out from their mother land, to find better lives and to get jobs supporting their love ones back home. Four millions illegal Burmese immigrant workers are in Thailand now; millions had migrated to Asia, Europe and North America for economic and political reasons in past two decades.
International and regional communities have been trying to accept the military regime’s political roadmap, after the NLD was brutalized and its leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for twelve years. The Burmese, however, had no hope to restore the democracy and freedom in Burma under the world’s longest constitution drafting.
Both economic failure and political suppression were linked with SPDC’s price hike on basic fuel and natural gas in August 2007. The regime increased 500% of energy price ignited people’s anger, and student activists openly challenged the regime by demonstrating in Rangoon. The protest had spread around the country in late August and major demonstrations thus took place in September 2007. To respond, the SPDC regime arrested student and NLD leaders, but it did not expect that religious institutions would turn a new political page.
Finally, Buddhist monks took a lead in the demonstration, chanting “Loving Kindness or Mitta Sutra” during peaceful demonstrations in Rangoon and other cities. People therefore joined monks’ protest under heavy rain for about one week during the second week of September. Buddhist monks also decided to call for three demands, asking the government to free all of the political prisoners, to seek for national reconciliation, and to create economic equality and stability.
Sadly, the reaction from military regime was simple—including firing at demonstrators, beating monks and killing many students on the streets. Furthermore, the regime used predawn attacks on Buddhist monasteries and arrested monks. Meanwhile, the Burmese government also used scary door to door search to look for demonstrators and political activists at night.
However, what the military regime failed to realize is that nowadays the information technology plays a very important role in supporting democracy and people’s uprising worldwide. This time, new generations of young Burmese have been using digital cameras, cellular phones and cam-recorders to send the world through the internet the information regarding the regime’s brutality and killing. The whole world witnessed this regime’s barbaric behavior and saw how its security forces abused monks and people.
Moreover, the U.N.’s Security Council intervened and condemned the regime’s crackdown, and it also pressured those generals to have dialogues with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political actors. The whole world did not stay quiet and had called for democratic reform, asking the junta to share power with those political activists. The regime’s strong supporter, namely China, also called for the regime to use civil means to solve the domestic problems. Thus, international pressure against the regime has been maximized; although the regime tried to resist these pressures from both internal and external domains, it seemed fail to do so.
In my view, the military regime’s ruling for almost two decades will come to an end eventually, due to failing economy, corruptions, wrong economic policy and political suppressions against political reformers. During the past 20 years, the military regime used its military domination and intentionally created ethnic conflicts; the junta appears to be the main political actor at the political roadmap that it invented, and a new constitution seems to be no longer available. Finally, the Burmese people expressed their support of a new political system this time; their action was witnessed by the international community, and even interest countries called for political reconciliation. There is no doubt that 54 millions of the Burmese certainly seek for better lives, in the hope that democracy and freedom will come in reality.
This article was posted @ Peace Forum of Taiwan Thanktank webside.
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