Burmese democrats to mark a sad birthday this week
The legitimate leader of Burma has spent 11 of the last 17 years in detention
NORMAN WEBSTER, The Gazette
Published: Sunday, June 17, 2007
One of the world's most melancholy birthdays will be marked in Burma on Tuesday. In the sweltering heat of Rangon, Aung San Suu Kyi will turn 62 - solitary, heroic, under house arrest, the only legitimate leader of her people but no closer to freedom or power than she was a long, gloomy decade ago.
The military dictatorship in Burma gave her an early birthday present at the end of May. The regime announced a further year of detention for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, adding to the 11 years out of the last 17 that she has been confined to her peeling lakeside villa on University Avenue.
"The Lady," as everyone in Burma calls her, has been a victim of her country's generals since 1990. That was the year the regime carelessly allowed a democratic election and saw its political allies routed. Suu Kyi's National Democratic Party won 392 of 485 seats.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly Font:
Almost a decade later, when I visited Burma, a sunny afternoon in Rangoon became suddenly chilly as armoured cars, equipped with heavy machine-guns, cruised slowly along downtown streets. Ne Win, who instituted the dictatorship in 1962, once warned, "If the army shoots, it shoots to hit. There is no firing in the air to scare."
Simply put, Burma's leaders are thugs. They are also rather thick. For years they called themselves the State Law and Order Restoration Council ("SLORC"). Western opponents loved to slurp that one out. The junta finally changed its moniker on the advice of a PR agency.
The generals live in splendid isolation, seemingly without a fig for what anyone thinks. Apparently on the advice of astrologers, they have moved the country's capital from Rangoon to a place in the boonies named Pyinmana.
Their idea of subtle denigration is to accuse Aung San Suu Kyi of refusing to denounce party members who killed opponents and, er, ate their livers - i.e. the Lady is soft on cannibalism. Even Danny Williams hasn't used that one, yet.
The regime's main accomplishment has been to drive Burma's once-prosperous economy into the ground. Once the world's largest exporter of rice, the country is now close to a basket case, ruined by isolation and strict, stupid adherence to Ne Win's "Burmese road to socialism."
The only rich people appear to be men in uniform, who prosper through corruption, including rakeoffs from the heroin and amphetamine trades. Recently, the junta's current leader, Than Shwe, draped his daughter in pearls and diamonds at a wedding to rival any Rockefeller's.
The world keeps tapping at the windowpane, but the junta pays no attention. Canada's foreign minister, Peter MacKay, might fulminate honourably against the regime, and the House of Commons pass harsh resolutions, but who cares in Pyinmana?
The countries that count in this equation are Russia, which is helping with a nuclear reactor, and Burma's neighbour China, which is happily gulping its natural resources. Diplomats say Mandalay and the north are starting to look like a province of China.
<!-- pagination start -->
The legitimate leader of Burma has spent 11 of the last 17 years in detention
NORMAN WEBSTER, The Gazette
Published: Sunday, June 17, 2007
One of the world's most melancholy birthdays will be marked in Burma on Tuesday. In the sweltering heat of Rangon, Aung San Suu Kyi will turn 62 - solitary, heroic, under house arrest, the only legitimate leader of her people but no closer to freedom or power than she was a long, gloomy decade ago.
The military dictatorship in Burma gave her an early birthday present at the end of May. The regime announced a further year of detention for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, adding to the 11 years out of the last 17 that she has been confined to her peeling lakeside villa on University Avenue.
"The Lady," as everyone in Burma calls her, has been a victim of her country's generals since 1990. That was the year the regime carelessly allowed a democratic election and saw its political allies routed. Suu Kyi's National Democratic Party won 392 of 485 seats.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly Font: - *
- *
- *
- *
Almost a decade later, when I visited Burma, a sunny afternoon in Rangoon became suddenly chilly as armoured cars, equipped with heavy machine-guns, cruised slowly along downtown streets. Ne Win, who instituted the dictatorship in 1962, once warned, "If the army shoots, it shoots to hit. There is no firing in the air to scare."
Simply put, Burma's leaders are thugs. They are also rather thick. For years they called themselves the State Law and Order Restoration Council ("SLORC"). Western opponents loved to slurp that one out. The junta finally changed its moniker on the advice of a PR agency.
The generals live in splendid isolation, seemingly without a fig for what anyone thinks. Apparently on the advice of astrologers, they have moved the country's capital from Rangoon to a place in the boonies named Pyinmana.
Their idea of subtle denigration is to accuse Aung San Suu Kyi of refusing to denounce party members who killed opponents and, er, ate their livers - i.e. the Lady is soft on cannibalism. Even Danny Williams hasn't used that one, yet.
The regime's main accomplishment has been to drive Burma's once-prosperous economy into the ground. Once the world's largest exporter of rice, the country is now close to a basket case, ruined by isolation and strict, stupid adherence to Ne Win's "Burmese road to socialism."
The only rich people appear to be men in uniform, who prosper through corruption, including rakeoffs from the heroin and amphetamine trades. Recently, the junta's current leader, Than Shwe, draped his daughter in pearls and diamonds at a wedding to rival any Rockefeller's.
The world keeps tapping at the windowpane, but the junta pays no attention. Canada's foreign minister, Peter MacKay, might fulminate honourably against the regime, and the House of Commons pass harsh resolutions, but who cares in Pyinmana?
The countries that count in this equation are Russia, which is helping with a nuclear reactor, and Burma's neighbour China, which is happily gulping its natural resources. Diplomats say Mandalay and the north are starting to look like a province of China.
<!-- pagination start -->
