Subtle changes beneath SLORC stalemate with Suu Kyi
Subtle changes beneath SLORC stalemate with Suu Kyi
David I. Steinberg examines the political situation in Myanmar.
SINGAPORE: "It is as if a large truck were rushing headlong into a small Volkswagen", as one anonymous observer in Yangon recently described the political situation in Myanmar, comparing the ruling SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD).
But is that confrontation inevitable and is it so one-sided? The NLD would not agree to that characterization of its meager strength, citing its overwhelming popularity in the 1990 election that SLORC ignored and continuing evidence of anti-military feeling, and in spite of the determined effort by the SLORC to whittle down its leadership and destroy its organization. The SLORC might also demur, claiming it is simply upholding the laws that it has enacted.
These views may not express the subtlety of the situation, but rather a polarization of opinion reflecting internal institutional views that are incessantly externally promulgated. Stasis may seem evident, but there are changes that are apparent beneath the stalemate of surface confrontation and beyond the rhetoric. Understanding reality may require more nuanced views.
The SLORC seems at the moment to be in a position of enhanced power; it is most internally secure since its coup of Sept. 18, 1988. The population at present seems disinclined to repeat the attempted revolution of 1988 that the coup repressed. Fifteen rebellions have ended through cease-fires that, however ephemeral they may eventually prove to be, have freed the military for broader deployment and control. The last major organized resistance, the oldest ethnic rebellion of the Karen, has had its major bases near the Thai border destroyed, and its leadership is talking through intermediaries with the SLORC about a cease-fire that some of its commanders, although not perhaps its top leadership, desire.
The SLORC is reinforced by its admission into ASEAN, which may mean little at home but does carry some external weight. Although the sanctions on new investments imposed by the United States convey considerable moral force at least internally within the U.S., their economic effects on Myanmar will be minimal; even their moral influence is diminished by the selective imposition of such an action against Myanmar, only one of many repressive regimes in the world. But as one Congressman, who believed sanctions would not be effective but who planned to vote for them, remarked, "It is difficult to vote in favor of the SLORC."
The economy in much of the country is vibrant and has evidently grown in the past few years, but whether its apparent growth, albeit unevenly distributed, can be maintained without more basic reforms is questionable.
The SLORC has not addressed the fundamental economic problems that virtually all foreign observers recognize as required if economic growth is to continue.
These include a comprehensive devaluation of a currency over 30 times its official value, control of the money supply to inhibit an annual inflation of some 30 percent, rationalization of inefficient public sector industries now put at even more risk by foreign competition, development of a competent and autonomous financial sector, and payment of public sector officials' salaries that will combat the cancer of corruption that is evident, ubiquitous, and even necessary for survival. The most difficult and basic task for any Burmese regime is freeing the economy from political influence without which economic rationality will not prevail.
Chinese goods and influence are so apparent as to create concerns that should the SLORC falter economically it will be the Chinese, the most obvious of the newly rich, who will be the scapegoats for SLORC errors. Rumors are rife that drug money has been laundered into legitimate construction and other businesses.
There are also rumors that the SLORC itself is divided and in danger of disintegrating into two factions reflecting the line military (led by General Maung Aye) and the support, specifically intelligence, wing (led by General Khin Nyunt). Veteran observers too describe the internal jealousies and rivalries, but comment that these two groups need each other and the SLORC needs both, so that overt splits that would threaten the stability of military rule at this juncture seem unlikely.
The NLD may feel that it is becoming marginalized with restrictions on its activities and those of Aung San Suu Kyi. It walked out of, and then was expelled from, the National Convention in 1995, that hand-picked body that was designed to do SLORC's bidding in writing a new, heavily scripted constitution. The NLD now seems to want to return because, even if the results are predetermined to ensure perpetual military control, it is at least a forum for internal discussion, if not public debate.
The military has taken two interlocking steps that will, it believes, ensure its control over the society into the future. It has, through the National Convention and based on an Indonesian model, sought to ensure the military's domination of the leadership and the administrative mechanisms of the state through a constitution in which it will play the legal, leading roles at all levels and in all branches of the government.
It has, in tandem to writing a new constitution, created a mass base of support for the military and its policies through the formation and leadership of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which now has over five million members.
The pattern is reminiscent of the military's strategy in its Burma Socialist Program Party incarnation in the early 1970s, when it expanded the party in preparation for the constitution of 1974. The USDA concentration on youth indicates the SLORC's intent for long-range control.
Splits in the foreign community's reaction to the SLORC regime and recalcitrance in engaging in meaningful dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD are becoming more apparent as the SLORC consolidates its power. Entry into ASEAN puts the U.S. at odds with that important body, as well as with China, SLORC's major military and moral supporter.
Japan, which has been reluctant to break with the U.S. on Myanmar in spite of strong internal pressures from its business community, has now expressed willingness to restart its most important foreign aid program should the SLORC show even some modest (probably ineffective) signs of dialogue. Korea, with no such scruples, has a major economic role, with Daewoo Corporation being the most obvious of Korean conglomerates.
The military's role in the economy is likely to remain powerful through its Myanmar Holdings Corporation Ltd., a wholly owned military venture, as well as through its direct management of numerous factories far beyond the immediate needs of military procurement, and at a local level through USDA-owned businesses designed to provide support to those local branches of that ubiquitous organization.
Similarly, there may be a movement to a multi-party political system as the military forms a constitution at some indefinite date, even though elections do not a democracy make. Some very modest local autonomy given under the new constitution to a variety of ethnic groups, along a Chinese model, will not grant them national power or influence, but it may placate some local concerns as will some controlled electoral process. The U.S. call for SLORC honoring the 1990 elections won by the NLD becomes more anachronistic over time.
There is ferment, not stasis, in Myanmar as events unfold. The SLORC at first may not have planned to remain in such an obvious position of power for so long, but it was evidently shocked by the 1990 election and anti-military attitudes, which it has been assiduously trying to change. It may continue in power until it feels its future (and that of the state in its terms) is assured. But the likely overall direction does indicate continuing military control in mufti and in uniform. The immediate future seems stable, but the longer-range problems remain unaddressed, let alone answered, and these will likely erode the enforced tranquility of the present.
Dr. David I. Steinberg is Representative of The Asia Foundation in Korea. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC, U.S.A. He has long been a Myanmar watcher.