Where Protests Can Prolong Army Rule
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Wednesday 29 August 2007
Last week saw sudden eruptions of popular protests, breaking a graveyard peace
preserved for long at gunpoint in two neighboring South Asian countries. The
people of Burma and Bangladesh, however, are showing no readiness to rejoice
too soon.
To many of them, democracy still seems a considerable distance away. To quite
a few, the protests actually appear to portend a prolongation of army rule -
whether direct or disguised now.
The protests, though smaller, came as a much greater surprise in Burma, writhing
under army boots for 45 years now. The military junta, which brazenly calls
itself State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has ruled with an iron hand
ever since it took over in 1962. It faced its first and only major popular challenge
in 1988.
The street rebellion forced the junta to order a general election in 1990.
When the polls ended in a landslide win for the National League for Democracy
(NLD) under the now-legendary Aung San Suu Kyi, the generals denied recognition
to the result and placed Aung San under house arrest, where she stays until
today.
Not an overtly political issue, but a doubling of the fuel prices sparked off
the latest protests on August 19. The revolt against the increased economic
burden, which made it difficult for the ordinary Burmese even to commute to
work, received wider attention when 13 leaders of the protesters were arrested.
The best-known among them was Min Ko Naing, a popular figure of the 88 Generation
Students Group, who had spent 15 years in prison and was released in 2004, only
to be jailed last year for another term of four months.
The protests were staged by small clusters of 20 to 200 people, mainly in the
capital city of Rangoon (Yangon). By all accounts, the bystanders applauded
the protesters but did not dare to join them. In one case, a solitary, 61-year-old
man just stood in a public place and shouted slogans calling on the junta to
honor the 1990 poll verdict before he was arrested and whisked away. No observer,
however, has doubted the breadth and depth of the anti-junta sentiment in the
Buddhist country.
In neighboring Bangladesh, the army-backed rulers enjoyed support for their
crusade against corruption, according to media accounts relying solely on select
segments of public opinion. The myth was shattered on August 21 when a campus
rebellion broke out against the army.
The spark was lit when a group of Dhaka University students at a soccer match
objected to some on-campus soldiers obstructing their view and were beaten up.
The scuffle snowballed into a massive student uprising to demand removal of
an army garrison from the university.
The garrison was eventually removed, but the ranks of the rebels had swollen
meanwhile. The students, with a sizable number of women among them, were joined
by slum-dwellers and street vendors, uprooted earlier in an army "clean-up
drive" that equated crowding of pavements with corruption in public office.
The scope of the protests widened soon, with the agitators asking not only
for the restoration of campus sanctity, but also for advancement of the date
of the general election, reluctantly promised to be held by the end of 2008
in the "roadmap" that the army-backed caretaker regime of Fakhruddin
Ahmad announced some time ago. Demonstrators in many places asked also for steps
to bring down skyrocketing prices of essential commodities.
In Burma, the protests spread beyond Rangoon, though they never became anything
as big as those of 1988. The voice of the Burmese people, however, was heard
in several demonstrations of anti-junta solidarity by emigre Burmese in Thailand,
South Korea and elsewhere
The spread of the protests in Bangladesh was swifter and wider. The army-propped
regime had to place six cities under a day-and-night curfew.
The protests have caused much excitement in both countries, but have not generated
blithe optimism about the democratic advance ahead. It is a measure of what
military rule does to a people's minds that the protests have created new apprehensions
about the political prospects in both the countries.
In Burma, many theories are doing the rounds about why the junta allowed these
protests by unarmed rebels to take place at all. One of the theories, mooted
by Burmese daily Irrawaddy, is that the fuel price hike and the freedom for
brief protests against it were a prelude to privatization of the oil sector.
A more disturbing theory is that the junta wants to use the protests to divert
popular attention away from its delay in holding a long-promised national convention
for drafting a new and less-repressive constitution. Some observers also see
in all this an attempt by some ambitious members of the junta to embarrass their
supremo, General Than Shwe.
A widely shared fear in Bangladesh after the student protests is that the power
behind the throne may use them to play a less-coy role in the country's affairs.
It is by citing domestic disturbances, aided by alien adversaries, that ambitious
generals have captured power in Bangladesh as elsewhere. The known fact of growing
impatience in the army with the ways of present civilian authorities does nothing
to allay such apprehensions.
The junta in Burma must be complimenting itself on quelling the protests so
quickly. But, considering the resurfacing of the rebels of 1988 vintage, the
staying power of the Burmese struggle for democracy can hardly be underestimated.
In Bangladesh, too, the partial lifting of the curfew in the cities suggests
the army's confidence that the protests have been contained. It must, however,
be remembered that it took several years after the similar beginning of the
movement on the campus against the military regime of General Hossain Mohammad
Ershad for democracy to be restored in Bangladesh. Quite a few observers, therefore,
see the latest protest has the beginning of a possibly long struggle.
The rebellions in neither of the nations, alas, received more than ritual and
rhetorical support from self-proclaimed crusaders for democracy in the world.
I must put on record here the anguish of many Indians like me at New Delhi's
far from masterly inaction on both fronts.
India, which conferred its highest honor once on Aung San Suu Kyi, now refrains
carefully from raising its voice for her release. It does not want to risk the
prospects of energy cooperation with Burma, which is rich in oil and gas resources.
Nor does it want to do without the junta's support in dealing with the insurgents
of India's north east, who have found themselves a haven on Burma's tribal frontiers.
Likewise, New Delhi is meticulously avoiding any but the mildest expression
of concern over the detention of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Wajed, widely regarded as a friend of India. Here, too, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's government seems keener on anti-insurgency cooperation with the Bangladesh
military.
Army Chief Moeen U Ahmad, who recently ruled out the return of Bangladesh to
"elective democracy," was to be given a red carpet reception earlier
this month. Only floods in Bangladesh have put off the event that would have
fueled anti-India sentiments in that country.
A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.
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