The Burmese Prospect

I WAS THE AUSTRALIAN Ambassador to Burma from 1980 to 1982 during the rule of President U Ne Win. A recent visit to Burma enabled me to make some comparisons with conditions there then and now.

I do not believe the political situation is any worse than it was in 1980–82 or at any other time during Ne Win’s rule. At no time were there any representative institutions, freedom of the press or expression or even freedom of thought. “How can one man [Ne Win] hold an entire country in absolute thraldom?” the Sri Lankan ambassador asked me when I called on him in 1980. Neither he nor I had any answer to this question. There were political prisoners then just as there are now, with the difference that one of them now is world-famous and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

One of Ne Win’s favourite tricks was to arrest suddenly and imprison those closest to him, the most notable example being General Tin Oo, the head of military intelligence who, before his arrest in the early 1980s, was considered the second-most powerful man in the country. Those who are now writing articles and conducting seminars to denounce the lack of democracy in Burma should have been doing so thirty or forty years ago.

The current junta has maintained Ne Win’s tight grip. I met no one in Burma during my recent visit who expected any change in the political scene. The generals are determined to retain power, and with the support of China, Thailand and India will probably do so. “All we ask,” one Burmese said to me, “is for our rights as citizens to be respected and to get protection from the government.” They are getting neither of these. If anyone gets into trouble with the law, his fate depends entirely on whomever he knows that has influence.

I was shocked when a young man struck up a conversation with me in an internet café. “The government is inefficient and corrupt,” he said. “Cronyism [a word I heard everywhere in Burma] is rampant. My father retired last year after thirty years as a headmaster and now has nothing. I have no prospects. The health system is in an absolute shambles.” If any official had overheard this conversation, the young man would certainly have been arrested; I might even have been arrested myself. It is faintly possible that the population will be so disgusted with the junta’s behaviour after the cyclone that they will rise against it, but I would not count on this. They know the cards are stacked against them. There is little possibility of political change.

What has changed, however, and for the better, is the intellectual and economic situation. During Ne Win’s regime, all economic activity was undertaken and controlled— very inefficiently and incompetently—by the government, and no foreign firms were allowed to operate in Burma. The most any private citizen could do was to open a restaurant, a backyard plastics factory or a laundry. Very few Burmese could travel overseas because of tight foreign exchange regulations. All this has changed. Many Burmese have now gone into business ventures very successfully. Foreign firms, including banks, operate in Burma. Foreign travel, which promotes economic activity, is much easier than it was during Ne Win’s time.

No doubt the junta makes sure that it gets a rake-off from many of these activities, but this is not always the case. A foreign businesswoman in Burma told me that she always refuses to pay bribes to officialdom as she knows that to do so would unleash a barrage of demands. Her refusal means that it takes her longer to get necessary official approvals, but in the long run her policy pays off.

There are many success stories among Burmese entrepreneurs. The Pa O people living around Inle Lake have built an international quality hotel with the profits they made from a ruby mine. The new hotels that have been constructed throughout the country with Burmese and foreign, often Singaporean, capital have provided employment and training for Burmese. The standard of tourist accommodation is unbelievable to anyone who remembers the horrors of Burmese hotels during NeWin’s time.

The intellectual climate has improved also. Ne Win’s government held fast to its policy of Burmese socialism expounded in an incomprehensible treatise called The Correlation between Man and His Environment. Because this document provided all the intellectual knowledge that a Burmese was deemed to need to know, no other foreign-influenced thought was allowed in Burma. Foreign schools were not allowed to operate and intellectual societies, even the Boy Scouts, were simply closed down and rigid thought censorship imposed. This, too, has changed. The present regime seems to have no particular philosophy. Foreign schools have opened up in Burma and are attended by many Burmese children who, after attaining the international baccalaureate or some other qualification, can then pursue higher education overseas in Australia and other countries. Admittedly, only the rich can afford this, but it is a big step forward from Ne Win’s days when all Burmese children were kept inside Burma and taught little of any use.

What this means is that instead of pressing for political change which is unlikely to come, those who wish Burma well should exploit the changes that the junta has made by encouraging trade and tourism in Burma and developing the educational reforms so that as many Burmese as possible can benefit from them financially and intellectually.

The various boycotts and embargoes that the West has imposed in Burma, such as the withdrawal of credit card facilities, do nothing to hasten the junta’s demise and just make life difficult for visitors and the Burmese themselves. This is the view expounded by U Thant Myint-U, the grandson of U Thant, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his important book The River of Lost Footsteps, in which he makes the case for greater Western engagement in Burma.

Richard Gate was the Australian Ambassador to Burma from 1980 to 1982.
He visited the country recently before Cyclone Nargis struck.