Putting the Boot In

It’s time to consider how to bring the brutal generals to justice

Bertil Lintner
is a journalist based in Thailand and author of numerous books on Burma and the region

Nothing galvanized the Burmese nation against its colonial masters more than a proclamation in 1917 saying that British officials would not have to remove their shoes when entering Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries.

It may sound strange to Westerners that this caused such an outcry, but, to the Burmese, it was the ultimate insult against their religion. The “Shoe Issue” dominated nationalist agitation in the 1920s, and it marked the beginning of the end of colonial rule in Burma.

Today, history is repeating itself, but in a much more brutal way. During the recent crackdown on the Buddhist clergy, heavily armed Burmese government soldiers not only tramped into sacred places of worship with their army boots on, but they also stole gold objects, televisions, mobile phones, fans and other items from the monasteries.

Monks were beaten, arrested and some were even killed. The army’s stampede into the monasteries should be seen as the beginning of the end of military rule in Burma.

But the question is, how will military rule end and a democratic order replace it? Certainly not through some kind of “dialogue” with junta leader Than Shwe and his coterie of thugs, who have shown time and again that they are willing to do anything to cling on to power, even desecrating the country’s holiest institution.

“Dialogue” followed by “national reconciliation” are popular buzz words with the NGO community, and with the donors on which they depend. But, under present circumstances, such a scenario is totally unrealistic. Worse, it is playing into the hands of the junta, as it gives it the benefit of the doubt.

For, as Kyaw Zwa Moe pointed out in an online commentary carried by The Irrawaddy on October 9, after the crackdown, “It’s game time again for the generals.” Having killed lots of people, the junta’s standard tactic is to throw out some bait to the international community to keep them guessing—and criticism at bay.

This time it is the appointment of a deputy labor minister Maj-Gen Aung Kyi to “liaise” with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It would be a serious mistake to see this as a “concession”; the junta is just buying time by making some foreign observers believe that progress is in motion.

At the same time, the junta is showing its intransigence by rebuffing resolutions by the UN Security Council and clinging to its own “roadmap” to “disciplined democracy,” a euphemism for continued military rule. At home, the generals have organized “mass rallies” in support of themselves.

A Canadian friend, Bradford Duplisea, sent me an e-mail after reading about this soi-disant “spontaneous outburst” of pro-junta sentiment: “While reading the most recent news from Burma, I remembered this quote from George Orwell’s 1984: ‘All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of the factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life his wise leadership has bestowed upon us’.”

Clearly, Burma’s Big Brother is no more likely than “Oceania’s” to listen to reason; it will just go on as before, whipping people into line, with brute force, if necessary.

Thus, the recent crackdown on the monks and others should also give Western—and Asian—proponents of “engagement” with the so-called State Peace and Development Council something to think about.

Among the most vocal of those advocates is Robert Taylor, who, in an essay in the 2004 National Bureau of Asian Research report, “Reconciling Burma/Myanmar,” suggested that the junta would be a good partner for the US in its war against terror. Another advocate of “engagement,” Morten Pedersen, a Dane who in his recent book, “Promoting Human Rights in Burma: a Critique of Western Sanctions Policy,” asserts that the best way to promote human rights in Burma is to cozy up to the generals.

Even more bizarrely, when monks and others were being killed and arrested in Rangoon, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German foundation, organized a Burma tour, in which, according to The New Light of Myanmar of October 7, “thirteen scholars with two from the European Union and the European Parliament” took part.