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Re: Response of the Burmese Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission to the Bangkok Post and LA Weekly article of "UNOCAL Implicated in Burma Strife" .
I believe that his well-written message requires some elucidation on our part.
First of all, I don't think spin masters need be created to generate sympathy for the anti-government groups. After all, no government on earth is free from opposing or dissident parties or organizations. It is only that there are some governments that will not permit or tolerate even peaceful and non-violent expressions against them, and we do not have to elaborate on this.
It would certainly sound simplistic to say that UNOCAL and TOTAL hire Burmese soldiers who engage in violent campaigns against ethnic minority groups in the region, although the fact remains that their business makes it quite lucrative for the Burmese government who has the duty to provide security and also deploy more troops in the area whenever deemed necessary, and of course they are not always a mercenary force on the rampage. On the other hand, the recently scheduled ASEAN-EU meeting in Bangkok was postponed to the end of March due to controversy over the participation of Burma and Laos, and this might be indirectly linked to the distressingly poor Burmese government human rights track record, not just on the hapless border ethnic minorities, but also on the domestic Bamar people, including the NLD leaders and members.
We were treated to a brief discourse on how the Tatmadaw came into being, and yet the name of the very leader who led the 30 patriots and who was later assassinated, along with his cabinet members, was blatantly omitted. To say that only the Tatmadaw is patriotic, and with the ?advent of peace? is now devoting most of its time to nation building, is somewhat absurd. The peace accord with the 16+ armed groups is rather misleading, to say the least. Some of these groups are just biding their time to jump back into their former resistive mode. Consider now the Burmese military government, beginning with the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP), then SLORC, and currently SPDC, that has had almost 37 years to reconstruct the country, left almost in total destruction after World War II, and all it has managed to do is to have the nation (with better natural resources and a bit smaller population than, say, the neighboring Thailand, which is also slightly smaller in area than Burma) relegated by the UN to the demeaning "least developed country" status.
No one will deny that the Tatmadaw is an efficacious fighting machine that has had wide experience, albeit against its own people in the country. What the Tatmadaw ought to be reminded now is that it is not just the soldiers who love their country and are patriotic. There are countless others from different walks of life, both inside and outside Burma, who can easily lay claim to their patriotism. It is unlikely that the Tatmadaw will ever admit to its own frailties, one of them being its defective economic policy. The Deputy Mission Chief himself has already implied, perhaps not in so many words, that the country is in need of humanitarian assistance, and mentioned Representative Tony Hall urging others to do the "life saving work that is desperately needed? for the Burmese people. The concern of those familiar with the modus operandi of the prevailing Burmese government is that such aids will benefit only the top few percent and the rest of the population would never know the difference. Besides, as one recent E-mail communication puts it, "Hall is one of the more than 500 Congressmen voices, is not particularly engaged on the Burma issue, and there is no reason to believe that his "one man show" in any way reflects a change of policy in D.C." In the final analysis, it is up to the Burmese people themselves. If only the generals will be a little flexible and begin to look for ways to cooperate with other Bamar and ethnic minority opposition forces, domestic as well as those in foreign soil, instead of always trying to cow and oppress them, there may be some hope for improvement in the country.
About the KNU and the Karens (Kayins, if you insist), one has to be a Karen to feel the ethnicity. There is general concurrence that colonial rule and Christian missionaries, the former including avaricious but fairly decent British merchants, and the latter mostly of well-meaning but sometimes slightly misguided American clergy people, are indirectly (in very rare instances, directly) responsible for most of the post World War II ethnic imbroglio in Burma. The inapt nineteenth century Burmese monarchs themselves who were too crass and vain to maintain good diplomacy with potential colonialists, and thereby losing their country to them should also shoulder part of the blame. Without colonial rule, ethnic problems might not have risen, and even if they have, they might not have grown to this proportion. Now it is too late to solve these problems by force. The stronger Tatmadaw may win the battles, but the war will still continue.
The KNU might represent less than one percent of the Karen population and yet I?m quite sure that the vast majority of the remaining 99+ % of the Karens are sympathetic, if not actively supporting, the KNU cause. And the KNL is fully behind the KNU, not because of the continuance of armed resistance against the military government or the Burmans per se. The days of ethnic hatred against Burmans, in general, are no more, and the remaining antagonism toward certain elements representing the Burma Army can vanish when insidious and inimical activities are discontinued. Supporting of the KNU rests mainly on the policy of resistance against an oppressive government using troops that, at times, would go berserk and commit atrocities akin to that of ?ethnic cleansing?, and this, in spite of their claim of never harming innocent citizens who are their own "kith and kin".
The present names of the states, Kawthoolei, Shan, Mon, Kachin, Chin, Arakan or Yakhaing, Kayah, etc. are quite nominal. What the ethnic minorities (Lu Neh Su Myah) want is genuine autonomy without the threat and tight control of the Central government, military or otherwise.
Finally, I must acknowledge the fact that it is because of democratic principles in this country that I am able to present the above views. I shudder to think of being in Burma (Myanmar, if you wish) now and voicing my opinion.
BaSaw Khin, Director of Research Division Department of Political Affairs Karen National League (KNL)
Released by: Communication and Information Division P.O Box 320 518 San Francisco, CA 94132 U.S.A. Email: KNLcomm@aol.com
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