The era of Burma's evil old man comes to an end

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

It is no accident, as the Communists used to say, that the SLORC [as the bunch of hoods running Burma used to be called] has taken a first step in returning their country to the family of civilized nations just after a coup by the family of Ne Win has been foiled. The military have released Aung San Suu Chi, the brave and obstinate advocate of democracy for her country, from house arrest. How far the junta dares to go in bringing the country into the modern world remains to be seen but permitting Suu Chi to take up a role as the countryÕs most popular figure is a first step.

The 92-year-old Ne Win has poisoned the atmosphere in the potentially rich Southeast Asia nation in a way more disastrously peculiar than even some of its unlucky neighbors have known in the half century of liberation from colonialism. It was under Ne Win that the na•ve but well-meaning ÒBurmese road to socialismÓ took on all the hallmarks of Oriental despotism as it retreated further and further from the modern world.

I remember a conversation with a Burmese friend, one of the most astute and dedicated of the postwar generation, after he was released from Ne WinÕs jails, a man literally broken in the torture chambers. Burma under Ne Win became the caricature of the post-colonial disaster. Rangoon began to resemble the temples of Angkor with shrubbery growing out of the walls of the ÒnationalizedÕ banks. Various foreign aid programs came and went ø the Americans poured in millions managed by one of the USÕ most vaunted consultants with no result, the Soviets built a tourism hotel whose air conditioning [in the tropics] and elevators never worked; the Israelis introduced irrigation designed for the Middle East desserts; the Chinese supplied offset printing for a newspaper that soon got banned; etc., etc.

As the non-Burman minority peoples waged a constant low level guerrilla against what they regarded as oppression by Rangoon [the Baptist Karens almost took Rangoon in 1948], the society lapsed into a pre-industrial economy. [Embassy ladies turned the polished wooden axle gears for oxen carts, hand carved from solid teak, substitutes for pre-WWII metal ones, into novel and beautiful lamp bases.] The Overseas Chinese and Indian entrepreneurial communities, a leftover from the multiethnic colonial society, were expelled. If one wanted to get a glimpse of what colonial Southeast Asia had looked like before World War II, you tried to wangle a 72-hour transit visa from a moribund consulate in Bangkok or Dacca.

Ne Win governed indirectly more often from behind the scenes. Cruelty was the hallmark of the regime ø Ne Win, it was widely believed, had beaten a colleague to death with a golf club on the golf course. The regime did not hesitate to fire on demonstrating students. Petty corruption in a society with constantly falling living standards was another instrument of managing the tyranny.

It did not seem to matter that the rest of the world was moving ahead and that stagnation had come to Burma. Nor that a Burmese, U Thant, became secretary-general of the UN. When Ne WinÕs psychiatrist in Vienna ø to whom he made an annual pilgrimage ø died, there was serious speculation about whether he might not finally go completely mad. Then when his lovely wife, and a supposedly moderating influence, died, it was said that an inevitable crisis would result. But even in his dotage, the evil old man apparently had a hand in continuing the policies of the regime which could no longer even adequately be described as bankrupt. New generations of incompetent military politicians, created in his image and apparently taking their cues from the old man, continued the cruel farce.

In the last few years, defying WashingtonÕs sanctions and efforts to oust the regime in favor of placing Suu Chi and her followers, who had clearly won an election , despite all the intimidation the regime could muster, ASEAN sought to seduce the regime with promises of aid and collaboration. Minor deals ø a gas pipeline to Thailand , for example. But the economic stagnation has reached the point that the military appear to be see that only some concessions to world opinion will get them out of their morass. That may have been when the Ne Win circle tried to move.

Under house arrest with members of his family, the evil old man waits to die. Burmese Buddhism sees death as only one more cycle in manÕs attempt to escape the misery which precedes enlightenment. But, perhaps, Ne WinÕs departure from the political scene will mean his country and people are escaping the misery which the regime has perpetuated for decades.