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Burma's Revised Government Seeks to



The Washington Post
Burma's Revised Government Seeks to Improve Economy, Not Rights Record 

By Deborah Charles
Reuters
Wednesday, December 31, 1997; Page A22 

BANGKOK?Over the past six weeks, Burma's military government has changed
its name, abolished the former ruling council, fired some ministers and
reassigned others -- all in an effort to clean up its image and
revitalize the ailing economy, Rangoon-based diplomats and political
analysts say.

Burma, one of the world's least-developed nations, is struggling to
control spiraling inflation, estimated at between 30 and 40 percent a
year, a plunging currency and rising budget deficits caused mainly by
high military spending. The changes made since mid-November, some of
which surprised even close observers, were undertaken because the Burmese
junta "needed to root out corruption and needed to kick-start the
economy," one diplomat said.

Another diplomat noted that the country's top generals -- who retained
their positions even after the ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council was abolished -- realized they had to make some changes.

"I think [the ruling council] looked around at its neighbors and asked
how [Burma] had sunk so low and how they could get out of it," the second
diplomat said. "Now they're trying to realize some of their economic
potential. They're trying to enhance their economic performance."

However, all diplomats and political analysts interviewed said they were
certain of one thing: There is little expectation that the changes will
herald an easing of relations between the government and the opposition,
led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The ruling council crushed student democracy demonstrations in 1988 and
disallowed the results of elections in 1990 that were won by Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy. She was held under house arrest for most
of the ensuing nine years, and the government's repression of human
rights and its political opponents has generally been swift and severe,
rights groups have said.

"There's not any preconceived idea of a change to the political policy of
the government," the first diplomat said. "Politically, it's all as
before."

The State Peace and Development Council -- which was formed Nov. 15 in
the move that abolished the previous ruling council and created a new
government -- reorganized the country's financial leadership 10 days ago.
Brig. Gen. Win Tin was replaced at the helm of the Finance Ministry by
former energy minister Khin Maung Thein, who was credited with bringing
Burma billions of dollars in foreign investment in oil projects.

Diplomats and political analysts said the changes were meant to allocate
portfolios more appropriately. "The new finance minister is a proven
performer and a technocrat," the second diplomat said. "He has a track
record, and he can get the job done."

Analysts were split on the future of Brig. Gen. David Abel, the veteran
minister for national planning and development who played a key role in
wooing foreign investment since Burma's economy opened up after the State
Law and Order Restoration Council seized power in 1988.

Some say his new post -- minister in the office of the chairman of the
new ruling council -- is a move sideways to a "nothing job" and was
requested by Abel. Others say it could give him more influence because he
would have the ear of the council chairman and prime minister, Senior
Gen. Than Shwe.

Analysts noted that none of the civilians in the previous council's
41-member cabinet was fired -- a sign that the government realized that
some top technocrats were among the most capable members of the cabinet.

On the other hand, the shift to the new ruling council weeded out almost
all officers with the senior rank of lieutenant general, thus easing
problems caused by certain ministers pulling rank on others. Several of
those ousted ministers, seen by diplomats as being among the more corrupt
cabinet members, were moved to an advisory group that was later
dissolved. Diplomats said that helped clean up the image of the
government, which had been widely accused of corruption.

"Now it's clear. The [new council] is the supreme organ of the state, but
there is opportunity there now for change through the cabinet," one
diplomat said. 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company 


  

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Across Asia, Stirrings of Democracy
Stirrings Cast Doubt on Asians' Fabled Indifference to Democracy 

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 16, 1997; Page A01 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia?In Taiwan last month, the ruling Nationalist Party
suffered its biggest defeat ever in local elections, presaging a possible
loss of power in next year's national elections for a new parliament.
Meanwhile in South Korea, opinion polls show a veteran pro-democracy
campaigner and longtime political outsider has his first real shot at
power in elections this week.

In the Philippines, a revived "people power" movement and vociferous
media criticism forced President Fidel Ramos to abandon thoughts of
running for another term, while in Thailand, popular protests and media
pressure forced an unpopular prime minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, to
relinquish his office last month and retire to the political sidelines.

Even in tightly controlled Indonesia -- where general elections are still
derisively called "elections of generals" -- there are discernible
stirrings of discontent and change. President Suharto is set to be
anointed next year to a seventh consecutive five-year term, but already
there is open talk about the "post-Suharto era." 

The question now, say Indonesian analysts and journalists, and foreign
diplomats there, is not whether the vast archipelago will democratize,
but at what pace and in what manner.

For most of the past three decades, East Asia has been known largely as a
region of miraculous economic growth but stilted political development,
with most countries led by military regimes, autocratic strongmen, or
all-powerful ruling parties that kept power through money, patronage and
a measured amount of repression. Yet recent events are converging to
challenge some of the old certainties, upending some long-held political
orthodoxies.

Just as the regionwide economic slowdown has called into question the
Asian "miracle," so too have recent democratic stirrings tested the
much-repeated axiom that Asians, by and large, care little about
democracy and favor authoritarian government.

A few regional leaders -- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malaysia,
Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa
in Hong Kong and China's Communist leaders -- still advocate the idea of
"Asian values," a system that prizes stability and consensus while
eschewing Western-style democracy with its emphasis on political
conflict.

But a more complex reality is emerging, with more and more Asians now
choosing their own leaders, throwing out old ones, forming labor unions
and advocacy groups outside of government control and publicly clamoring
for more democratic rights. Just as democracy swept through Latin America
and the former Communist-run states of Eastern Europe at the end of the
Cold War, East Asia, too, is in the midst of what many here are calling a
slow but steady move toward more pluralism and openness.

"The trend is towards greater democratization," said Dewi Fortuna Anwar,
a political scientist with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in
Jakarta. "There is increasing societal pressure in every country. This
relates to the fact that people are getting more education. It's the rise
of the middle class. And it's also a result in the increased
globalization of communication and travel. The wave of democratization
since the end of the Cold War seems to be catching everybody."

"Democracy is on the march in East Asia," said Douglas Paal, president of
the Asia Pacific Policy Center in Washington. "But the problem is, it's
hard to notice because all we tend to listen to are the booming voices of
the Mahathirs" -- a reference to Malaysia's outspoken leader. Paal called
democratization "an inevitability in the region" that will only be
reinforced as more countries are forced to liberalize and open their
economies as a condition for international aid.

One sign of the trend can be seen in the heavy electoral calendar of the
next 12 months. South Koreans go to the polls Thursday for their third
free presidential election since 1987. After voting in local elections in
November, Taiwanese -- who emerged from martial law only in 1986 -- will
vote next year for a new national parliament. 

Filipinos will elect a new president in May, further consolidating the
democracy restored by the 1986 "people power" revolt that tossed out
dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. Thailand is likely to hold its first
elections under a new reformist constitution aimed at cleaning up "money
politics" and reducing the role of patronage in the country's ailing
system. 

Hong Kong will elect its first legislature under Chinese rule, which,
despite complaints about the fairness of the rules and the size of the
voting franchise, will make the territory the most democratic part of
China.

With so many Asian countries now voting for leaders -- and in places as
diverse as Taiwan, with its Confucian tradition, and the Philippines, a
former colony of the United States and Spain -- it seems difficult to
argue anymore that Asians in general don't care about democracy.

"It's nonsense," Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui said in an interview,
commenting on the "Asian values" concept and speaking as the first leader
ever elected democratically by Chinese. "Asian people are human beings. .
 . . Democracy is something everybody would like to have. Everybody would
like more freedom."

Some Asian countries have a long tradition of democracy and pluralistic
elections -- Japan, which became a Western-style liberal democracy after
World War II, the Philippines, where democracy was aborted by the Marcos
dictatorship, and, India, the world's most populous democratic nation.

But Asia's autocrats have been able to brush aside those three countries
as unsuitable role models for the rest of the region because of their
unique circumstances -- Japan's wartime defeat and occupation, for
instance, and the Philippines' history as a U.S. colony. And India, with
its endemic poverty and violence, often still is seen as a negative
example showing that democracy does not guarantee economic development
and stability. 

Nevertheless, academics, journalists, diplomats and others point to a
number of trends that they say shows democracy is becoming more
entrenched. They are:

The declining role of the armed forces in East Asia. This trend has been
most remarkable in South Korea, but also in Thailand, Taiwan and the
Philippines -- countries where the armed forces once exercised broad
control but where the chance of direct military intervention in politics,
meaning a coup, now seems remote. 

In Indonesia, the military still exercises wide influence through its
"dual function" role allowing officers to also hold government jobs. But
analysts in Jakarta say they see a trend toward a more professional, less
politicized, military. "I know personally some high-ranking officers in
the armed forces, and they are quite democratic people," said one
academic at a leading think tank in Jakarta. "They also want democratic
reform. . . . The old generation, the 1945 generation, saw their
legitimacy come from the historic creation of Indonesia, and they feel
they have a moral obligation to take part in politics. The new generation
is concerned with their social acceptability. . . . I know some young
officers are very idealistic."

The growth of nongovernmental organizations. Indonesia is believed to
have 9,000 to 10,000 advocacy organizations, ranging from women's groups
and religious groups to human rights forums, legal aid societies and
labor unions, which are not officially recognized. The trend is similar,
if less pronounced, across much of East and Southeast Asia. This
flowering of nongovernmental activity is almost all small-scale and
grass-roots, operating at the level of a single province or town, or even
a single factory. But these groups have begun to exert influence on
government policies concerning specific issues.

The rise of information technology and the aggressiveness of the media.
Some governments still try to control local media by varying degrees, but
the Internet, satellite television, and regional publications that
circulate freely across borders give Asians greater access to uncensored
information about global democratic trends than at any time in history,
even in relatively closed societies such as Vietnam, where foreign
magazines and newspapers are available on street corners. In Thailand,
the local Bangkok-based press was the main force pushing for democratic
change and against Chavalit's government, while the vociferous attacks of
newspaper columnists and editorials in Manila forced Ramos to reconsider
his coy hints about changing the constitution to seek a new term.

The emergence of a new leadership generation. Where Malaysia's
71-year-old Mahathir speaks of "Asian values," his heir apparent, deputy
prime minister and finance minister Anwar Ibrahim, 50, talks of the need
for greater democracy. Anwar, who learned his politics as a 1970s street
activist jailed for protesting against an earlier, repressive Malaysian
government, is widely seen as a prototype of the "new breed" Asian leader
-- more cosmopolitan and less concerned than older leaders about their
nations' survivability and political stability.

"There's a whole crowd of these guys in a lot of countries," said Paal,
of the Asia Pacific Policy Center. "They're not in power yet, but they're
accumulating power. The generational change to me is the most important
thing."

Many regional analysts and academics agreed that Asia's economic downturn
-- which has seen local currencies lose about a third of their value
since the summer and forced several countries to seek bailouts from the
International Monetary Fund -- may in the short term pose a challenge to
the democratization trend. The pain of higher unemployment, high interest
rates and slower growth, all part of the IMF's prescription for ailing
economies, may produce a populist electoral backlash against democratic
governments and a hankering for the older-style authoritarian leader who
provided the "iron rice bowl" of prosperity for the previous generation.

But for the long term, the changes in the economic systems forced by the
IMF remedies -- more transparency in decision-making, opening of markets,
less corruption and cronyism -- are likely to accelerate the move to
pluralism in politics, analysts said.

There are, of course, a few exceptions and holdouts to the democratizing
trend. Burma (renamed Myanmar by its rulers) is still run by a military
junta that refuses to recognize the National League for Democracy as the
party that won national elections in 1990. The United States and most
Western European countries consider the Burmese regime one of the world's
most repressive. But last July, the regional group called ASEAN, the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, admitted Burma as a member,
hoping, among other reasons, that engaging the junta in the international
organization might liberalize its behavior.

Communist-run Vietnam also seems to be lagging behind the region's
democratization trend. But analysts like Paal and diplomats in Hanoi said
even in that country there is a measurable amount of pent-up frustration
among younger Vietnamese who are looking for a way to change to a more
open system. In one possible sign of nascent change, candidates not
affiliated with the Communist Party won seats for the first time in
Vietnam's most recent elections for a new national assembly. Among them
was a former officer in the old South Vietnamese army.

Cambodia was thought to have ushered in a new democratic government after
U.N.-brokered elections. For a while, newspapers flourished, human rights
groups opened offices and political parties sprang up. 

But in early July, after more than a year of slowly encroaching on
Cambodia's newfound freedoms, the powerful second prime minister, Hun
Sen, staged a bloody coup, ousted his coalition partner and rival Prince
Norodom Ranariddh, the first prime minister, and seized control of the
country. Hun Sen's coup prompted international condemnation, a cutoff of
badly needed U.S. aid and demands from Cambodia's neighbors that the
country's fragile democracy be restored.

Response to the Cambodian coup was notable. In the past, regional leaders
clung to the notion of noninterference in each other's internal affairs.

The ASEAN regional meeting last July marked a turning point. The Asian
leaders lined up to criticize Hun Sen's coup and demand free elections.
Various analysts said ASEAN showed a new maturity in handling the crisis,
recognizing that now issues of democracy and human rights cannot be
ignored. 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company