BKK Post: Mar:23: So when does the

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

So when does the
new Burma begin?

Burma has spent the past year trying to get a new image.  It has joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nation, changed the name of its regime, and even attempted to welcome tourists for a year.  It has promised democracy and courted foreign businessmen. The new clothes haven't improved the appearance.

Ever since it seized power in 1988, the Rangoon regime has served as our region's worst example.
By entering power over the dead bodies of hundreds of Burmese, the military junta had serious work to perform before its image could be more attractive.  Approaching 10 years in power, however, the leadership remains largely a pariah.  

The recent border violence is only the latest of a long series of stunts by Rangoon.  The junta has raised, trained and employed a group of heavily armed thugs called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.  It has used this DKBA to penetrate Thai territory, and to kill and terrorise Thai villagers and Karen refugees.  The unprovoked attacks on the Tak province refugee camps would be denounced as acts of war under some circumstances, with Thais killed along with Karen women and children refugees.

Thailand has bent far over backwards to avoid escalating these inexcusable cross-border attacks.  Diplomatic notes to Rangoon have been rejected out of hand, without discussion.  The Thai army has fired warning shots at DKBA intrusions-- many of them with blank shells.  There has been no suggestion that anti-Burmese forces are staging attacks on Rangoon forces from Thai territory.

Last week, Rangoon again resumed work on the controversial concrete dyke on the Moei River.  The river is the Thai-Burma border in the region near Mae Sot.  In recent years, Burma has been trying to erect what is in effect a concrete shoreline.  It would regain a few square metres of eroded border.  And it would spit on a Burma-Thai agreement to discuss the border instead of taking unilateral action.

Since 1988, the Rangoon junta has devolved into yet another brutal dictatorship.  When free elections produced a democratic parliament, Slorc simply ignored them.  When voting produced a genuine democratic heroine, Slorc began one of the most vicious campaigns of vilification upon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Last year, Slorc finally seemed to recognise that the very name of its regime conjured up visions of evil. Advised by a public relations firm, Slorc became the State Peace and Development Council.  The propaganda last November indicated the name change could result in actual new policies.  These have failed to materialise.

The regime's new face is to promise democracy.  Just two weeks ago, there was Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt doing it again.  The senior junta leader said his regime has finished half its work towards establishing a multi-party democracy.  A new constitution is on the way.  The only problem with this rosy view is that the constitutional convention is in recess.  It has been there since 1996, when several delegates timorously suggested changes in the draft document.

Last week came news that yet another member of Ms Suu Kyi's democracy group, Thein Tin, had died in the notorious political wing of Insein Prison.  As usual, the report was accompanied by credible details of torture and mistreatment.  There also have been new details on the killing of Ms Suu Kyi's godfather and friend, James Leander Nichols, an honorary consul in Rangoon for several European nations.  Leo Nichols, the reports say, was deprived of sleep and medicine until he died, in 1996.  Mr Nichols was in prison because he owned a fax machine - not for using it, but for owning it.

Esteem is withheld from Burma because of its support for drug barons and terrorism by its DKBA goons.  The Rangoon regime will get no courtesy because of a name change or vague promises to clean up its act.  The former Slorc needs to respect its own citizens and neighbours.  Then others will respect Burma's rulers.