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NEWS - Junta Still Battles for Hear
- Subject: NEWS - Junta Still Battles for Hear
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 19:24:00
Subject: NEWS - Junta Still Battles for Hearts and Minds
Junta Still Battles for Hearts and Minds
Inter Press Service
08-JUL-99
RANGOON, (Jul. 8) IPS - Burma's military regime, over a
period of just a week, announced the completion of a
handful
of bridges, the inauguration of a dam and a hospital, the
opening of a highway and the renovation of its most
famous
pagoda.
In billboards along Rangoon's wide, tree-lined avenues,
the
junta proclaims the stability of the state and national
reconsolidation as among its political goals.
Daily, on the front page of its English newspaper, The
New
Light of Myanmar, the state enumerates its political,
economic and social objectives in such clarity so that
the
Burmese people will not forget them.
The military government, in power for more than 10 years
after crushing a popular uprising in 1988, is still
working to
win the hearts and minds of its people.
"Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as
stooges, holding negative views," screams one slogan in
one
of the inside pages of the newspaper.
"Crush all internal and external destructive elements as
the
common enemy," and "Oppose foreign nations interfering in
internal affairs of the state," say two other slogans.
The junta, known as the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC), urges the Burmese people to cooperate
with the government and the "tatmadaw" or the military.
At
the same time, it exhorts them to oppose the "evil"
designs of
foreign countries, the United States in particular.
In a half-page article in one of the newspaper's Sunday
editions last month, an author slammed opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi as a puppet of the United States and
Britain, which "are pushing the world into chaos".
The Burmese regime was given a semblance of legitimacy
when the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN)
admitted it as member in 1997 despite some reservations
by
some members and strong opposition from Western
governments and human rights groups and activists in
Asia.
But ASEAN's approach of non-interference and policy of
"constructive engagement" has failed to nudge the junta
into
improving the human rights situation and allowing greater
freedom for its people.
The government has remained adamant in refusing to open
a dialogue with the opposition led by Suu Kyi to settle
the
political stalemate in Burma.
Observers say the junta has in fact become more
repressive,
harassing, arresting and jailing opposition leaders and
supporters.
Still a pariah state as far as the international
community is
concerned, Burma's SPDC has focused its efforts
elsewhere.
It has gone instead on a construction binge, inviting
foreign
investors to put up hotels, build roads and bridges and
has
even spent a fortune to refurbish the Shwedagon pagoda,
its
most famous tourist attraction in the heart of the
capital.
Writing for the Thailand-based Irrawaddy magazine,
Burmese journalist Aung Zaw said the junta has launched
an
intensive restoration of ancient pagodas and temples
across
Burma.
"The generals pay daily visits to sacred shrines. But
what is
the reason behind all this? Do the generals really
believe
they can atone for their past in this way or are they
simply
trying to whitewash their sins?" he asked.
Visitors to Rangoon find that most of the new hotels are
empty and tourists are few and far between.
Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who is Burma's symbol
of
the struggle for democracy, belittles these signs of
"progress."
"They say there are more roads but of what use is that
when
there are more people who are poorer?" she asked.
"Yes, there are more hotels, but they are empty. Yes,
there
are more cars and more people who are living in bigger
and
better houses but these are people who are connected to
this regime," she told a group of visiting women
journalists
and activists from ASEAN countries in June.
"The general public has not benefited from the advent of
all
these," she said, citing the fact that ordinary people
still have
to fight their way into overcrowded buses, while the poor
have become poorer.
She added that a lot of the infrastructure projects the
military
has been bragging about were in fact built with forced
labor.
Like other Asian countries, Burma reeled from the
economic
crisis in the region. Inflation shot up and growth slowed
down. As expected, it was the poor and the middle-class
who
were hardest hit.
"Previously, the middle-class could afford two kinds of
curry
with their rice," said one elderly woman from the
opposition
National League for Democracy. "But now, it's a battle
even
just to have one curry."
Sending children to school has also become an expensive
affair, she added.
"Bridges, apartment houses and even showy roads are not
essential to true development and certainly not traffic
jams,"
said Suu Kyi. "What is essential is there should be
better
standards of living which means better education and
better
nutrition and better health care."
"In fact we are less nourished, less educated and less
healthy than we used to be. In fact we can say there has
been a recession, that we have in fact gone backwards and
not forward in development," she said.