COMMENTARY - Serious Social Unrest

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: COMMENTARY - Serious Social Unrest Await in Burma

Serious Social Unrest Await in Burma
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By Julien Moe

2nd August 1999

It has been eleven years since the military regime seized power,
eliminating
the democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi. According to the
SPDC,
the nation is in "so-called transition" to democracy. The Burmese
democratic opposition has been using patience  as a virtue while the
United
States, the United Nations and the European Union have sanctioned the
military regime by means of embargos whereas ASEAN constructively have
engaged itself with the hardliners' regime that convinced ASEAN it would
change democratically favourably.  Human rights situations have 
worsened.
The economy has been downcast. The Burmese currency exchange rate is now
Kyat 400 to the dollar.

In Burma hotels and tourist attraction places are more vacant than ever.
With sanctions imposed by the international community and campaigns
launched
by dissident groups abroad , the regime has been suffering from
hardships of
all sorts. Student demonstrations have begun across the nationt on 
small
scales. Dissident groups abroad have been preparing to hit the regime
hard
on the 9th of September 1999. On the 8th of August 1988, the socialist
regime was hit hard and had to let itself go. The people inside Burma
have
been fed up with the unpopular regime and the regime knows it.

The paranoid regime is now preparing by training its military
intelligence
staff  to defend itself  from  the probable violent social unrest that
the
regime is expecting. The Burmese democratic opposition finally has lost
its
patience and formed a People's Representative Committee that the regime
fears  very much. The regime's persuasive approach to repeal the
"Committee"
became an abortive coup when NLD rejected it.

The revolution started by the students of 1988  had  not finished as
planned. The students are going to accomplish the goal this time.
Democracy
that faded away after the coup is now going to rise up again. It is only
one
month away. The audience is watching. The three players [ the students,
the
NLD and the dissident groups including ethnic revoluionaries and the
regime]
are now ready to go. Who can make a voice and carry the day is yet to be
watched. The students, the NLD, the dissident groups and the ethnic

revolutinaries have nothing to lose in this race. Will there be only  a
serious social unrest that will ignite violence all over the nation  and
sacrifice thousands of lives as in the 1988 upheaval or some other forms
of
violence ignited by " some other cells"?