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THE ARMY DIGS IN(FEER) (r)



Burma
THE ARMY DIGS IN

Rangoon's neighbours hoped its junta would yield to 'constructive engagement.'
Instead it's gearing up for more repression. 

By Bertil Lintner in Bangkok

Far Eastern Economic REVIEW (online edition), cover dated September 2, 1999 

                 Burmese dissidents in exile are predicting that
                 September 9--the numerologically significant
                 9-9-99--will be the day the masses in Burma again rise
                 up against the junta. They base their hopes on a
                 similarly auspicious date 11 years ago--August 8,
                 1988--when massive pro-democracy demonstrations
                 began in Rangoon and spread across the country, until
                 they were brutally crushed by the army a month later. 

                 Most political analysts, however, see more tangible
                 signs that precisely the opposite will happen: The
                 Burmese opposition has no chance of organizing any
                 protests because the rulers in Rangoon have set their
                 face against dialogue with their opponents and are
                 tightening their grip on the impoverished country.
                 Already, the government has rounded up 120
                 pro-democracy activists all over the country in the
                 run-up to September 9, according to a statement issued
                 by the underground All-Burma Students' Democratic
                 Front. 

                 But the most unmistakable sign of the junta's intentions
                 is the expansion of the armed forces, especially the
                 powerful military-intelligence apparatus. In the late
                 1980s, before the August 8 uprising, Burma's armed
                 forces totalled about 195,000 men. Today, the number
                 is 450,000, according to Maung Aung Myoe, a
                 Burmese researcher completing his doctoral thesis on
                 Burma's military at the Australian National University in
                 Canberra.

                 The army alone now has 422 infantry battalions
                 supported by three artillery divisions and one armoured
                 division--more than twice as many as 11 years ago.
                 The number of military-intelligence battalions,
                 meanwhile, has increased to 33 from 23 in 1988. The
                 military-intelligence apparatus also includes nine special
                 departments, based in Rangoon, that look after such
                 areas as foreign relations, information coordination,
                 counter-terrorism and strategic planning. In the past
                 decade, the government has bought vast quantities of
                 military hardware--jet fighters, tanks, anti-aircraft guns,
                 artillery pieces, naval patrol boats--mainly from China.

                 The build-up of all this military muscle contrasts sharply
                 with the belief of many governments and multilateral
                 agencies that conciliation and mediation will persuade
                 Burma's generals to negotiate with its democrats. The
                 European Union and the United States insist that
                 diplomatic and economic pressure will push the
                 generals to the negotiating table. The Association of
                 Southeast Asian Nations argues that "constructive
                 engagement" with the junta will work better than
                 sanctions and condemnation. On an August visit to
                 Rangoon, Australia's human-rights commissioner, Chris
                 Sidoti, even proposed that the Burmese government set
                 up its own human-rights body, modelled after a
                 commission established in Indonesia in 1993 when the
                 Suharto regime was still solidly entrenched. 

                 Diplomats and Burma-watchers in Southeast Asia
                 dismiss these hopes as pious. Rangoon's leaders are
                 military men, says an Asian diplomat based in Bangkok.
                 "As far as they are concerned, they have won the battle
                 against the democracy movement and they see no
                 reason why they should give that up by accepting some
                 kind of compromise with the opposition. And if there's
                 a dialogue, it's a dialogue of the deaf, because only the
                 opposition, and foreigners, are doing the talking. The
                 generals talk only to themselves." 

                 The junta has acquired increasingly sophisticated means
                 to maintain its grip on power. A vital part of its
                 military-intelligence apparatus is the information
                 department, dubbed the "cyber-warfare centre" by
                 Burma-watchers. Western intelligence sources say the
                 centre, located in the Defence Ministry's compound in
                 Rangoon, is the largest computer facility in Burma.
                 According to Desmond Ball, a professor at the ANU
                 and an expert on signals intelligence, the centre can
                 intercept all sorts of telephone and fax messages as well
                 as e-mail and radio communications.

                 International telecommunications with Burma pass
                 through two satellite ground stations in Syriam, a town
                 across the river from Rangoon. Robert Karniol,
                 Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, says:
                 "Perhaps two years ago, a new capability was
                 introduced, allowing Burma's military intelligence to
                 monitor even satellite phones . . . by using Inmarsat and
                 similar direct satellite-telecommunication systems." The
                 equipment, intelligence sources say, was supplied by a
                 Singapore-based company, which is also providing
                 on-site training. Adds an Asian diplomat in Rangoon:
                 "Since Burma has no external enemies, this build-up is
                 meant for only one purpose: to make sure that the
                 military remains in power and that it would never again
                 have to face the kind of massive, popular outburst of
                 anti-government sentiment it did in 1988."

                 Significantly, many of the 33 military-intelligence
                 battalions are stationed in towns and cities in the
                 Burmese heartland, the centre of opposition to the
                 regime, rather than in the frontier areas, where ethnic
                 insurgents were active for many years but now have
                 been largely defeated or marginalized. "Moreover, there
                 are informers in every neighbourhood, every school
                 compound and every Buddhist monastery in the
                 country," says a Western intelligence source. "This
                 makes it almost impossible even to organize any kind of
                 political movement, even underground cells." 

                 Even a collapsing economy is not denting the junta's
                 hard line. Contracted foreign investment in Burma has
                 fallen to $29.5 million so far this year from $774 million
                 last year, according to a recent report from a Western
                 embassy in Rangoon. Inflation is running at 40%, with
                 the consumer price index for rice--the key staple--up
                 an annualized 60% in February. According to the
                 embassy's report, plans for Burmese gas exports to
                 generate foreign exchange are foundering: Burma and
                 Thailand can't agree on payment terms for supplies
                 from a giant gas project that is being developed off the
                 Burmese coast by Total of France and Unocal of the
                 U.S.

                 But the junta has an answer to the collapse of its
                 experiment with free-market economics: It's now
                 putting more emphasis on raising agricultural output than
                 meeting the concerns of foreign investors, the embassy
                 report says. Foreign businessmen say visas for Burma
                 are now harder to get. 

                 The new focus on agriculture seems to be aimed at
                 boosting paddy output and achieving self-sufficiency in
                 rice. The generals seem to believe that food security,
                 massive intelligence gathering, intense surveillance of the
                 population, intimidation and arrests will enable them to
                 remain in power indefinitely. Meanwhile, they pay lip
                 service to outsiders' overtures--agreeing to "consider"
                 Australia's proposal for a human-rights commission, for
                 example--while wishful thinkers continue to look for
                 signs of change.

__________________________

                    Far Eastern Economic Review Interactive Edition 

http://www.feer.com/
All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Review Publishing Company Ltd, 
Hong Kong, 1999. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones and 
Company Incorporated.

Internet ProLink PC User

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Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

Burma
THE ARMY DIGS IN

Rangoon's neighbours hoped its junta would yield to 'constructive engagement.'
Instead it's gearing up for more repression. 

By Bertil Lintner in Bangkok

Far Eastern Economic REVIEW (online edition), cover dated September 2, 1999 

                 Burmese dissidents in exile are predicting that
                 September 9--the numerologically significant
                 9-9-99--will be the day the masses in Burma again rise
                 up against the junta. They base their hopes on a
                 similarly auspicious date 11 years ago--August 8,
                 1988--when massive pro-democracy demonstrations
                 began in Rangoon and spread across the country, until
                 they were brutally crushed by the army a month later. 

                 Most political analysts, however, see more tangible
                 signs that precisely the opposite will happen: The
                 Burmese opposition has no chance of organizing any
                 protests because the rulers in Rangoon have set their
                 face against dialogue with their opponents and are
                 tightening their grip on the impoverished country.
                 Already, the government has rounded up 120
                 pro-democracy activists all over the country in the
                 run-up to September 9, according to a statement issued
                 by the underground All-Burma Students' Democratic
                 Front. 

                 But the most unmistakable sign of the junta's intentions
                 is the expansion of the armed forces, especially the
                 powerful military-intelligence apparatus. In the late
                 1980s, before the August 8 uprising, Burma's armed
                 forces totalled about 195,000 men. Today, the number
                 is 450,000, according to Maung Aung Myoe, a
                 Burmese researcher completing his doctoral thesis on
                 Burma's military at the Australian National University in
                 Canberra.

                 The army alone now has 422 infantry battalions
                 supported by three artillery divisions and one armoured
                 division--more than twice as many as 11 years ago.
                 The number of military-intelligence battalions,
                 meanwhile, has increased to 33 from 23 in 1988. The
                 military-intelligence apparatus also includes nine special
                 departments, based in Rangoon, that look after such
                 areas as foreign relations, information coordination,
                 counter-terrorism and strategic planning. In the past
                 decade, the government has bought vast quantities of
                 military hardware--jet fighters, tanks, anti-aircraft guns,
                 artillery pieces, naval patrol boats--mainly from China.

                 The build-up of all this military muscle contrasts sharply
                 with the belief of many governments and multilateral
                 agencies that conciliation and mediation will persuade
                 Burma's generals to negotiate with its democrats. The
                 European Union and the United States insist that
                 diplomatic and economic pressure will push the
                 generals to the negotiating table. The Association of
                 Southeast Asian Nations argues that "constructive
                 engagement" with the junta will work better than
                 sanctions and condemnation. On an August visit to
                 Rangoon, Australia's human-rights commissioner, Chris
                 Sidoti, even proposed that the Burmese government set
                 up its own human-rights body, modelled after a
                 commission established in Indonesia in 1993 when the
                 Suharto regime was still solidly entrenched. 

                 Diplomats and Burma-watchers in Southeast Asia
                 dismiss these hopes as pious. Rangoon's leaders are
                 military men, says an Asian diplomat based in Bangkok.
                 "As far as they are concerned, they have won the battle
                 against the democracy movement and they see no
                 reason why they should give that up by accepting some
                 kind of compromise with the opposition. And if there's
                 a dialogue, it's a dialogue of the deaf, because only the
                 opposition, and foreigners, are doing the talking. The
                 generals talk only to themselves." 

                 The junta has acquired increasingly sophisticated means
                 to maintain its grip on power. A vital part of its
                 military-intelligence apparatus is the information
                 department, dubbed the "cyber-warfare centre" by
                 Burma-watchers. Western intelligence sources say the
                 centre, located in the Defence Ministry's compound in
                 Rangoon, is the largest computer facility in Burma.
                 According to Desmond Ball, a professor at the ANU
                 and an expert on signals intelligence, the centre can
                 intercept all sorts of telephone and fax messages as well
                 as e-mail and radio communications.

                 International telecommunications with Burma pass
                 through two satellite ground stations in Syriam, a town
                 across the river from Rangoon. Robert Karniol,
                 Asia-Pacific editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, says:
                 "Perhaps two years ago, a new capability was
                 introduced, allowing Burma's military intelligence to
                 monitor even satellite phones . . . by using Inmarsat and
                 similar direct satellite-telecommunication systems." The
                 equipment, intelligence sources say, was supplied by a
                 Singapore-based company, which is also providing
                 on-site training. Adds an Asian diplomat in Rangoon:
                 "Since Burma has no external enemies, this build-up is
                 meant for only one purpose: to make sure that the
                 military remains in power and that it would never again
                 have to face the kind of massive, popular outburst of
                 anti-government sentiment it did in 1988."

                 Significantly, many of the 33 military-intelligence
                 battalions are stationed in towns and cities in the
                 Burmese heartland, the centre of opposition to the
                 regime, rather than in the frontier areas, where ethnic
                 insurgents were active for many years but now have
                 been largely defeated or marginalized. "Moreover, there
                 are informers in every neighbourhood, every school
                 compound and every Buddhist monastery in the
                 country," says a Western intelligence source. "This
                 makes it almost impossible even to organize any kind of
                 political movement, even underground cells." 

                 Even a collapsing economy is not denting the junta's
                 hard line. Contracted foreign investment in Burma has
                 fallen to $29.5 million so far this year from $774 million
                 last year, according to a recent report from a Western
                 embassy in Rangoon. Inflation is running at 40%, with
                 the consumer price index for rice--the key staple--up
                 an annualized 60% in February. According to the
                 embassy's report, plans for Burmese gas exports to
                 generate foreign exchange are foundering: Burma and
                 Thailand can't agree on payment terms for supplies
                 from a giant gas project that is being developed off the
                 Burmese coast by Total of France and Unocal of the
                 U.S.

                 But the junta has an answer to the collapse of its
                 experiment with free-market economics: It's now
                 putting more emphasis on raising agricultural output than
                 meeting the concerns of foreign investors, the embassy
                 report says. Foreign businessmen say visas for Burma
                 are now harder to get. 

                 The new focus on agriculture seems to be aimed at
                 boosting paddy output and achieving self-sufficiency in
                 rice. The generals seem to believe that food security,
                 massive intelligence gathering, intense surveillance of the
                 population, intimidation and arrests will enable them to
                 remain in power indefinitely. Meanwhile, they pay lip
                 service to outsiders' overtures--agreeing to "consider"
                 Australia's proposal for a human-rights commission, for
                 example--while wishful thinkers continue to look for
                 signs of change.

__________________________

                    Far Eastern Economic Review Interactive Edition 

http://www.feer.com/
All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Review Publishing Company Ltd, 
Hong Kong, 1999. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones and 
Company Incorporated.

Internet ProLink PC User


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