Protests over gas and transportation price hikes in Burma (Myanmar) have the military junta on edge, but the fear factor keeps a public that is largely sympathetic to the opposition activists at home behind closed shutters.
By Anuj Chopra in Rangoon for ISN Security Watch (10/09/07)
Offering rare resistance to the military junta's iron-fisted rule in Burma (Myanmar), anti-government protests have been sporadically breaking out in Rangoon (Yangon) and other parts of the country in the past three weeks.
Although laced with democratic yearnings, the underlying motivation for the protests is economic. In mid-August, the junta without warning nearly doubled the prices of gasoline and diesel, and raised the price of CNG by nearly five times. Prices of food commodities and public transportation have since spiraled out of control, exacerbating the economic woes of an already impoverished populace.
The junta's crackdown on these protests has been harsh. Many prominent activists have either been arrested including 13 prominent leaders of the 1988 generation - a group of activists involved in Burma 's 1988 pro-democracy protests - now trying to galvanize the public to participate in the demonstrations. Many of them are now on the run, with the junta hunting them down, raiding their homes and distributing photographs of "wanted" men and women.
Citizens have been instructed to inform authorities if they have any over night visitors, and hotels have been told to notify officials of the presence of any opposition group members.
One of the protests ISN Security Watch witnessed was on the morning of 23 August, on Rangoon's busy Shwe Gon Daing street. Thirty-five protesters were angrily chanting slogans against the government's decision to raise prices.
Security officials in plain clothes emerged on the scene quickly. Shops in the area rolled down their shutters. Journalists were ordered to stay on the other side of the road and refrain from taking pictures. A waiting crowd watched in nervous anticipation.
The protesters were roughed up - some of them punched - and then tossed into a waiting police truck and driven off. The small demonstration was crushed in a matter of minutes.
"They [the junta] are trying to create a very intimidating environment," says Su Su Nway, a labor activist and a member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) who was sent to prison in October 2005 for more than seven months after reporting cases of forced labor to the UN. She told ISN Security Watch that she agreed to lend herself to the cause after all prominent members of the "88 Generation," including Min Ko Naing, were arrested.
On 28 August, Su Su Nway led a group of 50 protesters at a busy market in Rangoon, to demonstrate against the price hikes. The crowd had just begun to chant slogans when junta thugs swooped in and started dragging the demonstrators into trucks.
Su Su Nway managed to escape, put in a taxi by activists and chauffeured away to safety by a sympathetic driver.
The public participation in these demonstrations has been limited, and analysts have quickly dismissed any notion that the agitations could destabilize the military government.
"That's totally understandable," an "88 Generation" leader who has so far managed to evade the dragnet of arrest told ISN. "There's a pervading sense of fear. People have been cautiously watching. And they do support us completely," one activist told ISN Security Watch. He asked not to be named.
"In an environment where any form of dissent is brutally crushed, even if one or two people stand up to the government, I think it is significant," he said.
A sympathetic, but scared public
Although public participation has been dwindling, the activist says the Burmese public at large is sympathetic to their cause.
"You knock on a door late at night, and whisper 'let me in, brother.' People willingly help us, even though they're well aware of the dire consequences."
There are currently 28 activists - including Su Su Nway (34), Htay Kywei (42), Tun Myint Aung (42), Hla Myo Naung (42) - who are now in hiding. He says he's expecting a far more severe crackdown in the coming weeks, in the wake of a referendum on the impending constitution.
The "88 Generation" has been vocal about its opposition to the National Convention working on forming the new constitution, which convened in Rangoon last week. The group has been trying to galvanize the public to come out openly and protest about the economic hardships.
"People must stand up," Su Su Nway told ISN Security Watch, before slipping back into hiding, "and choose between freedom and oppression."
Disastrous economy
In private, many Burmese, feeling the pinch of rising prices, are critical of the junta. In October 2005, the junta increased prices of subsidized fuel by more than 800 percent. And again, without warning, on 15 August this year, the junta announced another major fuel price hike. But what's pinching people the most is the steep rise in bus fares. There are an estimated 2.4 million bus commuters in Rangoon alone, all now forced to shell out up to three times more for fares.
Daw May Oo, an emaciated 30-year-old woman, lives with her 10-year-old son in a satellite township on the outskirts of the city. She survives on a meager 1,000 Kyat per day (less than US$1). A housemaid, she needs to travel to downtown areas of Rangoon to work. With the price hike, her fares have doubled and 60 percent of her earnings are now lost on transportation.
Even food prices have been slowly rising, she says. "At this rate, even getting a meal per day might become a luxury," she told ISN Security Watch.
The fuel price hikes are keeping up the already severe inflationary pressures in a weak Burmese economy. According to the Economists Intelligence Unit (EIU), the annual inflation in 2006 was an average of just over 20 percent. This year, with supply-side inflationary pressures remaining high due to fuel price hikes, they expect annual inflation to climb to around 30 percent in 2007-2008.
The junta continues to assert that the economy is growing at double-digit rates of over 12 percent, although there is no evidence on the ground to support that. The junta continues to spend 40 percent of its budget on its 450,000-strong army.
The per capita income in Burma hovers around US$225, according to the US State Department, among the lowest in Asia. Ninety percent of the population lives at or below the poverty line.
"The labor class is the most affected by these rising prices," says one representative of the local media who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. "This will only exacerbate the unemployment crisis in the country," he told ISN Security Watch.
In recent years, the government has discovered off-shore gas reserves. Owing to the continued development these reserves, natural-gas production rose by 10.8 percent this year, according to the EIU, and the junta has been raking in billions selling gas to energy-hungry countries like India, China and Thailand.
"In a country that has an abundance of gas, subjecting the poor to a five fold increase in prices is cruel," says the media representative, and editor and business reporter. "Why punish the common man?"
The country also has other rich natural resources like timber - but a major chunk of that money is being pumped into building a new capital in Naypyidaw, some 640 kilometers north of Rangoon. No one is very sure why the junta changed their capital in late 2005, but several theories abound – one of them being that the government is running away from its own people.
"In 1988," says the media source, "demonstrators attacked government ministries. The junta wants to isolate itself from its own people should public anger against their policies ever break out on that scale again."
The 1988 uprising were triggered by economic hardship. In 1987, a former regime chief demonetized Burma's currency, wiping out the savings of millions, and introduced new bank notes that were divisible by the number nine simply because he considered the digit auspicious.
In 2003, the government announced what it called a "Roadmap to Democracy," which would eventually lead to new elections, and it intermittently stages a convention to write a new constitution (the latest session began in December). But key members of the opposition have either been excluded or have boycotted the convention, stripping the process of any credibility.
The New Dawn of Light, the government mouthpiece, in its 22 August edition said "agitators have been taken into custody for undermining stability and security of the nation, and attempting to disrupt the National Convention."
The "88 Generation" leaders find this charge ludicrous.
"We're only agitating to highlight economic hardships of common Burmese people," a prominent '88 leader told ISN Security Watch. "These agitations do not have anything to do with the convention."
The timing of this fuel price hike is significant, he says. "It was a trap," he says, to uproot the '88 Generation' who, the regime understands, has the potential to mobilize public support against the constitution in the coming months.
The National Convention does not fairly represent the people of Burma, he said. "Our motto is: 'No vote'."
He said that in the coming weeks, the "88 Generation" planned to mobilize people to reject the constitution and boycott the referendum. The international community, taking note of these agitations, has once again urged Burma's generals to release from house arrest Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide election in 1990, only to have the junta annul the polls.
Mild international pressure
On 30 August, President George W Bush condemned the junta's actions against demonstrators.
And this international pressure seems to be working somewhat. The junta, apparently bowing to bad publicity, released a political prisoner earlier this month whose leg was broken when he was arrested in the recent protests. His case had gained international attention when fellow prisoners staged a hunger strike calling for his freedom.
More recently, in a big embarrassment to the junta, Buddhist monks in Burma joined in the protests by the hundreds in several cities, granting a sort of religious sanction to the demonstrations.
Even as the world takes notice of the blatant human rights violations in Burma, the international community is in a quandary over how to deal with the repressive and reclusive regime. Sanctions in the past have only exacerbated the economic woes of common Burmese people while the junta clings to power.
Also, two veto-wielding nations (at the UN) - China and Russia - have come out in favor of the junta, vetoing a Security Council proposal in January to censure the government. Adding to that, economic patronage by giants like China and India largely renders any sanctions imposed by the US and EU ineffective.
The "88 Generation" has urged the international community to stand united in its criticism and actions against the junta.
Anuj Chopra is a freelance journalist whose stories have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. Chopra lives just outside Mumbai in India and is the 2005 recipient of the CNN Young Journalist Award in the print category.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).
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