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CYCLONE NARGIS: WHY INTERNATIONAL AID ISN'T GETTING THROUGH
Myanmar's generals are ruled by paranoia
MARCUS GEE
mgee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Marcus Gee | Read Bio | Latest Columns
May 13, 2008
To the outside world, the reaction of Myanmar's military regime to last
week's devastating cyclone seems not just obscene, but inexplicable.
Instead
of ru****ng to help its desperate people, the regime of General Than Shwe
all
but shut off the country from foreign assistance while pu****ng ahead with
a
referendum on a new constitution. But to those who know the regime, its
reaction is perfectly in character.
Myanmar's government is among the most xenophobic in the world, deeply
distrustful of outsiders and all they represent.
So the idea of letting foreign-aid workers and even foreign soldiers into
the country, if only to deliver aid, fills its leaders with dread.
"They believe that the countries of the outside world are eager to defeat
them and take over their country," said Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar
watcher
and retired professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
The regime's xenophobia has it roots as far back as 1824, the beginning of
clashes with colonial Britain that would end with Myanmar (then Burma)
being
incor****ated into British India in 1886. "They are still living in the
1820s," said Prof. Silverstein of today's military and its world view.
There was a brief democratic flowering after the Second World War when
Burma, then one of the richest and most promising countries in Southeast
Asia, looked outward. But the country turned inward again in 1962 when the
army seized power, expelled most foreigners, cut trade ties with other
countries and embarked on the "Burmese way to Socialism," a strict form of
self-reliance that has kept Myanmar in a hermetically sealed capsule ever
since.
The regime's fear of the outside world has deepened as the outside world,
outraged at the years-long detention of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and last year's bloody suppression of a monk-led uprising, has stepped up
its criticism of, and sanctions against, the military government.
So the idea that foreign aircraft might start shuttling into their
airspace
and foreign war****ps arriving in their ****ts makes the regime's leaders
nervous, even if the effect might be to save hundreds of thousands of
lives.
"If a military regime sees military planes, it wonders if it's being
invaded," said Bridget Welsh, a Myanmar specialist at Johns Hopkins
University. "They can't recognize that some interventions are good."
Than Shwe, 75, leader of the regime since 1992, has spent his career
steeped
in the paranoia and isolationism of the military culture.
In that culture, the military is seen as the only force that can keep the
country together, safe from the twin threats of chronic ethnic unrest and
foreign hostility.
After joining in the military's fight against ethnic insurgents in the
late
1940s and early 1950s, he rose steadily through the ranks under Ne Win,
the
country's long-time military chief.
He has overseen at least three purges of other military officers
apparently
considered a threat to his rule.
"He is deeply suspicious not just of people outside but of people within
his
own military system," Prof. Welsh said. Used to supreme power, "He doesn't
listen, he tells."
Prof. Silverstein and other experts say that Gen. Than and his colleagues
in
the military elite are poorly educated, not well travelled and
ill-informed
about the outside world.
They send their children to elite schools and often live apart from the
general population, even moving their capital from Rangoon to the isolated
redoubt of Naypyidaw, or "Abode of the kings," in 2005.
Accustomed to unquestioned control, they bridled at the thought that
foreign
governments and humanitarian organizations might deliver aid
independently.
"Traditionally, they try to benefit from every crisis," said Zaw Kyaw, a
Toronto activist and observer of Myanmar politics. "They want to take all
the credit for handing out the aid."
There is another reason for the regime's hostile reaction to foreign
offers
of help. The cyclone happened to come just days before the planned
constitutional referendum.
It seems extraordinary to the outside world that the government would push
ahead with the referendum in most of the country in the midst of a
national
catastrophe, filling the state-controlled airwaves with get-out-and-vote
messages instead of disaster news.
But the vote was of paramount im****tance to the regime. Though viewed by
democracy advocates, and much of the world, as a sham designed merely to
perpetuate the regime in power, the vote was seen by the military as a
necessary step to shore up its legitimacy, tattered since last fall's
violence.
Myanmar has been without a constitution since the last major uprising in
1988, and the military has been working for more than two years on a new
document that would give it a quarter of the seats in parliament and
ensure
that the presidency stays with a man in uniform.
Whether the cyclone disaster will upset the regime's well-laid plans or
loosen its power is unclear. The Mexican government's faltering response
to
the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City is thought to have helped bring on the
downfall of Mexico's ruling party after decades in power. Similarly, in
Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza lost his grip on power when he was accused of
stealing aid money after a quake in 1972, giving a boost to the rebel
Sandinistas. Then there was the 2004 Asian tsunami. Rebels and government
reached a peace accord in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province after the
disaster brought hostile sides together.
But with 500,000 men under arms and 40 per cent of the country's budget
flowing into its coffers, the Myanmar military is thought to be in
unchallenged control at the moment.
The only good news is that there appear to be some cracks in the regime
over
whether to accept foreign aid.
After days of refusing, the regime finally allowed a U.S. military plane
with relief supplies to land yesterday, an extraordinary concession from
the
government that, especially since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, sees the
United States as a major threat.
Though there are no signs of it so far, it is possible that lower-ranking
officers might try to break with the elderly elite in the military. Most
observers think that if change arrives, it is more likely to come from
within the regime itself rather than from a popular revolt.
"People are just fighting for daily survival," Mr. Kyaw said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080513.MYANMARGEE13/TPStory/TPInternational/Asia/
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