The Lady and the tape
BANGKOK POST - August 29, 1999
A special correspondent runs the junta's gauntlet to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and carry her message to the world
It was a cold and dull Sunday afternoon in Rangoon. Looking out of the window, from the fifth floor of Yuzana Hotel on Shwedogodine Road, we could catch a glimpse of the headquarters of Burma's democracy movement, the National League for Democracy (NLD).With its three red flags fluttering in the wind, the NLD office stood out from the restaurants and shops nearby. There were several white cars strategically parked near the NLD office. Several men in longyis and white shirts were loitering in front of it, others were sipping tea in teashops across the street.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: "We are ordinary people struggling for our right to live ordinary, secure lives,"
"Hnin Hlaing Oo", our Burma contact, had warned us that the restaurants, shops and white cars belong to the military, and the men hanging around were from the MIS (military intelligence service). Putting on our best innocent tourist look, and armed with a street map of Rangoon, we spend the next three days soaking up the sights and sound of the city. It could be our last trip to Burma. Our plan was meticulously laid out. We were ready. Come Wednesday, the day of our meeting, we would watch the morning sunrise at the Shwedagon Pagoda, have breakfast back at the hotel and leave for the NLD office half an hour before the scheduled appointment. We would cross the street, pretend to be tourists and "accidentally" stumble into the NLD office. No mean feat.
But as we set off from the hotel, my knees began to shake as we got closer to our destination. What if we were stopped at the front gate and not allowed in? What if a car suddenly pulled up, an MI shoved us into the back and we disappeared forever from the face of this earth? Wild thoughts raced through my head, but there was no turning back. In less than 15 minutes, we found ourselves in the company of NLD members.
The office was bustling with activities. We were in safe territory, and everyone spoke the same language. We were urshered into a room where we were to meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the pro-democracy movement in Burma. UP-CLOSE Serene and almost saintly, the international media often paints her larger than life. Winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, Daw Suu and her party occupies the moral high ground, whereas the Burmese military generals are seen as brutal and intolerant. Up-close, she is petite, almost fragile, and more so on that day because she had the flu. She was barely audible but her voice was strong and firm.
We began by asking her about the charges of inflexibility and stubborness that have been leveled against her on a regular basis because of the deadlock with the military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The SPDC has said it is prepared to talk to her party, but not her, insisting that she is inflexible. Daw Suu disputes these allegations. She explains that the NLD has agreed to lower level dialogue since 1997.
"An Asian country acting as go-between, suggested we should accept lower level dialogue, and we said yes. But no answer (from the SPDC). And another Asian country suggested that we should limit ourselves to one subject only as a beginning to build confidence. We said yes; nothing came back."
The NLD recently compromised even further by allowing low-level talks to be held without her. However, the SPDC has yet to respond to this latest move. "So far, the compromise was made on our side and the military authorities have never shown any sign of making any compromises whatsoever. So I think it's now time for them to prove their good faith."
But waiting for the military to do this could be a long and tedious process. She says the NLD "is not going to sit and wait for dialogue.. we are going right ahead with the committee representing parliament."
Last September, having waited eight years in vain for elected members of parliament to be summoned to a formal session of the legislature, the NLD decided to form a committee representing the parliament. The SPDC has characteristically exacted retribution, by detaining hundreds of NLD members until they pledged not to participate. The military junta also organised mass rallies to denounce the NLD action. However, this has not stopped the party. The 10-member committee representing the parliament continues to meet regularly and has set up committees covering everything from education to ethnic affairs to social welfare.
RESTRICTED ACCESS
Daw Suu's image as an icon of the pro-democracy movement has done a great deal to keep her country's plight in the eyes of the international media and community. Even though her party's activities are marginalised at home by a regime that has almost complete control, she says the NLD commands considerable influence abroad. The West and Japan have responded to her calls to restrict aid and investment and to generally isolate Burma, and non-govenmental organisations such as the International Labour Organisation and Amnesty International have issued stern warnings against the military's labour and human rights record. It is clearly important that the international media has done a great deal to keep the NLD in the eyes of the international community. However restrictions and vigilance on the part of the military has prevented both journalists and diplomats from seeing her at will. Our meeting was a case in point.
Despite her release from six years of house arrest in 1995, it is common knowledge that Daw Suu's movements are restricted. She has to inform the military intelligence personnel an hour ahead of time if she wants to leave her house. The military junta frowns on outsiders' attempts to contact her, citing it as an interference in Burma's internal affairs. To simply meet her is fraught with difficulties. We were in Rangoon, on a tourist visa, to meet Daw Suu. The worst that could happen to us, we were told, was deportation.
With several years of experience arranging clandestine journeys into Rangoon, our Burma contact Hnin Hlaing Oo, knew exactly what to do when I called her to help set up an interview with the Lady, daughter of Burma's national hero, General Aung San.
Hnin Hlaing Oo made the initial contact with the NLD, requested an interview on our behalf, and prepared us for the journey. She gave us a detailed hand-drawn map and a list of instructions-where to stay, what to do and where to go if we were being followed by the MI. It's safest to assume that unseen ears may be listening into any telephone calls you make, warned Hnin Hlaing Oo, or to assume that while you are away from your hotel room, somebody may have entered and searched it.
Fearing eavesdroppers who may report us to the military, our conversations, with reference to the meeting, were to be carried out in code. It was better safe than sorry. On paper, it was mission impossible. When in Rangoon, we were totally convinced our hotel room was bugged, the phone line tapped and everyone from the bellboy to the receptionist and the waiter were watching our every move. Our conversations were carried out with studied vagueness. Paranoia and fear were the norm of the day.
Journalists and pro-democracy activists call it "Burma Head". A term described as the state of mind when one attempts the clandestine journey into Rangoon on a tourist visa to meet the leaders of the NLD, particularly "The Lady". However, despite the difficulties the democratic party faces in keeping the Burma cause alive in the minds of the international public, Daw Suu seemed unperturbed. She said that a solution to the extremely complex problems in Burma will have to be fashioned primarily in Burma, rather than abroad.
"Our struggle is focused mainly on the support of our people, which is our first priority. The help of our international community, we appreciate very much, but that's secondary to the support of the people."
But how far is she really in touch with the ordinary Burmese people given her isolation? "It's not as though I am secluded from the harshness of life in Burma. I am secluded in a sense that no one is allowed to come and see me and they can stop me from going where I want to. But that in itself is facing the hard reality of life in Burma."
The military has ruled Burma since 1962, after brutally crushing anti-government protests. Years of failed socialist policies and suppression have turned the country from "the rice bowl of Asia" into an economic basket-case. Spending on defence, as a percentage of GDP, is twice as high as it is on health and education combined. As such, the country desperately needs international aid and investment. Nevertheless, Daw Suu entertains no doubts about sanctions, and insist that bans and boycotts hit crony capitalism. But doesn't foreign investment produce jobs?
"What we are suffering from in Burma is bad governance," she says, "we are not really suffering from lack of economic aid. Burma is not a poor country. It's not a basket case. It's bad governance that has got us to where we are now."
She says that the benefits of Burma's market-oriented reforms and the influx of foreign investment in the mid-1990s only benefited those who are connected to the government and has not spread beyond Rangoon.
In a report by a United Nations Working Group, it was noted that economic growth has not translated into any significant improvement in the conditions of the poor and in remote regions. So what will her top three priorities be if and when she is able to form a government? "Unity of the country, health and education," she summarises.
The country has been torn apart by civil war since the end of the Second World War. Several ceasefire agreements were signed between the military and various ethnic groups, but most have failed.
"A bicameral system would be what a lot of people would like," she says, "because we are a country made up of many ethnic nationalities."
Burma used to be a nation of highly educated people, most of whom have left. Now the country is faced with a generation of young people missing out on education. Roughly four years worth of high school graduates are waiting to go to universities which were closed indefinately in 1996.
According to a UN working group report, three out of four children nationwide don't even complete four years of primary school education. As for healthcare, medical facilities are few and far between. Most villages lack a clinic, requiring the sick to trek long distances to hospital.
But how would the party finance health and education? Daw Suu is confident that when the elected party forms a government, it "will probably get a lot of aid." However, she adds, "we will be disciminatory about how we accept it because we understand the danger of too much aid pouring into the country leading to it being misused."
She characteristically avoided questions about her personal life. Asked if she had made a big sacrifice, she says "It's a choice I made. You don't choose something and then say this is a sacrifice. If you make a choice, that's what you decide, it's a decision, not a sacrifice."
THE EXIT
The interview ended. We spent a total of fifty-five minutes with her. Daw Suu's next appointment was to head an NLD women's meeting. She told us to be careful as we got ready to leave. We left as quickly as we arrived-but not quick enough. We jumped into a taxi and as soon as it drove off, we were immediately followed.
Our first stop was at one of the markets in downtown Rangoon. Try to lose the MIs in a crowded place, was one of the many pieces of advice Hnin Hlaing Oo had given. After several taxi rides, and several market stops, we thought we had lost them. We decided we deserved a treat. We went to one of Rangoon's poshest hotels for a drink; to celebrate our success thus far-and to psychologically prepare ourselves for the final journey to the airport.
When we arrived at the departure hall, we immediately felt the strain of all eyes upon us. No amount of manoeuvring or dodging had succeeded in shaking off the MI. They were right on our back, now standing within view, waiting to search our bags. Our first hurdle was the airline check-in counter, followed by the immigration desk. Everything went smoothly. No questions asked, no answers needed. Finally, the final hurdle, the customs officers. We resigned ourselves to the inevitable.
A male and two female officers politely asked us for our passports and led us to a room in the far corner of the building. Together with several men in longyis and white shirts, they conducted an extensive luggage search. Everything was taken out of our luggage-dirty laundry, toiletry bag, etc. They had their eyes and hands on everything; squeezing my toothpaste tube to feel if anything might be hidden inside, screened every page of my novel for any footnotes, listened to every single music cassette tape that we had, forwarding and rewinding, until they were satisfied that no interviews were recorded on those tapes. Nothing in sight was left out. All the rolls of film they could find were confiscated.
Trying to look every bit the ignorant tourist, we asked them why they were searching us, and what they were looking for. They simply replied, "we are only doing our job."When they had completed the search, the men left the room, leaving the female officers to conduct a body search. We were told to lift our shirts and pull down our pants, a move which seemed to embarrass them more than us. They were extremely apologetic. They were merely doing their job. No reference was made as to where we were that day and what we did.
The plane took off, and with us, an audio cassette tape and a roll of film. Mission impossible was a success. We had seen Rangoon, met the leaders of the NLD, and spoken to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Because of our mission, fear and paranoia had been our constant companions throughout our stay. However, it was a mere fraction to what ordinary Burmese people have to live with every day of their lives, particularly members of the NLD.
"We are ordinary people struggling for our right to live ordinary, secure lives," Daw Suu had told us. "The struggle for democracy in Burma gets so politicised, but what we are fighting for in the end isn't any particular political idea so much as the principal of good governance; the kind that allows the people freedom and security in the right balance."Whether the NLD is seen to be marginalised at home or abroad, the important thing that the opposition party in Burma has done is to create hope, or at any rate, to strengthen and spread a hope which was formerly confined to a few.
