6 days in Rangoon. (cont.)
We did not know we were going to 'trial' until the day it was held. The 'trial' was farcical. It is hard to imagine what the military thought they were doing. This sham of justice was conducted in Burmese, with occasional summary translations. What we heard would have been funny if it was not indicative of the total lack of rule of law in Burma.
We were accused of attempting to instigate violence amongst the "peace loving and tranquil peoples of Myanmar", being "axe handles" (agents of a foreign power), "saboteurs", "sacrificial lambs", making contact with "the hard core underground", "smuggling video tapes" and numerous other idiocies. This antiquated totalitarian gibberish reflects the time warp that the military has forced upon Burma. Our predicament shows that institutional structures in Burma are non-functioning. There is the military leadership and there is not much else. It is clear in retrospect (I wish I knew this at the time) that the decision regarding our 'sentence! ! ' had been made in advance by higher authorities who were not present.
Evidence was fabricated, including our alleged possession of photographs of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and note pads with the National League for Democracy letterhead. Statements were forged, signed with the wrong name, and the evidence in the hands of the 'prosecutor' and the 'judge' included the government's propaganda newspaper (there is nothing else). We had featured strongly in this newspaper, where we were 'convicted' of all sorts of meaningless crimes. We were also the highlight of Myanmar television during the week. Despite our criminal celebrity status, the charade of identifying us was conducted in the 'trial' room. Only some of us were identified as the trial was quickly brought to a close, as it was getting beyond dinnertime. Clearly they had much more 'evidence' to present but the charade obviously had to be completed on the Friday as they had decided to get rid of us.
At the end of the trial we were finally asked whether we 'pleaded' guilty or not guilty. This caused us all some confusion and lead to immediate, uninformed and animated discussions about what would be the best plea to offer. We didn't have a chance to come to even a speedy response, as the woman representing "Myanmar Foreign Affairs" pleaded for us, announcing "guilty". All this was conducted in front of six embassies and 18 foreigners. They did not even have the sense not to display the paucity of the legal system in front of an international audience. The judge left the room, leaving us unsure of whether we were being given time to make a decision, or whether he was making a decision for us. We finally gave up and sat there rather uneasily and waited for the judge to re-enter, which occurred with a minimum of solemnity about forty-five minutes later. He proceeded to speak in Burmese for about 15 minutes, making all of us increasingly uneasy. Finally the translation - "5 yea! ! rs in Insein Prison".
Not long after this scenario, the real power, embodied in two military officers, lumbered onto the stage, sat and stared at us. Then the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. Just one of the continual blackouts that Rangoon experiences on a daily basis. All the resources that are devoted to the military ensures that the capital city of the nation does not have a functioning electricity supply. The sanitation and plumbing when it exists is unreliable and the water does not run for long periods of the day. Burma is presented by the military as a country experiencing high growth rates (erroneously) and with great economic potential. However, nothing works. The only person who seemed to do a days work in Rangoon was the typist at the trial (and the forced labourers we saw on the roads and building sites). He was kept busy typing out all manner of rubbish. Everything seems to be taken at least in triplicate with a continuous supply of meaningless information collected. !
The serial numbers of the unused film stock that was taken from me, was written down on three separate forms, each in triplicate. When I made a short list of needed toiletries to pass onto the Australian Embassy it was promptly removed from my hand and the following items were copied into two books - "shampoo, tampons and toilet paper". Fear and the pervasive bureaucracy have stifled personal initiative. Individual military intelligence officers can not even dismiss a list of toiletries as irrelevant. Paranoia and fear dictate the decisions of individuals. The propaganda and intellectual isolation engendered by the regime mean that individuals can not contemplate that a short list of toiletries does not contain secret messages.
Our detention, though not a reflection of the brutal reality of the military regime, is a reflection of the decay of Burma resulting from military rule. Our 'trial' shows once again that there is no rule of law, that there are no functioning institutional structures with any degree of independence, that there is only the upper echelons of the military. Burma is starved of real information and the opportunity for its peoples to debate and solve their problems in an open and democratic fashion.
The bureaucracy that was evidenced during my interrogation, imprisonment and trial shows that fear and repression has destroyed personal initiative. This is another reflection of the damage done by the regime. Their propaganda is antiquated gibberish, attempting to instil in its citizens a juvenile perception of the outside world.
No country can hope to interact economically and culturally in the international community when its own so called 'government' is making such an effort to ensure that its citizens have no opportunity to understand a world outside of the warped environment created by the military propaganda machine. The military regime is not supported by the people of Burma. The insular world fabricated by the regime is not the world inhabited by the many Burmese people inside and out who continue to struggle against their inept, idiotic and brutal 'government'.
No human being even for a week should be deprived of their basic human rights and no human being should have to live a lifetime of fear and deprivation at the hands of a brutal and antiquated regime that has well passed its use by date.
Alison Vicary, an Associate Lecturer at the School of Economics and Financial Studies in Macquarie University, the australian detained by the junta in Rangoon
