UNCOMFORTABLE MIX OF CLIMATE AND POLITICS
"Elected Representatives" 
Mainichi Daily News,
Monday, June 1, 1998
In temperate climes, May is a merry month of darling buds and blossoms. In our monsoon land it is an uncomfortable month, searing hot and humid with the impending rains. This year the heat in Rangoon has been particularly hard to bear. People muttered about El Nino, electricity cuts, water shortages and rising prices and got hotter and more distressed. Then a few days ago, clouds gathered to blot out the brazen sun and delicious cascades of rain battened down the dust and washed away the heat. Another rainy season has come again. And for the National League for Democracy (NLD), another anniversary of the general elections that had so raised the hopes of our people in 1990.
The position of the members of Parliament elected eight years ago can be described as a political limbo. Their names were announced in the state media as the winning candidates and their election to Parliament recorded in the Burma Gazette. Yet Parliament has never been convened and the elected representatives of the people still await the call to duty. Eight years is a long time to wait for a Parliament to be convened. Some or our representatives have died, some are languishing in prison, a number have left Burma to carry the cause of Burma's democracy to other lands. Of those who remain here, some have been "persuaded" to discontinue their activities, others persevere with the struggle. During the past week, some of these stalwarts have been detained to prevent them from attending the NLD Congress, which was held on May 27 to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the elections. The authorities seem to be extremely averse to the idea of elected representatives gathering. Perhaps it is too uncomfortable a reminder of their failure to convene Parliament.
This is not the first time the authorities have tried to sabotage an NLD party congress. Such work has become the norm. Whenever we start preparing for congress we know the authorities will do their utmost to prevent it from taking place. We write to inform the relevant Law and Order Restoration Council or to use the new jargon, Peace and Development Council, of our plan to hold a party congress. Their usual response is that we should limit the number of those attending the congress to a few hundred, knowing full well that we had invited about a thousand or more. Then on the day of the congress, a knot of people comprising members of the NLD and members of the security forces would gather at the top of the road to my house and, to use the most dignified expression, conduct negotiations with regard to entry. On several occasions those of our people who refused to turn back when denied admission were forcibly taken away to some distant place such as a remote cemetery.
The last party congress, held in September 1997, went more smoothly than expected after some initial hitches. But there is no guarantee that the authorities will be equally moderate this time around. Will the political changes that took place in Indonesia over the last few days move them to take more repressive measures against opposition forces? It was noticed that the Burmese media did not carry news of the student demonstrations that shook Indonesia during these last couple of weeks. It was only through foreign radio broadcasts that we knew of what was happening and many Burmese followed developments avidly, drawing comparisons between the situation in Indonesia now and the situation in Burma in 1988 when student demonstrations led to the democratic revolution that resulted in the fall of the Burma Socialist Programme Party Government. When President Suharto resigned, there was a small item in the official Burmese newspapers but there was no mention of the events that had led to his resignation.
The world certainly has shrunk to proportions that at times feel a little uncomfortable. We cannot ignore the possibility that changes in the political situation of one country could lead to reactionary measures in another. We wait to see. In the meantime, we continue to grapple with preparations for our congress. Will it take place, people queried, as news came in of nine people taken into custody here, four more there, a few more over the other place. We have been through all that before and we cannot tell how many more times we shall have to go through it all again before we gain the freedom to participate freely in the political process of our country. Regarding the history of the Jews, I was awed by the story of the diaspora, the repeated exiles and migrations that scattered a people from a small strip of the Middle East into different countries and civilizations around the globe. Elie Weisel wrote in a preface to the autobiography of the sister of the Dalai Lama that His Holiness had asked him closely how the Jews had managed to retain their identity through centuries of exile. It is a question that interests me as well. What is the binding force that keeps alive a sense of belonging to a particular group, the determination to adhere to the beliefs and principles that set it apart from the others? Those of us working for democracy in Burma are not a people in exile but we are a group which has to work to keep alive our faith and goals, to renew our resolve again and again in the wilderness of political repression. Our promised land has not been promised to us by a Supreme Being, only by our own determination and perseverance.
The position of the NLD is not an enviable one. The repression on one side is matched by the expectations of the people on the other. As the economic difficulties of the country increase, they look to use to hasten the democratization process of the country. We have to explain to them that democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people, so they also have be involved in the process. We have always been careful not to give the impression that democracy could be achieved easily or that once achieved it would instantly resolve all the problems of the country. We have explained that hope has to be accompanied by endeavor. Nothing that is worthwhile comes free; there is always a price to pay and sometimes that price is a high one.
Although we do not encourage empty hopes built on mere fancies, we need to have a visions of our nation as it could be if we built a strong foundation of democratic institutions. A democratic government means a responsible government that must accept it has a duty to cope with any problem that besets the country. A responsible government cannot blame inflation on "axe-handles." (This quaint expression, which the authorities use interchangeably with "foreign stooges," appears frequently in official diatribes and on signboards purporting to advertise the desires of the people of Burma.) Not can it shrug off the failure to open universities by laying it at the door of "destructionist elements." A responsible government has to answer to the people for the ills of the nation.
Where there is no Parliament and no freedom of the press, how are the people to ask a government why their needs have not been addressed? How are they, in the first place, to indicate their desires, their genuine desires, not those written up in large letters at street corners? There has to be a legitimate way for the people of Burma to give voice to their troubles, their aspirations, their needs. Their elected representatives are the proper channel through which they can make their voice heard. That is why the elected representatives of the NLD remain at their posts, braving all attempts to make them retreat from their responsibilities.
Aung San Suu Kyi
