The Indian population was particularly targeted. One Indian man who grew up in Burma and now lives in the United States recalls the day when his tailoring business was taken over by the military. He was initially ordered to continue work, told he could not go home for lunch as was his normal practice, and instructed to hand over his profits. Shortly afterwards he was forced to leave the country. ‘The Indians got the worst treatment,’ confirms Fenn. ‘Their rings were removed at the airport and if they could not get them off their fingers their fingers were chopped off. The brutality was really appalling. Some of these people had been born in Burma, Burma was their home, and some of them had never been to India before, so it was really crass.’ Gore-Booth notes that ‘a medical institute run by a gentle and respected Indian physician, Dr Suvi, was taken over one night and its director bundled into the next aeroplane for India.’31 Men like scholar Gordon Luce, who had devoted much of his life to studying and writing about the country, were harassed. ‘Foreign business was proceeded against with a blunt weapon,’ concludes Gore-Booth. ‘Life was made impossible for Gordon Luce and his wife and they had to leave the country: to make Burma uninhabitable for two such wise, patient people required real genius.’ The effects on the country were devastating. ‘The economy ran rapidly downhill and in a short time Burma, the country which stood above all things for self-sufficiency in rice, was suffering from a rice shortage.’32 Fenn agrees. ‘Burma was potentially the richest country in Asia, and it became one of the poorest nations on earth. That’s an act of genius, and Ne Win was the genius who brought the nation to its knees.’
Ne Win established a Revolutionary Council, which nationalised all banks, industries and large shops, and demonetised 50 and 100 kyat notes. The military took over businesses, despite having little education or commercial management experience. Approximately 2,000 civil servants were replaced by soldiers, and with few opportunities left for them skilled professionals began to emigrate, starting a brain drain which has continued to this day.
As a person, Ne Win was ‘cunning, shrewd and intelligent in some ways’, according to Fenn, but also ‘vain and latterly completely ignorant about his country’. His fierce temper ensured that no one on his staff ever contradicted him or told him bad news. His ‘very short fuse’, Fenn recalls, was on full display on Christmas Eve 1975 when he stormed over to the Inya Lake Hotel in Rangoon from his mansion on the opposite side of the lake, furious at the noise of the loud music keeping him awake. Accounts vary, but some claim he seized the drumsticks, kicked in the drums, beat up some of the musicians and declared the party over.
Four months after the coup, students at Rangoon University began to protest against Ne Win’s regime. On 7 July 1962 they held a mass rally in the Student Union building and a demonstration outside. Soldiers and riot police stormed the campus, captured the Student Union building, and opened fire on the students. Aung Saw Oo witnessed some of the scenes. ‘I heard automatic machine guns, and I saw the students covered in blood,’ he recalls. It is believed that over one hundred students died, although officially the government declared the death toll to be fifteen.33 Thant Myint-U describes what followed as ‘the start of a decades-long and unfinished struggle between Burma’s educated youth and the men in uniform’.34 In the early hours of the next day the military took drastic action. ‘An explosives team marched up to the whitewashed Student Union building, an icon of anticolonialism since the 1920s and home to speeches by Aung San, U Nu and U Thant, and blew it to pieces. Though there were many bloodier clashes to come, the scars of this particular incident lasted for a long time,’ writes Thant Myint-U.35 Aung Saw Oo believes there were students inside the building when it was blown up.
For a decade, Burma was ruled directly by the military’s Revolutionary Council. A guiding ideology was devised, known as ‘The Burmese Way to Socialism’, and set out in a document that was both eccentric and Orwellian, ‘The System of Correlation of Man and His Environment’. A strange blend of Marxism, extreme nationalism, totalitarianism and Buddhism, the ideology underpinning Ne Win’s rule created a country which Smith describes as ‘one of the most isolated and hermetically sealed countries in the world’. Foreign visitors, notes Smith, were few and tourists were only permitted visas for seven days.36
In 1972, Ne Win sought to solidify and legitimise his rule by resigning from the military, along with nineteen other senior officers, and establishing a civilian administration. This was, however, a superficial change. Most of the same people were in power, and the only difference was that they wore suits rather than military uniforms. The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was established, and a new constitution drawn up, establishing a unitary state and one-party rule. In December 1973, a referendum was held on the new constitution. In polling stations, ballots were not placed in one box, but rather in one of two boxes – a white box for a ‘yes’ vote and a black box for a ‘no’ vote, making it possible for all to see how people voted. Officials watched intently as votes were cast, and if anyone attempted to place their ballot in the ‘no’ box, they would be encouraged to vote again, the right way.37 It is therefore no surprise that the regime claimed 95 per cent turnout, and a 90 per cent vote in favour of the new constitution. In a referendum on another new constitution in 2008 history repeated itself, with just a few percentage points difference.
Six months after the referendum, major protests broke out. In May and June 1974, workers in state-owned factories went on strike, after the regime cut rations in half. More than 1,000 workers seized the dockyard, according to Khun Saing, a former political prisoner whose activism began in 1974 when he was a medical student. The regime’s reaction, as always, was brutal. ‘So many were gunned down,’ recalls Khun Saing. ‘Some were killed in factory compounds, some on the street. Navy boats recaptured the dockyard and many were killed. They were not challenging the government, they were just asking for the lowering of commodity prices and for salary rises. But Ne Win would not tolerate it. Many bodies disappeared. I was not into politics – but I started thinking about it then.’ Aung Saw Oo, a third-year dental student at the time, confirms Khun Saing’s account. He helped carry wounded workers to the university hospital and confirms that many died. ‘Officially they said only sixty-four people died, but in reality there were many more than sixty-four,’ he claims.
Another pivotal moment in Burma’s turbulent political history occurred in December 1974, with the death of U Thant. A Burmese diplomat who served for a decade as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1961, just before Ne Win’s coup, U Thant was loathed by Ne Win. Thant Myint-U, U Thant’s grandson, claims Ne Win was convinced that U Thant and U Nu were ‘conniving’ against him, after U Nu had held a press conference at the UN in 1969. According to Thant Myint-U, U Nu ‘launched a vitriolic attack on the Rangoon regime and called for revolution. Never before had a call for the overthrow of a UN member state government been made from inside the UN.’ Although U Thant later reprimanded U Nu, Ne Win declared the then UN Secretary General an enemy of the state.38
Such was Ne Win’s hostility to U Thant that when he died the normal arrangements for a state funeral were completely rejected. U Thant’s body was flown back to Burma, but instead of being greeted with the pomp and ceremony that a Burmese who had served as UN Secretary General would normally expect, Ne Win gave orders that no state official should receive the coffin, and that U Thant would be buried like any ordinary person. The deputy education minister, U Aung Tin, who had been a former student of U Thant’s, defied the orders and came to the airport. ‘He was immediately sacked,’ notes Thant Myint-U.39 The people were incensed.
‘We recognised U Thant as a world leader and were proud of him,’ recalls Khun Saing. ‘We thought the government would also respect him. But, as with Aung San, there was a personal history, a jealousy, by Ne Win. When U Thant’s body was brought back, there was no recognition. So the students protested. We asked, “Why were there no senior officials to greet the body, why was there no comm
emoration?” The government planned to cremate his body – but we thought he should be given a memorial monument.’
U Thant’s body was laid out in the old racetrack at Kyaikkasan, and almost immediately thousands of people came to pay respects and lay wreaths. Ne Win’s anger increased, and he threatened U Thant’s family with legal action for bringing the body back without permission.40
Eventually, the regime granted U Thant’s family permission to hold a small private funeral on 5 December. It was, however, to be anything but private. Crowds of people thronged the streets and then, just before the body was to be cremated, outraged students took matters into their own hands. ‘Students surrounded the area. They didn’t accept the cremation. They seized the coffin, and then took it to the university campus. The whole street filled with thousands of students,’ Khun Saing recalls. The coffin was placed on a platform in the Convocation Hall.
For seven days, demonstrations were held, anti-government speeches delivered, and the students protected U Thant’s coffin. Work began on the construction of a mausoleum to U Thant, on the site where once the Student Union building had stood. Negotiations between the students, U Thant’s family and the government began, and the regime offered a proper burial place near the southern part of the Shwedagon pagoda. ‘The students did not accept this,’ says Khun Saing, ‘so they buried him at the Student Union compound, against the government’s will.’ At night two days later troops surrounded the campus, removed the body and buried it at the foot of the Shwedagon.
In the early hours of 11 December 1974, soldiers stormed Rangoon University. Perhaps as many as one hundred were killed. Almost 3,000 were arrested,41 but Khun Saing says it may have been as many as 6,000. Although he had slept at the university every night since it started, that particular night Khun Saing went home, and escaped arrest. ‘I was lucky,’ he recalls.
Further protests took place in 1975 to commemorate the anniversary of the 1974 workers’ strike. Khun Saing took part in a demonstration at the Shwedagon pagoda, but troops surrounded the students and arrested at least 200. Universities across Burma were closed down.
The students were not easily discouraged, however, and in March 1976 they demonstrated once again, this time throughout the country. The protests were held to mark the centenary of the birth of Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, a famous writer who had promoted peace talks between the regime and armed resistance groups in 1963. Ne Win had rejected the deal. ‘Thakin Kodaw Hmaing was hated by Ne Win,’ says Khun Saing. ‘We wanted to make a memorial to him, so we marched from Rangoon University to his tomb. Thousands of people participated. We did this during the curfew period. I organised medical students, and we distributed pamphlets.’ For this, at the end of April 1976, Khun Saing was arrested. He was held for eight days in a military compound, and was then moved to the notorious Insein Prison.
‘I was put on trial in July 1976,’ says Khun Saing. ‘It was a one-day trial. Over seventy students were tried. The charges were read out, but there was no questioning. Then the sentence was passed: seven years.’ Khun Saing was one of over one hundred in Rangoon alone to be arrested and sentenced to terms ranging from five to fifteen years. A prominent Chin student leader, Tin Maung Oo, was hanged.
Khun Saing served two of his seven years, and was then released early, in 1978, ‘because the prisons were overcrowded’. During those two years, he went on hunger strike three times, in protest at hard labour duties and prison conditions. The first hunger strike was just three days into his sentence, and lasted three days. The second and third hunger strikes both lasted eleven days. As soon as he started his hunger strike, the authorities denied him water in retaliation. Sometimes students threw plastic bags of water into his cell, but during his third hunger strike he went without water for seven days. ‘My mouth was totally dry, with no saliva. My gums were bleeding, my body temperature rising, and I felt weak and dizzy. There was no sugar in my blood. I was in a delirious state,’ he describes. ‘It was raining outside, so I tore up my longyi and threw it outside the cell to soak up the rainwater. Then I brought it back in to suck the water out. I did this again and again. I also collected water in the toilet pot to drink.’
For the next decade, Ne Win succeeded in retaining a tight grip on power. The country’s isolation and economic collapse continued, and in 1987 the United Nations designated Burma a ‘Least Developed Nation’. The country that had once been known as the ‘rice bowl’ of Asia was now ranked alongside some of the poorest countries in Africa. When Sir Nicholas Fenn returned as ambassador in 1982, he found that ‘twenty years of utterly incompetent military rule had impoverished and dispirited the nation’. Yet while dissent remained under the surface, there were few visible outbreaks of protest. A plot by rivals within the regime was uncovered, and Ne Win’s rule seemed secure. Until, that is, the dramatic events of 1988.
2
Cry Freedom
‘It is infinitely difficult to begin when mere words must remove a great block of matter. But there is no other way if none of the material strength is on your side. And a shout in the mountains has been known to cause an avalanche.’
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
‘RIGHT IN FRONT of Inya Lake, the army was already blocking us,’ recalled Khin Ohmar. ‘We were stuck. The police trucks started rolling towards us. We were holding each other, telling each other “Don’t run, don’t run.” Then came the tear gas, and the riot police started beating us with batons. Of course we all ran.’
Khin Ohmar was a student at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University, who joined the protests in 1988 just a few days after they began in mid-March. A brawl between students and local youth in the Sanda Win tea-shop in Rangoon sparked the uprising, but the fuse had been laid by a far more serious concern. Ne Win’s decision the previous year to demonetise several Burmese kyat banknotes, and introduce new notes divisible by nine, his lucky number according to astrologers, wiped out people’s savings overnight. ‘People lost all their money,’ recalls Victor Biak Lian, a Chin student at the time. ‘I could not even buy a meal. I was in the middle of exams when the announcement came. Students who had usable money shared it with others, so we could buy food. That was the beginning of the 1988 uprising, because people completely lost trust in the government. Student anger was uncontrollable.’
The tea-shop brawl was started by the son of a BSPP official, in a dispute over music, and when the police came to the scene, they took no action against him. Protests in front of the police station were met with brutal force by the riot police, and a student named Phone Maw was killed.1 His fellow students were outraged; the fuse had been lit.
Protests over the following few days culminated in what became known as the ‘Red Bridge’ incident, on 16 March. Originally called the White Bridge, near Inya Lake, it has been renamed in people’s minds because of the bloodshed. According to Bertil Lintner, the police chased fleeing students into the lake and forced their heads under water, holding them there until they drowned. ‘Clubs swished and bones cracked. There were groans and shrieks as students fell to the ground bleeding. Panic-stricken students trying to escape … were felled in droves … After about an hour, the orgy in violence was over. Sprawling corpses lay oozing in pools of blood all over the street.’2
Khin Ohmar’s account of the event confirms Lintner’s precisely. As they approached the bridge, the students saw the army and realised they were trapped as police trucks drove in from the back. When the police then began to advance towards the students, beating everyone in sight, some ran down side streets and others towards the lakeside, she recalls. ‘I ran to a house by the roadside, and climbed over the gate. As a child I used to like climbing trees, even though my mother always told me not to because, she said, it was not something girls should do. I got into the compound. The house was our protection. We could witness everything happening in the street and on the bank of the lake.’
What Khin Ohmar saw next, from her vantage point behind the walls of the compound, was beyond anything s
he could have believed. ‘People ran up the banks of the lake and were beaten,’ she says. ‘There was blood everywhere. Some people jumped into the lake, some were kicked into the lake. I saw a little boy in his white and green school uniform, maybe eleven or twelve years old, probably in the area by accident, being beaten up and dragged into a truck. I kept screaming. It was like hell.’
Her screams, however, drew the soldiers’ attention. ‘The soldiers saw us and ran towards us to get us. I ran to the back of the house, but the people in the house were very scared that they would be in trouble [for sheltering us]. There was another house behind, and the owner gave us a way to come into the house. It was a diplomat’s residence, and an Indian-Burmese housekeeper gave us a small ladder to climb up and into the house. We hid there until it got dark, around 6.30 p.m.’
After dark and still in hiding, Khin Ohmar then heard the police saying ‘search the houses’. She stayed silent. ‘We heard people being beaten up, we heard screaming, and then we heard the trucks leaving one by one. Then it was dead quiet.’ When she was confident that the police had gone, the housekeeper drove her and a few others to the corner of Inya Road and University Avenue, and from there she ran home. The scenes and sounds she had witnessed that terrible day, however, were to remain with her for ever. ‘I was shaken – and that was just my first day [in the protests]. At home, I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I thought to myself: “That’s it.” That was the day I determined that something had been done to us that was not right, that was brutal, and that had no reason. I felt I was in a war.’
Burma- a Nation at the Crossroads Page 5