The Hidden History of Burma
Page 16
When Nargis struck, Thein Sein’s village was devastated. And though he was already number four in the junta, his relatives were still there, ordinary village folk who suffered terribly. Thein Sein himself was placed in charge of relief, and chaired emergency meetings day and night. He says he was shocked both by the impact of the cyclone and by the government’s inability to provide the necessary help. It was, say many people who know him, a psychological turning point.
He had never wanted to be president. He had a pacemaker and his wife hoped he would retire with the transition to a new system. “But I’m a soldier and have to take the task given to me and do the best I can,” he said. Now he found himself president of a nascent quasi-democracy. “I had no experience in democracy,” he told me. “I was too young in the 1950s [before the military regime took power] to remember anything. When I first came into office, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I asked myself, what do people really want? I felt that for ordinary people, the most important things were to have enough food to eat, to send their kids to school, even if they had no money, and to have access to health care. Growing up poor in a village, what I wanted more than anything was to improve the lives of villagers. This was my deepest desire.”
Thein Sein grew up in a wooden house. Now he lived in a twenty-one-room presidential mansion. An elevator took him up to his office and his private suite, where he lived with his wife, one of his daughters, and his grandchildren, and maintained the rigorous daily schedule of a staff officer: 5 a.m. wake up and walk, 7 a.m. breakfast, 8 a.m. at the office for paperwork, lunch at noon, then afternoons for meetings with ministers and others. He was an experienced manager and tried to cut down unnecessary meetings as much as possible. And he tried always to leave the office by 5 p.m. He knew his staff wouldn’t leave as long as he was there, and he wanted them to be able to spend time with their families. People who worked for him said he never lost his cool. He was also a good listener.
Thein Sein was a loyal public servant who was trying to do the best job he could. At the urging of ministers like Aung Min and Soe Thane and outside advisors like U Myint, he was taking ever bolder steps toward reform. But he was not a revolutionary. For him, the military past was something to be proud of, not rejected. He was not seeking to overthrow an evil system. He wanted only to improve on what he saw as the decent legacy of the old regime. Than Shwe trusted him to take things in a reformist direction without going too far. It was a line that would be tested.
IN THE WEEKS after the president’s meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, the issue of the Myitsone dam reached boiling point. The dam was the biggest of the Chinese investment projects approved by the old junta. It had the potential to answer all of Burma’s electricity needs for decades to come, and bring in billions of dollars in revenue by selling surplus power to China. Critics were appalled. The dam would flood an area the size of Singapore, including four villages. Nearly 12,000 people were being relocated. The location of the dam, where two Himalayan rivers joined to form the Irrawaddy, was of considerable cultural importance to the Kachin people. Activists also drew attention to the massive environmental damage that could be caused to the Irrawaddy River itself, the lifeblood of the country. No one knew exactly what was in the contract, but most believed the terms favored the Chinese and that bribes had been paid to army generals and their crony businessmen. In the past, ordinary people would have had no choice but to accept what was happening. The issue would now be used to probe the bona fides of the new administration.8
In September, a petition titled “From Those who Wish the Irrawaddy to Flow Forever” was signed by nearly 1,600 influential Burmese, including politicians, writers, movie stars, and artists, and sent to Thein Sein.9 A “Save the Irrawaddy” campaign gathered steam. Rising figures in the NGO community, like Kyaw Thu, the ponytailed head of Paungku, were tireless in mobilizing grassroots support against the dam.
In Rangoon, where any political gathering would have been met with brute force just nine months before, demonstrators were allowed to mark the fourth anniversary of the monks’ protests of 2007. Many wore “Stop Myitsone” T-shirts. An “anti-dam” art exhibition was organized and attracted Aung San Suu Kyi herself, who called on people to “unite if they are to achieve what they want.”10
Thein Sein was in a bind. He had allowed the demonstrations and this snowballing of public sentiment. Mass protests led by Aung San Suu Kyi would be a nightmare and could, he thought, bring down his government. On the other hand, the dam had been agreed by his former boss Than Shwe and by China. He personally believed that the dam was a good idea. He didn’t want to upset his former boss or do anything that might bring the old dictator back into the picture. He also knew the Chinese could make trouble. It would be the most difficult decision of his presidency. He stayed up all night. The next morning, September 30, he penned a statement to parliament stating that the construction of the dam would be suspended for the duration of his administration.
It was a bombshell, and the first clear sign that this was a government that would respond to popular concerns. Aung San Suu Kyi told the media, “It’s very good of them to listen to the voice of the people.”11 The Chinese government was shocked and outraged. Thein Sein had not so much as informed them before announcing the suspension. But their howls of displeasure seemed to fall on deaf ears. So they retreated into the background, for now. There would be grave consequences in the years to come.
Thein Sein was buoyed by growing popular confidence in his government, and pressed on at a blistering pace. All restrictions on the Internet were lifted; until this point, hundreds of exile news sites and sites related to opposition supporters abroad had been banned. Weeks later, a new labor law was signed, allowing workers to form unions for the first time since 1962. Over a hundred unions would be formed over the coming year. In October, about two hundred political prisoners were released.
Soon after, Thein Sein approved a bill amending the party registration law. The bill had been negotiated with the National League for Democracy, to allow the party again to become a legal entity. Aung San Suu Kyi then met with other NLD leaders and agreed to register under the revised law, in effect accepting the new constitution—the same constitution they and their supporters had railed against for years. The door was now open to the NLD contesting by-elections planned for the spring and Aung San Suu Kyi herself becoming a member of parliament.
It’s important to take a step back and recognize that this was a historic compromise. It both allowed Burma to move forward and sowed the seeds of future discord and uncertainty. In the mid-2000s, Thein Sein had chaired the Constitutional Convention, which the NLD had adamantly condemned as falling far short of democracy. Thein Sein and his ministers then embarked on a series of liberalizing measures, and Aung San Suu Kyi in return agreed to register her party and become part of the new system. But from the NLD’s viewpoint, this was meant as an expedient, not an endgame. They decided to join the system in the belief that the government would not only continue reforms but also reform the constitution itself.
There was resistance on both sides. Some in the opposition feared being maneuvered down a dead end. On the side of the generals and ex-generals, there was unease at the extent to which Thein Sein and some of his ministers were veering away from the original script. Aung San Suu Kyi wasn’t meant to be part of the picture at all.
At this point, the policies of several Western governments made a difference. Norway had carefully cultivated ties with Burmese both inside and outside government since the late 2000s, believing that change was coming and that this change, however tentative and imperfect, would be the country’s best hope in a generation. Ministers Erik Solheim, Jonas Støre, and Espen Barth Eide all came in quick succession to support the reformist push. Australia did the same, with foreign minister (and past and future prime minister) Kevin Rudd making a personal visit to assess the situation firsthand and demonstrate Canberra’s readiness to assist. For Thein Sein and his team, this early encouragemen
t from two Western governments provided more than anything the psychological boost they needed to move ahead.
I spent these months working closely with the president’s office to maximize this sudden rapprochement with the West. I sat in on most meetings with visiting ministers, sometimes translating for Aung Min or Soe Thane. More often than not, I met the visiting ministers first to give them my analysis of what was happening and why. In Burma, the personal always trumps any institutional loyalty, and I could see that for the Burmese these new relationships were personal. The ministers had little sense of Norway as a country different from any other European country, but they judged the individuals. Some Western interlocutors, they felt, came only to lecture; the Norwegians were sincere in a desire to help. Norway’s ambassador at the time, Katja Nordgaard, who tried hard to understand Burmese perspectives, was seen as a friend.
The same was true of Derek Mitchell, the new US Special Representative to Burma and soon to be its first ambassador in Rangoon in twenty years. All high-level meetings with ambassadors took place in rooms designed for the occasion: two rows of highly ornamental teak chairs facing each other, with two slightly bigger chairs at the end, set at a diagonal. The Burmese minister and the visiting ambassador would then have to speak to each other at this awkward angle. For Mitchell’s first meeting with Aung Min and Soe Thane, it was proposed (by the American side) to do away with normal protocol and meet over a beer.12 The Burmese were nervous, as no minister had ever had a beer with an American ambassador, certainly not as part of the first courtesy call. But they decided to take the risk, and it broke the ice. Derek Mitchell would have many difficult conversations with Aung Min and Soe Thane in the years to come, but he, too, was always seen as a friend.
The Norwegians and Australians had helped pry open the door. Now the Americans threw the door wide open. In November 2011, Barack Obama traveled to Bali for the annual East Asia Summit to proclaim America’s “strategic pivot” to Asia. His close advisor, Ben Rhodes, later wrote that the pivot, with the “Trans-Pacific Partnership [a proposed free trade agreement] representing our economic strategy; the deployment of Marines to Australia representing a deepening security commitment; and the opening to Burma representing a commitment to promote democracy and expand relations in Southeast Asia . . . was widely and rightly interpreted as a challenge to China.”13
Three weeks later, Hillary Clinton became the first US secretary of state to visit Burma since John Foster Dulles in 1955. There was still ambivalence in Washington over whether the reforms in Burma were “real.” So Obama first telephoned Aung San Suu Kyi from Air Force One, on the way home from Bali, to get her approval. She spoke well of Thein Sein and said that the Americans should be thinking about “rewards, not punishments.” On the way to Burma, Clinton watched The Lady, Luc Besson’s hagiography, in which Aung San Suu Kyi battles murderous generals and sacrifices all for democracy.
Her first stop was Naypyitaw, which she reached just before sundown (there were still no runway lights at the airport). Her meeting with Thein Sein was friendly and wide-ranging; both were policy wonks. The president said he hoped to “open a new chapter in relations.”14 For those, like Aung Min and Soe Thane, who wanted closer ties with the West, this was a big step. But there were legions on the Burmese side suspicious of the Americans. Aung Min later explained to me that in the Burmese army, whenever anything went wrong, the blame would often be ascribed to the CIA. The US was after all a country that had resolutely backed regime change in Burma for decades. Naypyitaw that day was festooned with billboards welcoming the visiting prime minister of Belarus.
Hillary Clinton also called on Shwe Mann. As Speaker of the Lower House, Shwe Mann had been busy getting parliament off the ground. He had brought in experts on parliamentary procedure from abroad, organized workshops, and encouraged open debate. He also encouraged cooperation across party lines. “Some thought parliament would just be a rubber stamp, meeting fifteen minutes in occasional sessions, but I wanted it to be a real force, part of a system of checks and balances.” He, too, had a long discussion with Clinton. When I spoke to him in 2018, he remembered her congratulating him on his success. “I was really surprised. No American had ever said this to me.” He told her he wanted to learn from the US Congress. She suggested otherwise.
If the encounters in Naypyitaw were friendly, the meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi was like a reunion with a long-lost friend. The two women had never seen each other before, but they immediately embraced and kissed each other on the cheek, held hands during part of their joint news conference, and burst into laughter before hugging each other goodbye. Clinton had brought a gift for Aung San Suu Kyi’s pet dog. They talked about the changes taking place, the long road ahead.
What was important, though, was not what was said but the visuals beamed across the world: Hillary Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi happy together. It was the third part of a three-step move: Thein Sein’s liberalization, Aung San Suu Kyi’s acceptance of the constitution, and now this vividly clear blessing from the West.15 Sanctions would soon be rolled back, first by the Norwegians.16 What had taken place in the course of 2011 was not a transition to democracy, but greater political freedom combined with a rapprochement with the West.
ON NEW YEAR’S DAY, Nay Win Maung died from a heart attack. He was forty-nine years old. He had been a crucial catalyst in the reform process so far. He was also a coordinator. He had become a trusted aide of Aung Min and Soe Thane—the ministers closest to the president. And he had supported Shwe Mann in his attempts to bring life to the new parliament. To these most senior leaders he sent boxed sets of DVDs of The West Wing so they could better familiarize themselves with the workings of a democratic government. I communicated with him daily and saw him frequently, as did dozens of others, including diplomats and UN officials.
Over the previous months, he had begun to see his work bear fruit. He pushed himself harder as a result. Even after his heart attack in the early hours, before he died that morning, he was still on his mobile phone, relaying thoughts for the president’s meeting with George Soros the next day. Shwe Mann, Soe Thane, and Aung Min immediately sent their condolences. Aung San Suu Kyi visited the Egress office a few days later, to pay her respects and see a photo display about Nay Win Maung’s life put together by his former students. With his death, one of the few people who might have brought Burma’s disparate factions together was gone. It was an irreparable loss.
For a while, though, the positive news kept coming. On January 12, a government team led by Aung Min agreed to a ceasefire with the Karen National Union, the oldest rebel group in Burma and the longest-running insurgency in the world. A day later, as part of a separate process shepherded by Soe Thane, hundreds of political prisoners were released, among them the organizers of the 1988 uprising, the Buddhist monks who led protests in 2007, and activists from many different ethnic minority communities. Freed as well that January was Khin Nyunt, the old spy chief who had been jailed in 2004. Not long after, the government would remove nearly all the 2,000 names on the official blacklist, effectively allowing anyone, including those who had until recently been seen as a threat to national security, to obtain a visa and come and go as they pleased.
Many of the reforms of 2011–12 were the results of efforts by individuals who took advantage of a new dynamic to finally do something positive for their country. Aung Min and Soe Thane were vital in convincing Thein Sein to take risks in a reformist direction. But others also played key roles. Aung Kyi, for example, was then minister of labor. Also a former army general, he was now working hard to stamp out one of the old regime’s worst legacies: the use of forced labor. The practice had died down considerably over the past years, but legislation permitting it was still on the books. Because of this, Burma was under International Labour Organization restrictions, which in turn were linked to European Union sanctions. He coordinated with both Thein Sein and Shwe Mann to undo the legislation and then traveled to Geneva to negotiate a lifting of the r
estrictions. It was all touch-and-go. He had learned the critical importance of amending the law only forty-eight hours before going to Geneva, accidentally, from a visiting UK diplomat. He rushed to the airport to catch Thein Sein, who was about to take off on a trip to China. The amendments were rushed through just in time.17
Ye Htut was another who played a key role. A former army officer, he was deputy minister of information. He would soon be minister, as well as the president’s spokesman. With the help of a German foundation, he had since 2008 been quietly training ministry staff in how to work in a more open media environment. Now he reached out to exiled media organizations such as the Democratic Voice of Burma, a radio station based in Norway. In early 2012, he organized a conference with the exiled journalists in Rangoon—people who would have been imprisoned if caught inside Burma just a year before. Later in the year, all censorship was ended.18
Over the course of 2012, hardliners—men who opposed the liberalizing reforms—were sidelined. They included the vice president, Tin Aung Myint Oo, who chaired powerful economic committees. “Our enemies are still our enemies,” he said to Thein Sein at a top-level meeting. Like several others in senior circles, he thought Thein Sein was wrong in relying on outside advisors, who couldn’t be trusted; he was getting too cosy with the West, giving away too much. His dissent, like that of the other hardliners, was based not on a strategic analysis or a clear alternative agenda, but on gut instinct.