Burma is poor. Than Shwe is rich! He is a fortunate leader. Since he does not rely on the labor of the people he can suppress them ruthlessly. This means that despite the miserable conditions they endure, the people cannot easily rebel. And if they do, Shwe has the resources to buy the army’s loyalty and ensure that he stays on in power.
In February 2007, various newspapers reported on a minor demonstration in Burma. Fifteen people (or twenty-five, depending upon reports) congregated to protest. Their demands were for basic human rights. Within thirty minutes, many of them, along with a number of journalists covering the protest, were arrested. The regime perceives any kind of protest as a potential threat to its survival, and with good reason. General Ne Win seized power in a coup in 1962 and implemented a socialist agenda. Protests and riots erupted in 1988. On August 8, 1988 (8/8/1988—a lucky set of numbers in many Asian cultures), troops fired at demonstrators killing thousands. Protest over these atrocities forced Ne Win to resign and agree to elections scheduled for 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National Party for Democracy was the landslide winner, taking 58.7 percent of the popular vote and capturing 392 out of 492 seats. However, with demonstrations and protests under control, the military simply ignored the results and carried on ruling.
Than Shwe came to power in 1992. His regime stamped out the protest of February 2007 immediately. However, the junta’s fear of protest was justified by events in August 2007. Following an announcement of fuel price increases, on August 19 about 500 protestors, led by many of the student protest leaders who had been active in 1988, took to the streets. These protests continued over a number of days. Participation soon dwindled to double digits as the army engaged in widespread arrests, but in September these protests reignited when several hundred monks marched. The army beat the monks. Two monks were chained to a lamppost and beaten. One allegedly died.
Monks are revered in Burma. The violence against them generated further protest. A government delegation was trapped for six hours by protesters. Across Burma monks took the symbolic act of overturning their alms bowls against the government, a ritual known as thabeik hmauk. Religious services were denied to all members of the military. Across the country groups of monks began to march. These protests grew daily. People began to talk of a Saffron Revolution, saffron being the color of the monk’s robes. This was precisely what Than Shwe feared most.
On September 25 the government ordered a crackdown. Protesters were attacked, first with rubber bullets, then with live ammunition and whips. The army also raided monasteries and carried monks away at night. Many of the remaining monks were dispersed to their villages to prevent them from congregating. After three days the protests had completely ended. Although government forces utterly crushed all opposition, it was a costly operation. The esteem in which monks are held meant many soldiers were reluctant to harm them. There were fears that the army might not be willing to attack temples. In the end they were, but it no doubt cost the regime lots of resources to buy such loyalty.
Inhumane as Shwe’s actions were, they represented good autocratic politics. He survived to rule another day. Nor is Shwe alone in placing being a leader ahead of being a good human being. Life is miserable for the people in resource-rich autocracies the world over. In these regimes, governments prevent the people from coordinating. Their lives are isolated, miserable, and unproductive. But revolution and protest are not hopeless acts, as the next set of examples make clear.
Power to the People
A few of history’s revolutionaries stand out for their success not only in overthrowing a nasty regime, but in creating a people-friendly government in its place. America’s George Washington, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Philippines’ Corazon Aquino are a few cases in point. Perhaps even more interestingly, a few leaders threatened with revolution have also democratized as the path to keep themselves in power. Ghana’s Jerry John “J. J.” Rawlings is a perfect example. Common threads run through each of these democratizers—common threads that are absent from revolutions that replaced one dictator with another, such as occurred under Mao Zedong in China, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Porfirio Diaz in Mexico, and Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya.
Democratic revolutions are most often fought by people who cannot count on great natural resource wealth to sustain them once they overthrow the predecessor regime. These “good” revolutionaries just are not as lucky as Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi or Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev. Although contagion prompted an extreme threat to Qaddafi’s political survival in 2011, his oil wealth gave him a substantial fighting chance against the rebels. He had the money to buy soldiers and keep them loyal, something his resource-poor Tunisian and Egyptian neighbors did not. They, like good revolutionaries, had to rely on the productivity of the people to generate the revenues they needed to reward supporters. To encourage the people to work productively, good revolutionary leaders needed to increase the people’s freedoms. If the people can meet and talk then they can earn more. As a very simple example, if farmers have access to telephones, newspapers, and radios, then they can find out about market prices. This allows them to take the crops to the right markets at the right time. Roads and transport networks reduce transaction costs. Given the ability to earn more, farmers work harder and the economy improves. Unfortunately, for a leader, those same freedoms allow people to organize. The same media, telecommunications, and roads that increase productivity also make it much easier for the same farmers to hear about antigovernment demonstrations and join them. In much the same way that Mexico City’s 1985 earthquake lowered the barriers for coordination and organization, increasing the public good of freedom makes protest more likely.
In the latter half of the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev faced a dilemma. The economy of the Soviet Union was failing. Without additional resources he could not continue to pay his essential backers. He might have turned to oil—of which Russia has plenty—to save the day, but oil prices were depressed in those years. His best shot at keeping rebellion at bay was to liberalize the Soviet economy, even though that also meant giving the people more power over their lives. Gorbachev showed himself willing to take that risk.
Some might suggest that Gorbachev is a better person than Burma’s General Shwe. Probably he is, although we cannot help but notice that he cracked down on constitutionally protected secessionist movements in Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Soviet military response to the efforts of the people in those republics to gain their freedom is hardly the response of an enlightened leader. The Soviet “black beret” militia killed fourteen and injured 150 people in Lithuania.12 A week later, 4 more people were killed and twenty injured when Soviet forces cracked down on Latvia’s efforts to attain independence.13
Why did the enlightened Gorbachev take these harsh actions? He was responding to political pressure from within his coalition. Topranking Soviet military officers together with others urged Gorbachev to impose direct Kremlin rule in breakaway provinces. They wrote in an open letter that was circulated at the Congress of People’s Deputies, “If constitutional methods prove ineffective against separatists, criminal speculators and the paramilitary forces that are continuing to spill the blood of the people, we suggest instituting a state of emergency and presidential rule in zones of major conflicts.”14 Gorbachev understood the political risks of ignoring key military and political figures in his coalition of essentials.
Gorbachev’s failure to quash the secessionist movements was a significant contributor to the decision by hardliners in his government to launch a coup that overthrew him. He was restored to power—briefly—when the people, backed by Boris Yeltsin, occupied Red Square and forced the coup makers to retreat. But for Gorbachev the damage was done. He returned to power, recognized the independence of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, only to find himself unable to sustain his government or even the existence of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved three months later.
Gorbachev’s
policy of perestroika, aimed at restructuring the Soviet political and economic system, can be understood as his effort to increase the government’s revenue to forestall just such problems as the secessionist movements and their political aftermath. It didn’t work out for him or the Soviet form of government, but that is what it means to take risks. Sometimes they turn out your way and sometimes they don’t.
Today Russia is backsliding away from democratization. While under Boris Yeltsin’s post-Gorbachev government Russia maintained free and competitive elections, that is much less true today. Vladimir Putin, former head of the Soviet secret police (the KGB) and Yeltsin’s immediate successor, moved the political system sharply back from its emerging dependence on a large coalition and good governance. He made it much more difficult for opposition parties to compete by severely restricting freedom of assembly. He made it much more difficult for opposition candidates to get their message across by nationalizing television and much of the print media. He made it much more difficult for people to articulate their dissatisfaction by making it a crime to make public arguments that disparaged the government. In short, he systematically reduced the availability of freedoms that compel a democratic government to attend to the wishes of the people. Why could he do this? As we have noted, Russia is awash in oil wealth. During Putin’s time, unlike poor Gorbachev’s, oil prices were at record highs so he could pay key backers to help him quash opposition, and possibly even have enough extra money from oil to keep the people happy enough that they don’t rebel against their loss of freedom.
The expansion of freedoms is a sure sign of impending democratization. Economic necessity is one factor that produces such a concession. Another is coming to power already on the back of a large coalition. This was George Washington’s, Nelson Mandela’s, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s circumstance. For different reasons, each started out with a big coalition and was pretty much locked into trying to sustain it at least for a while as a necessity if their government was to survive.
When Washington became president of the United States, the term “United States” was treated as a plural noun. Back then people identified more strongly with their state than with the nation. Washington headed an army that depended on recruits from thirteen distinct colonies, each with their own government and each paying for their military contingents out of their own pocketbooks. Washington needed the support of a broad base of colonists and so he was stuck with a large coalition from the get-go. In that circumstance he had to do what large coalition leaders do—disproportionately deliver public goods rather than private benefits. First among these public goods was the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing the very freedoms that are central to democratic, large-coalition governance. Without these, the colonies could not agree to ratify the constitution and serve under a single, unified government.
Nelson Mandela’s story is not much different. His political movement, the African National Congress (ANC), spent decades fighting the white-dominated apartheid regimes of South Africa. Despite their efforts and the protracted use of violence, they were unable to grow strong enough to overthrow their oppressors through force. Nelson Mandela, who served twenty-seven years in prison for his antigovernment stance and who refused early release from prison on the condition of eschewing violence, eventually saw another way.
Possibly due to the effects of sanctions, the South African economy went into a sharp decline during the 1980s. In 1980, per capita income was $3,463. But by 1993, the year in which F. W. de Klerk’s apartheid regime passed a new constitution paving the way for elections for all races, it had fallen to $2,903.15 De Klerk, and his long-term predecessor, Pik Botha, were in trouble because with the economy in decline they did not have sufficient resources to buy the continued loyalty required to keep the people suppressed. Under those conditions, more money was needed to sustain the government. That money could only be gotten from the people and many of them were already rebelling against the apartheid government. Faced with very tough circumstances, the apartheid regime had a choice: fight to the bitter end or cut a deal with Mandela. They—and he—chose the latter course.
The large-coalition compromise deal with Mandela and his ANC meant allowing all South Africans equal rights. In practice, this meant that the voting majority was turned over to the very people who were most discriminated against during the years of apartheid. As a result, the country became more democratic and its people freer. Whether it will last as the ANC’s interests come more and more to dominate the government remains to be seen. There is the real danger down the road that unless the opposition wins office and leadership is swapped back and forth between different political parties, South Africa could go the way of Zimbabwe. Like South Africa, Zimbabwe started out on a positive path to democracy based on a large-coalition deal between Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU, Robert Mugabe’s ZANU party, and Ian Smith’s white-only UDI government. But once Mugabe became sufficiently entrenched, he, like Putin in Russia, was able to overturn the progress toward democratization. He plunged Zimbabwe back into the role of a corrupt, rent-seeking, small-coalition regime that serves the interest of the few at the expense of the many, black and white.
The successes of Washington, Mandela, and others were duplicated from a very different starting place in the case of Ghana. There revolution did not lead to democracy so much as the anticipation of revolution did.
Ghana’s J. J. Rawlings understood well that liberalizing Ghana’s economy and empowering the people could endanger his hold on power. But he also recognized that liberalization did not mean that the people would inevitably end up revolting or that the coalition will turn on its leader. Rawlings became the poster boy for the IMF and World Bank. He implemented the economic reforms they prescribed, invigorated the economy, instituted democratic reforms, and after serving two terms as president of Ghana he stepped down. But that is not how he started out. And the people were not as happy with him as this rosy picture would suggest; at least not if you believe what Adu Boahen, a professor and leading political opponent, had to say.
Boahen recounted Rawlings’s explanation for the seeming passivity of the Ghanaian people. As he observed,According to Rawlings, ‘The people have faced and continue to face hardship. Naturally, people will grumble. But the fact that Ghanaians have been able to put up with shortages, transport difficulties and low salaries, and other problems without any major protest, is an indication of their confidence in our integrity, the integrity and good intensions of the PNDC [Provisional Nations Defense Council] government. Visitors from other countries have commented that in their countries there would be riots if conditions were similar to those here. But the people know that they are not suffering to make a corrupt government rich at all, we are suffering in order to concentrate all our resources in the building of a just and prosperous society.’
To this, Boahen responded, “I am afraid that I do not agree with Rawlings’ explanation of the passivity of Ghanaians. We have not protested or staged riots not because we trust the PNDC but because we fear the PNDC! We are afraid of being detained, liquidated or dragged before the CVC or NIC or being subjected to all sorts of molestation. . . . They have been [protesting] but in a very subtle and quiet way—hence the culture of silence.”16 Boahen portrays Ghana in 1989 as permeated by oppression. Yet by 1989 things were much better than they had been, as evidenced by the fact that Boahen could make such speeches in the first place.
Rawlings’s seizure of power on January 11, 1982, is often described in almost biblical terms. Via his initials, “J.J.,” he was sometimes referred to as “Junior Jesus.” And this was his second coming. He had been the figurehead for a military revolt in 1979. Rawlings had movie star looks and exuded charisma. But charm was not what kept him in power. Oppression and rich rewards for supporters are the staples of leadership in small-coalition systems and Rawlings was no exception. In the first six months of his rule, 180 people were killed and a thousand more were arrested and tortured. His loyal soldiers were renowned for their thuggish br
utality and Rawlings bought their loyalty through a massive increase in military spending. Despite a collapse of the economy and a complete meltdown of government finances, J.J. knew whose support he needed and paid them first.
Rawlings had a talent for preventing protest. He stifled any free press by restricting the supply of paper. His supporters meanwhile infiltrated the trade unions and effectively made strikes impossible for many years. He avoided free assembly at every turn. Events a year into his rule demonstrate his considerable organizational talents. In January 1983, Nigeria announced the expulsion of 1.4 million Ghanaians working in Nigeria. In a few weeks 10 percent of the population, most of them young adults, flooded back into a poverty-stricken Ghana. The prospects of hundreds of thousands of disgruntled and unemployed people milling around the capital terrified many in the government, some of whom advocated closing the border to prevent them from arriving. Instead, Rawlings welcomed them with open arms, but almost immediately ensured the returnees were transported back to their home villages. His massive transport undertaking avoided the camps that overwhelmed Mexico and Nicaragua. And it was a much more humane approach than Shwe’s.
The Dictator's Handbook Page 27