Bitterness lingers on in Burma a year after `Saffron Revolution'

Military now looks set to proceed unchallenged with its own so-called road map to democracy

Sep 26, 2008 04:30 AM

Grant Peck
ASSOCIATED PRESS


BANGKOK, Thailand–As the crowd marching through the streets of Burma's biggest city swelled to 100,000, the question wasn't what did they want, but when would the government crack down.

The answer came days later, on Sept. 26, 2007, when truckloads of heavily armed soldiers and riot police flooded Rangoon's streets, hurling tear gas, beating and shooting at Buddhist monks and other pro-democracy protesters. In three days of mayhem, at least 31 people were killed, according to a United Nations estimate.

A year later, Burma's "Saffron Revolution" – named after the colour of the robes worn by the militant young monks spearheading the protests – is a bitter memory.

"I have lost hope in the future of the country. A regime that can kill monks will not give up its power easily. There could only be more bloodshed if people go out on the streets again," Maung Maung, a 52-year-old electrician, said this week in Rangoon, also known as Yangon.



An explosion that appeared to have injured seven people near Rangoon's City Hall yesterday indicated some remnants of the violence may remain. Riot police poured into the area where the explosion occurred and sealed it off with yellow tape, adding to the already tight security in place around the city since late August.

After putting down the biggest and most sustained demonstrations since 1988 – when a popular uprising failed in an attempt to end 26 years of army-backed rule – the military now looks set to proceed virtually unchallenged with its so-called road map to democracy.

Having pushed through a new constitution that enshrines the military's leading role in politics – engineering a 92 per cent "yes" vote in a national referendum in May – the junta, formally known as the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, is preparing to hold a general election in 2010 totally on its own terms.

Provisions of the new constitution would also bar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding any kind of political office in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

"It is hard to envisage the planned elections being disrupted in any significant way at all. People will largely vote as instructed, just as they agreed to hand in pre-marked voting cards to endorse the new constitution," said Monique Skidmore, a professor at Australia's University of Canberra.

"Fear is an incredibly powerful weapon in Burma and the population knows well when the SPDC will brook no resistance."

The number of political prisoners in Burma has doubled to about 2,000 from 1,000 a year ago, according to the United Nations and Amnesty International. The prisoners include most of the country's smartest and most dedicated activists.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, detained for 13 of the past 19 years, remains isolated under house arrest, forced to threaten a hunger strike to get such concessions as being allowed to receive mail from her sons in England.

Her National League for Democracy party, meanwhile, ponders the unappealing choice of taking part in the 2010 election under what are certain to be onerous conditions, or boycotting the polls, leaving them even further out in the cold.

The party won a 1990 election, but the military refused to let Parliament convene.