Ruling class Army cadets at ease in a juice bar in Pyin U Lwin, home to top military academies for training officers
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Monday, Jul. 26, 2010
Soldiers Of Fortune
By Hannah Beech / Pyin U Lwin
The weekend invasion begins with the click-clack of thumbtack-adorned shoes. For four hours, senior cadets from Burma's Defense Services Academy (DSA) and its sister technological institute march through the streets of Pyin U Lwin, briefcases in hand, maroon berets perched on proudly angled heads. Most are preoccupied with securing the rations of daily life: soap, socks, kung fu DVDs. But even as the stern-faced students contribute to the local economy, shopkeepers whisper about the arrogance of kids who are indoctrinated to believe they are, as the massive English sign in front of the DSA campus proclaims, the "triumphant elite of the future." Even after promised elections later this year, Burma, known by the ruling junta as Myanmar, will remain one of the most militarized states in the world. No wonder the privileged young men marching through this central Burmese town expect nothing less than to one day rule their cowed nation.
At a juice bar in this agreeable former British hill station once known as Maymyo, I chat with a group of cadets hunched over glasses of strawberry milk. Their attitude toward locals notwithstanding, the cadets are polite and surprisingly willing to speak to a foreigner. One baby-faced 20-year-old tells me his major is naval architecture, sharing dreams of designing warships for a nation that boasts 450,000 soldiers and dedicates 21% of its spending to the military, according to lowball official statistics. Another student is focusing on hydro-engineering; he plans to build dams, a lucrative new pursuit of Burma's military dictatorship, which sells plentiful energy to neighboring nations while leaving two-thirds of local households without access to any electricity. Yet another narrow-shouldered cadet is studying nuclear chemistry and confides, "my specialty is uranium and plutonium studies." His chosen subject is particularly topical given the U.S. State Department's recently stated concerns over a possible Burmese nuclear program — a project that a DSA graduate turned defecting army major tells exile media has its headquarters at the Defense Services Technological Academy's fortified campus in Pyin U Lwin. (See pictures of Burma's slowly shifting landscape.)
Later, I wander into an Internet café packed with cadets waiting for the electricity to be restored — a constant waiting game in Burma — so they can play World of Warcraft. I ask if they are skilled at the computer game. "Of course, we are good," says an English-speaking nuclear-physics major, his tone factual, not boastful. "We are students at the DSA. We are very superior." A Burmese friend, who passed all the academic and psychological requirements for the DSA but was rejected at the last moment because he had flat feet, fills me in on the cadets' mentality. "The point of going to the DSA is so you can become a rich and powerful person," he says, relating the trajectory of a schoolmate who attended Burma's West Point. His childhood buddy is now a rising star at a northern regional command, which means he can profit from government timber and mining businesses. "He is rich, his parents are rich, his brothers and sisters are rich, his children will be rich," says my friend. "They don't worry about anything."
Burma may be one of the poorest and most isolated nations on earth, but an emerging elite — a burgeoning officer class, attendant business cronies and the coddled offspring of both groups — is only getting richer, more powerful and less accountable. Over the past few years, the Burmese economy has been transformed as the junta has auctioned off the nation's plentiful natural resources to the highest foreign bidder, Western sanctions notwithstanding. The influx of cash has been reserved for the razor-thin top stratum of Burmese society, whose ostentatious displays of wealth shock a citizenry struggling just to survive. "For a long time, as the regime ran the economy into the ground, there was a feeling that most everyone was growing poor equally," says Sean Turnell, an economist at Macquarie University in Sydney who studies Burma. "But now tensions are growing because you see a small elite growing immeasurably richer while others are getting poorer. It's all about relative position, and in Burma today, the inequalities are growing faster than just about anything." (See pictures of Burma's decades-long battle for democracy.)
Poor Little Rich Country
Burma, which has been run by a military regime since an army coup in 1962, is no tropical North Korea. Amid the crumbling colonial buildings, Rangoon, the country's largest city, boasts glittering nightclubs, day spas and even espresso bars. In fact, because of mushrooming foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country's natural bounty — in 2009, 100% of implemented FDI was from the resource-extraction business — the government has more than $5 billion in foreign-currency reserves at its disposal, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Financial chicanery, however, keeps most money flows obscure. For instance, Burma converts revenues from its lucrative natural-gas sector at an official exchange rate of $1 to 6 kyat, though the market exchange rate is roughly $1 to 1,000 kyat. That means of every $1,000 in energy earnings, just $6 goes into national coffers. Where the rest goes is a mystery. Global watchdog Transparency International ranks Burma as the third most corrupt nation in its survey of 180 nations, outdone only by Afghanistan and Somalia.
See pictures of tension in Burma.
Read "Chevron, Total Accused of Human-Rights Abuses in Burma."
Certainly, the revenues from natural gas, oil, timber, gems and other commodities haven't been used for the betterment of the Burmese. Five years ago, the country's military rulers spent billions of dollars building a sprawling new capital out of scrubland, forcing many civil servants to move from Rangoon with just a couple of days' notice. In two decades, the nation has doubled the number of soldiers in the Tatmadaw, as the Burmese armed forces is called, even though there are far fewer battles to fight against ethnic insurgent groups. Twenty Russian fighter jets — not to mention suspicious nuclear technology — are the military's latest playthings. On the outskirts of Pyin U Lwin, another costly megaproject is materializing: a cybercity whose vastness belies the fact that Burma, even with a proliferation of Internet cafés in Rangoon, remains one of the least wired nations on earth. And in the big cities and beyond, construction crews are busy outfitting Burma's upper classes with marble-lined mansions, fancy vacation homes and towering Buddhist pagodas chiseled with the names of generals and their cronies.
The building boom has surged even as at least one-third of the nation lives below the poverty line, according to the U.N. Inflation is so high that the U.N. estimates an average household spends 73% of its income on food. The World Health Organization ranks the country's health care system as the second worst in the world, just ahead of Sierra Leone's. On the recently built highway from Rangoon to Naypyidaw, the new capital, I meet a 15-year-old girl who spends her days in the 45�C heat carrying chunks of rock on her head. She has been working on this road since she was 11 years old. Her daily pay? $1.50 — and that's when Max Myanmar, a company run by a junta crony whose name was added to the U.S. sanctions list last year, bothers to pay at all. On its polished English-language website, Max Myanmar says employees' welfare is a top priority and that the conglomerate covers "field allowance, bonus, meals, medicare, education allowance and annual celebrations for pleasure and relaxation." The girl laborer has enjoyed none of these. But she dreams one day of reaching the end of her road. "I have heard that Naypyidaw has so much electricity that nighttime looks like day," she says. "Can you imagine such a beautiful place?" (See pictures of Burma's discontent.)
Following the Money
With the nation set to hold carefully orchestrated elections later this year, the economic disparities may soon yawn even wider. The junta ignored the results of Burma's 1990 polls, which the military's proxy party lost badly to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (she remains under house arrest). Now, military leaders seem to want to present a fig leaf of civilian rule to the West. Top posts like the presidency and key Cabinet seats, as well as a big chunk of parliament, will be reserved for military members. But to maintain the appearance of a transition to civilian government, the junta has in recent months privatized dozens of state-owned (read: military-owned) companies. Auctioning off these enterprises creates cash to fund the military's proxy Union Solidarity Development Party in the upcoming polls. In addition, many high-ranking officers are being forced to stand in the elections and they, along with other top brass uncertain about the postelection landscape, must be worried about losing their military lifeline. A redistribution of state assets to people close to them secures their future. (Read "Burma Court Finds Aung San Suu Kyi Guilty.")
Indeed, control of factories and banks, gas stations and ruby mines has been handed over, without exception, to a select circle of favored businessmen or military progeny. Many of these men — for they are all men — are targets of Western sanctions, such as Tay Za, a DSA dropout whose business empire has tentacles in everything from airlines to hotels, and Steven Law, the son of a drug lord whose conglomerate constructs dams, roads and practically any other project that uses copious amounts of cement. These cronies burnish ties with the junta through directorships, donations and even marriages. "I don't know of a single big company that doesn't have a princeling or other [general's] family member on its board or involved somehow," says economist Turnell. "The problem with this system is that these robber barons aren't creating an environment for sustained growth or the building of industry. It's just pure racketeering."
I see how wealthy the Burmese elite has become when I tour the Mindhama Residences in Rangoon, a Tay Za – owned housing development just across the street from an exhibition center where massive slabs of jade are piled high on government trucks. With villa types named after Burma's mineral wealth, like Imperial Jade and Red Ruby, the mansions start at $850,000 and go up to $1.2 million, not counting interior decor. All but one has been sold — this in a nation where per capita GDP is just $442, according to the IMF. Might I be interested in the remaining one? The agent allows me to gawp at the splendor: swirls of gilt and meters of marble, Jacuzzi bathtubs, crystal chandeliers. I feel like I have wandered into a Texas McMansion. "Who has bought the other houses," I ask, feigning interest in my potential neighbors. "Some businessmen," he says. "But mostly ..." he trails off, then taps his fingers to his shoulders, the Burmese code for army stripes.
Read "A Closer Look at Burma's Ethnic Minorities."
Read "Viewpoint: Why Foreigners Can Make Things Worse for Burma."
Hardwired
The red sign blocking the main entrance to the half-built Yadanabon Cybercity looks innocuous enough to someone who doesn't read the local language, a swirl of curved Burmese letters and numbers. But the people of Burma have been conditioned to fear this sign: "This area is under military order 144," it says. "Shoot to capture." It's a measure of Burma's peculiar mix of isolationist paranoia and technological ambition that its future Silicon Valley has been declared a military zone inaccessible to normal civilians. Inside the 4,050-hectare construction site, I drive along empty stretches of tarmac, past plots of land that will soon boast offices for Burma's biggest crony companies: Htoo Trading, Tay Za's conglomerate; IGE, headed by the son of Burma's Minister of Industry General Aung Thaung, who is barred by the European Union; Redlink Communications, owned by the sons of the junta No. 3, General Thura Shwe Mann, one of whom is on the U.S. visa blacklist. Thai, Malaysian, Russian and Chinese firms have staked their ground too. Burma's state media reports that foreign companies have so far invested $22 million in the first phase of Yadanabon.
Ever since images of protesting monks escaped from Burma during the crushed demonstrations of 2007, the regime has been scrambling to centralize control over the Internet. Thousands of websites have been blocked, cyberdissidents jailed and debilitating strikes launched against exile-media websites. Yadanabon will be the nerve center of Burma's Internet operations. But it's not all computer cubicles and high-tech wizardry. On a point overlooking the famous hills of Shan State, $200,000 vacation villas are being built. One model drawing shows a BMW SUV in a garage, and the half-finished houses already feature Tudor trimmings and spacious verandas. Nearby, a farmer toils on a sliver of land that has belonged to her family for at least three generations. Soon the Cybercity will eat up this tiny plot too. The woman doesn't expect any compensation since she received nothing when the rest of her fields were confiscated a year ago. "We are little people, so we cannot complain," she says. "All we can do is concentrate on feeding ourselves." (See pictures of the junta blocking Burma from receiving aid after a cyclone ripped through the country.)
The man entrusted to oversee Yadanabon is neither a businessman nor even an adult. But being the grandson of junta leader Than Shwe brings perks. A scrawny soccer fan with no discernible skills on the pitch, Nay Shwe Thway Aung was once added to the Burmese national team when prominent Japanese player Hidetoshi Nakata went to Rangoon for an exhibition match. Other privileged Burmese youth have made an impression off the field. The most notorious was an informal collective of military offspring called Scorpion, which was forced to disband after two members spooked the junta No. 2, General Maung Aye, by riding up to his car on motorcycles and making menacing gestures. Maung Aye responded by outlawing most motorcycles in Rangoon, a ban that still holds today. (Read "Getting to Know Burma's Ruling General.")
Even beyond Scorpion, there are plenty of other rich kids roaming Rangoon. At the packed JJ nightclub — where the bidding at "model shows," as prostitute auctions are called, reaches $2,500 for a comely maiden — one manager complains about the impunity with which military officers and their sons operate. "They drink for free and can pick girls for free," he says. "Nobody dares say no; otherwise we will be finished."
Flying High
There are no such diversions in Naypyidaw, the austere capital that takes a good hour to cross in a car — an hour in which I pass perhaps a dozen other vehicles. When I visited two years ago, I figured the barren landscape dotted with little more than grandiose ministry buildings and golf courses would eventually be filled with normal signs of life. But today, save the occasional color-coded civil-servant housing complex or shopping center already deteriorating under the unrelenting sun, the capital is still a monochromatic emptiness, as if Mark Rothko took to urban planning. The rumor goes that Naypyidaw was built without nightclubs or bars to prevent princelings and their cohorts from bad behavior.
So the party goes on in Rangoon instead — or in Singapore, where some wealthy Burmese maintain homes and bank accounts. Riding one afternoon in Rangoon in a dilapidated taxi that saw its best days four decades ago, I hear a deep-throated purr behind me. Turning around, I spot a sunflower-yellow Lamborghini careening past the potholes of Strand Road. The taxi driver knows the luxury car well. It is a plaything of Tay Za's family. Later I spot the same vehicle, along with several Mini Coopers and a Ferrari, parked at the mansion of the man the U.S. Treasury Department calls "an arms dealer and financial henchman of Burma's repressive junta." In June, Tay Za is believed to have helped the Burmese regime buy even flashier modes of transport: 50 Karakorum light attack aircraft from China. (His aviation company is also credited with brokering last year's deal for the Russian MiGs.) All these new planes will surely please the DSA cadets, who perhaps one day can graduate from computer games to real fighter jets. For the "triumphant elite of the future" — like the rest of Burma's pampered classes — even the stratosphere is within easy reach.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Burma's Soldiers Of Fortune
ဦးေအာင္ဆန္း၏ေနာက္ဆုံးေန႔၊ ေရး - ဒဂုန္တာရာ
ဒဂုန္တာရာ
ဇူလုိင္လ ၁၉ ရက္၊ စေနေန႔ ၁၀ နာရီခြဲ။
မုိးလင္းကတည္းကပင္ ေကာင္းကင္သည္ အံု႔မႈိင္း ညိဳ႕မႈန္လ်က္ရိွသည္။ တိမ္တုိက္ဟူ၍ ဘာမွၾကည္လင္စြာမျမင္ရ။ မုိးကိုၾကည့္ရသည္မွာ ျမဴသန္းေနေသာပင္လယ္ျပင္ႀကီးလုိ ၀ိုး၀ိုး၀ါး၀ါးေနသည္။ မုိးသည္ ကင္းကင္းလြတ္လြတ္စဲသည္ ဟူ၍မရွိ၊ တဖြဲဖြဲ ဖြဲေနလုိက္၊ တၿဖိဳင္ၿဖိဳင္ရြာခ်လုိက္ ႏွင့္၊ ေနာက္ ေစြ၍ ေနေလသည္။
ဒီကေန႔ အတြင္း၀န္မ်ားရံုးသို႔ သြားစရာရွိသည္။ တုိင္းျပဳျပည္ျပဳလႊတ္ေတာ္ အထူးအရာရွိ ဦးသိန္းဟန္(ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ)က စေနေန႔ ေန့လယ္တြင္ ေဆာင္းပါးလာယူရန္ ခ်ိန္းထားသည္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္၏ အပါးေတာ္ၿမဲ ဗုိလ္ထြန္းလွထံမွလည္း ခရီးသြားျခင္း ေဆာင္းပါး၀င္ယူရင္း ခဏတျဖဳတ္ စကားစမည္ေျပာၿပီးေနာက္ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီဆီသို႔ သြားမည္ဟု စိတ္ကူးထား သည္။
၁၀ နာရီေလာက္ကတည္းက အ၀တ္အစားလဲၿပီး မုိးအတိတ္ကို ေစာင့္လ်က္ရွိသည္။ မုိးကား မစဲႏုိင္။ သို႔ႏွင့္ စားပြဲတြင္ ထုိင္ကာ အၿပီးမသတ္ေသးေသာ ကဗ်ာတပုဒ္ကိုစပ္ရင္း ၁၁ နာရီ ထုိးသြားေလၿပီ။ မုိးကား မတိတ္ေသးေပ။
ေနာက္ဆံုးတြင္ မုိးစဲလိမ့္မည္ မဟုတ္ဟု စိတ္ခ်လုိက္ၿပီး အေပၚအက်ႌ ၀တ္ကာ လမ္းမႀကီးသို႔ ထြက္ခဲ့သည္။ အဆင္ သင့္ ေတြ ့ေသာ ေဒါင္းတံဆိပ္ တာေမြ ဘတ္စ္ကားကို တက္စီးလုိက္သည္။ ကားထဲတြင္ ၾကည့္ျမင္တုိင္ဘက္မွ လုိက္ပါ လာမည္ ထင္ရေသာ ေတာသား ၃ ေယာက္ႏွင့္ တရုတ္မ ၂ ဦးကိုေတြ႕ရသည္။ ကား ျပတင္း တံခါးမ်ားမွာ ပိတ္ထားသည္။ ခရီးသည္တုိ႔ကား တိတ္ဆိတ္စြာလုိက္ပါလာၾကသည္။ အျပင္ဘက္တြင္ကား မုိးသည္ရြာလ်က္ပင္။ ရႊံ႕ဗြက္ခ်ဳိင့္၀ွမ္းတုိ႔ျဖင့္ ျပြမ္းေသာ ရန္ကုန္ ကားလမ္းကား စုိစြတ္လွသည္။
ကားသည္ သိမ္ႀကီးေစ်းတြင္ ေခတၱရပ္ၿပီး ဆက္လက္၍ တဟုန္တည္း ေမာင္းလာသည္။ ခရီးသည္ အဆင္း အတက္ သိပ္ မရွိလွ။ သို႔ႏွင့္ စပတ္လမ္း(ယခု ဗုိလ္ေအာင္ေက်ာ္လမ္း) ေရာက္လ်ွင္ က်ေနာ္ ဆင္းလုိက္သည္။
ထုိ႔ေနာက္ ဒါလဟုိဇီ လမ္း(ယခု မဟာဗႏၶဳလ လမ္း)ဘက္မွ စပတ္လမ္းကို ျဖတ္ကူးလုိက္သည္။ လမ္းေဘးတြင္ ေမာ္ေတာ္ကားမ်ားသည္ ဟုိတစု သည္တစု ရပ္လ်က္ရွိသည္။ ကားတခ်ဳိ႕ကား သြားလာလ်က္။
ထီးေဆာင္းလ်က္၊ မုိးကာ၀တ္လ်က္ လူမ်ားသည္ သြားၾကလာၾကႏွင့္ ရႈပ္ရွက္ခတ္ေနသည္။
သူရိယတုိက္ေရွ႕အ၀င္ တံခါးမေပါက္ႀကီးတြင္ကား လူမ်ားသည္ အတြင္းသိုေမ်ွာ္လုိက္။ စကားေျပာလုိက္ႏွင့္ ေနၾက သည္ကိုေတြ႕ျမင္ရသည္။ က်ေနာ္ကား ရံုးဆင္းခ်ိန္မို႔ လူေတြရႈပ္ေနတာ ထင္ပါရဲ့ ဟုသာ သာမန္ ေအာက္ေမ့ မိသည္။
က်ေနာ္သည္ အင္မတန္အရိပ္ေျခကို မသိတတ္၊ မျမင္တတ္သူ ျဖစ္ေခ်သည္။ ခါတုိင္းကဲ့သို႔ပင္ ရဲရဲတင္းတင္း တံခါး ေပါက္မွ အတြင္းသို႔ ၀င္သြားသည္။ လမ္းကူး တြင္ကားလက္နက္ကုိင္ စစ္သားမ်ား ေစာင့္က်ပ္လ်က္ ရွိသည္ကို ေတြ႕ရ သည္။ ခါတုိင္းလည္း ေစာင့္ေနက်ပဲဟု ထင္လုိက္မိသည္။ က်ေနာ္သည္ အတြင္း၀န္ရံုးကို သြားခဲလွေပသည္။
ညွဳိးေလ်ာ္ေသာ မ်က္ႏွာႏွင့္ လံုခ်ည္ အျပာ ၀တ္ထားေသာ စာေရးမ ႏွစ္ဦးသည္ သုတ္သုတ္ သုတ္သုတ္ႏွင့္ ရံုးထဲမွ ထြက္လာသည္။ သို႔ႏွင့္ အလယ္ ဆင္၀င္ေအာက္ ကားဆုိက္သည့္ေနရာသုိ႔ ေရာက္လာသည္။ ခါတုိင္းလုိ ရံုးေစမ်ား ခ်ာပရာစီမ်ား ရပ္ျပဳေနသည္ကို အလ်င္းမေတြ႕ရ၊ တိတ္ဆိတ္ ၿငိမ္သက္၍ ေနသည္။
ဗိုလ္ထြန္းလွ အခန္းသို႔တက္ရန္ ေလွကားထစ္ တထစ္ ႏွစ္ထစ္ တက္မိၿပီးမွ တိတ္ဆိတ္ၿငိမ္ခ်က္သား ေကာင္းလွသည္ ကို စိတ္ထင့္သြား၍ ဗိုလ္ထြန္းလွ ေခတၱရံုးဆင္းခ်ိန္ လက္ဖက္ရည္ေသာက္ သြားေနလိမ့္မည္ဟုေတြးကာ မတက္ ေတာ့ဘဲ ဆင္၀င္ေအာက္မွျဖတ္သန္းကာ တဘက္ရွိ တုိင္းျပဳျပည္ျပဳ လႊတ္ေတာ္ရံုးခန္းသို႔ လာခဲ့ေလသည္။ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီထံသို႔ အျပန္က်မွပဲ ၀င္ေတာ့မည္ေလ၊
လႊတ္ေတာ္ရံုး ၀င္၀င္ျခင္း သခင္ႏု၏ ရံုးခန္းတံခါးမွာ ပိတ္ထားသည္ကို ေတြ႕ရသည္။ သကၠလပ္ ခန္းဆီး အစိမ္းပုတ္ ၾကီးမွာလည္း ဆြဲပိတ္၍ထားသည္။ သခင္ႏု၏ရံုးခန္းကုိေက်ာ္၍ေဇာ္ဂ်ီ၏အခန္းသို့ေရာက္ေလျပီ။ သူ႔အခန္းမွာ လည္း တံခါး ပိတ္ထားၿပီး ခန္းဆီးအစိမ္းပုတ္ၾကီးလည္း ဆြဲ၍ထားသည္။ ရံုးေစ ႏွစ္ေယာက္မွာ နံရံကိုမွီကာရပ္ေနၾကသည္။ ခါတုိင္းလုိစကားေျပာမေနၾက။ သူတုိ႔သည္ေငးမႈိင္ေတြေ၀၍ တမ်ဳိးၾကီးျဖစ္ေနသည္ဟု ေအာက္ေမ့လုိက္သည္။
က်ေနာ္က ငုိင္တုိင္တုိင္ေနေသာ ရံုးေစတဦးအား ‘ဦးသိန္းဟန္ရွိသလား’ ဟုေမးသည္။ ‘ရွိပါတယ္ခင္ဗ်’ ဟု ခပ္တုိးတုိး သာသာေအးေအးေျဖသည္။ သည္ေတာ့မွ မ်က္ႏွာပ်က္ေနေၾကာင္းအေသအခ်ာ သိလုိက္ေတာ့သည္။ စိတ္ထဲတြင္ကား မရွင္း။
တံခါးေစ့ထားသျဖင့္ အတြင္းသို႔ ရုတ္တရက္မ၀င္၀ံ့ေသးဘဲ တံခါး၀တြင္ ရပ္ကာ ရံုးေစဘက္သို႔တဖန္လွည့္၍ ‘‘အထဲမွာအစည္းအေ၀းလုပ္ေနသလား’’ ဟု ေမးရသည္။
ရံုးေစသည္ ဘာမွမေျပာဘဲ အသာတယာ ေစ့ထားေသာ တံခါးကိုဖြင့္ေပးသည္။ လွမ္းၾကည့္လုိက္ရာ သူ၏စားပဲြတြင္ ထုိင္ေနေသာ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီကုိေတြ႕မွ ထီးကိုေထာင္ၿပီးအတြင္းသို႔ ၀င္လုိက္သည္။
ရံုးခန္းကား တိတ္ဆိတ္ၿငိမ္သက္လ်က္။ ေစ့ထားေသာ ျပတင္းတံခါးမွ ျပာစိမ္းစိမ္း မွန္ေရာင္ရိုက္ဟပ္သျဖင့္ အခန္းသည္ စိမ္းစိမ္း ျပာျပာ ျဖစ္ေနသည္။ အခန္းထိပ္ရွိ စားပဲြႀကီးတြင္ကား တုိင္းျပဳျပည္ျပဳ လႊတ္ေတာ္ အႀကံေပး အရာရွိ ၀တ္လံု ဦးခ်န္ထြန္းသည္ ေခါင္းငိုက္ကာ ေငးမႈိင္လ်က္ရွိသည္။
ေဇာ္ဂ်ီသည္ က်ေနာ္၀င္လာသည္ကို ျမင္ေသာ အခါ ဆိတ္ဆိတ္ပင္၊ စကားမဟဘဲ ထုိင္ရန္ ကုလားထုိင္ကိုသာ လက္ ျဖင့္ ညႊန္ျပသည္။ သူသည္ေငးငိုင္၍ေနသည္။ အတန္ၾကာတိတ္ဆိတ္လ်က္ရွိသည္။ က်ေနာ္ကား ခါတုိင္းလႈပ္ရွား ဆူညံ၍ ေနတတ္ေသာ အတြင္း၀န္မ်ားရံုးသည္ ဘာေၾကာင့္ ယခုလုိအံု႔မႈိင္းရီေ၀၍ေနသည္၊ ဆိတ္ၿငိမ္၍ ေနသည္ကို အံ့ၾသလ်က္ရွိသည္။
အတန္ၾကာ ဆိတ္ၿငိမ္ေနရာမွ ‘‘အားလံုးေတာ့ဒုကၡျဖစ္ကုန္ၿပီ’’ ဟု ေဇာ္ဂ်ီက တုိးတုိးညည္းေလသည္။ က်ေနာ္ကား ဘာမွန္း မသိေသးသျဖင့္ ေၾကာင္ေနရာ သူကအကဲခတ္မိ၍ ေနရာမွထကာလက္ျပ၍ အျပင္သို႔ေခၚခဲ့သည္။ က်ေနာ္သည္ထိက္ကနဲျဖစ္သြားသည္။
‘‘လက္ဖက္ရည္ဆုိင္ သြားရေအာင္’’
မုိးတဖြဲဖြဲတြင္ ရံုးခန္းအျပင္ဘက္ ေျမနီလမ္းကေလးေပၚေရာက္မွ က်ေနာ္က မေနႏုိင္၍ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔လဲဆရာ ဟု ေမးမိသည္။
‘‘မင္း မၾကားေသးဘူးလား’’ဟု ေဇာ္ဂ်ီက အံ့ၾသေနသည္။
‘‘ဟင့္အင္း … က်ေနာ္အခုပဲ ဘတ္စ္ကားေပၚကဆင္းၿပီး ရံုးကုိတန္းလာတာ’’
သည္ေတာ့မွ ေဇာ္ဂ်ီက ျဖစ္ပံုကို ေျပာျပသည္။ ျခေသ့ၤတပ္ စစ္ယူနီေဖါင္းကို ၀တ္ထားေသာ လက္နက္ကုိင္ လူ ၄ ေယာက္သည္ က်ေနာ္ ျဖတ္လာခဲ့ေသာ အလယ္ဆင္၀င္ေအာက္မွ တက္လာကာ ဦးေအာင္ဆန္း ရံုးခန္း အတြင္းသို႔ အတင္းတြန္း၀င္၍ အစည္းအေ၀းျပဳလုပ္လ်က္ရွိေသာ အမႈေဆာင္ ၀န္ၾကီးမ်ားအားစတင္းဂန္းျဖင့္ပစ္ခတ္ၾကၿပီး မည္သူမ်ွ ဖမ္းဆီးျခင္းမခံရဘဲ ဂ်စ္ကားျဖင့္ ထြက္ေျပး လြတ္ေျမာက္သြားသည္။ က်ေနာ္ မေရာက္မီ ၁ နာရီ ေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ခန္႔က ျဖစ္သည္။
က်ေနာ္သည္ သည္သတင္းကိုၾကားေသာအခါ ထိတ္လန္႔ တုန္လႈပ္သြားသည္။ အသားမ်ား တဆတ္ဆတ္တုန္လာ သည္။ အတြင္း၀န္ရံုး လက္ဖက္ရည္ဆုိင္ထဲတြင္ကား စာေရး စာခ်ီ စေသာ ရံုးသားတုိ႔သည္ ညွိဳးးငယ္ေသာ မ်က္ႏွာျဖင့္ ဆိတ္ျငိမ္စြာစားေသာက္၍ ေနၾကသည္ကုိေတြ႔ျမင္ရသည္။ တစားပြဲျခားရွိ ႏုိင္ငံေရးရာအတြင္း၀န္ ကုိေက်ာ္ျမင့္ ကေလး က လွမ္း၍ ႏႈတ္ဆက္လုိက္သည္။ သူသည္ ခပ္ေအးေအး ခပ္ေတြေတြပင္ လက္ဖက္ရည္ကို ေသာက္ေနသည္။
‘‘အင္မတန္ႏွေျမာဖို႔ ေကာင္းတယ္ဗ်ာ၊ သိပ္ၿပီး ရက္စက္ၾကမ္းၾကဳတ္တဲ့ႏုိင္ငံေရး လုပ္ႀကံမႈပဲ’’ စသည္ျဖင့္ လူအခ်ဳိ့သည္ျငီးတြားလ်က္ရွိၾကသည္။
ေဇာ္ဂ်ီက ‘‘အမ်ဳိးသားပ်က္စီးျခင္းတရပ္ပဲ’’ ဟု တသသေျပာသည္။
‘‘က်ေနာ္ ရံုး၀င္းထဲ၀င္လာေတာ့ လက္နက္ကိုင္ ပုလိပ္ေတြကိုေတြ႔တယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ က်ေနာ္ ၀င္လာတာကုိမတားၾက ဘူး။ ဆင္၀င္ေအာက္ အ၀င္မွာေတာင္ အသိစာေရး ၁ ေယာက္နဲ႔ေတြ႕သားပဲ။ သူကလည္း ဘာမွမေျပာဘူး’’။
‘‘လူေတြဟာမေျပာရက္ၾကဘူး’’ ဟု ေဇာ္ဂ်ီကဆုိေလသည္။
လက္ဖက္ရည္ေသာက္ေနၾကစဥ္ ခုတင္ပဲ ေဆးရံုကျပန္လာေသာ ရံုးသားတဦး အပါးကပ္လာ၍ ‘‘ဘယ့္နဲ႔လဲ’’ဟု က်ေနာ္တုိ႔က ၀ုိင္း၍ေမးျမန္းၾကသည္။ သူက မုိင္းပြန္ေစာ္ဘြားႀကီးမွ တပါး အားလံုးဆံုးရွာၿပီဟု ေျပာသည္။ သူ႔အသံမွာ တုန္ေန၍မ်က္ႏွာမွာ ျဖဴဖတ္ျဖဴေရာ္ျဖစ္ေနသည္။
‘‘ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေကာ’’ ဟု တေယာက္က တုိးတုိးေမးသည္။
‘‘မ်က္ႏွာကို အ၀တ္ျဖဴနဲ႔ ဖံုးထားတယ္’’
က်ေနာ္လည္း ၾကာၾကာမေနႏုိင္ဘဲ ဂ်ဴဒါအီစကယ္လမ္း(ယခု သိမ္ျဖဴလမ္း) တံခါးေပါက္မွေက်ာ္၍ အျပင္ဘက္လမ္းသို႔ ထြက္ခ့ဲသည္။ မုိးသည္ တစိမ့္စိမ့္ရြာလ်က္ပင္။ လူတအုပ္သည္ မုိးထဲတြင္ ထီးေဆာင္း၍၊ တခ်ဳိ႕ထီးမပါဘဲ၊ အခ်ဳိ႕ ပလက္ေဖာင္းေပၚတြင္ရပ္ကာ အတြင္း၀န္ရံုးဘက္သို႔ ေမွ်ာ္ၾကည့္ေနၾကသည္။ ကုလားႏွင့္ တရုတ္လည္းပါသည္။
လူတေယာက္က က်ေနာ္၏ လက္ေမာင္းကိုဆဲြကုိင္၍ ‘‘ဒီမယ္… ခုနက၀န္ႀကီးေတြ ေသနတ္ပစ္ခံရတယ္ ၾကားတယ္၊ ဟုတ္သလားခင္ဗ်ာ’’ဟု ေမးသည္။ သူကား အေၾကာင္းမ်ဳိးစံုကို သိခ်င္ေနေပလိမ့္မည္။
‘‘ဟုတ္ကဲ့…’’ ဟူ၍သာ ေျဖၾကားျပီး တဘက္သို႔ ျဖတ္ကူးရင္းအသင့္ေတြ႕ရေသာ ေဒါင္းတံဆိပ္ကားကုိ တက္စီးလုိက္ သည္။ ကားသည္ လမး္မေတာ္ဘက္သုိ႔ေျပးလ်က္ရွိသည္။
ကားထဲတြင္ လူမနည္းလွေပ။ ခရီးသည္အားလံုး မ်က္စိမ်က္ႏွာမေကာင္းၾက။ ခပ္ရြယ္ရြယ္ မိန္းမပ်ဳိတဦးက ‘‘ျဖစ္မွျဖစ္ရေလေနာ္ ျဖစ္မွျဖစ္ရေလ’’ ဟု ျမည္တမ္းလ်က္ရွိသည္။
ေစ်းသည္ဟုထင္ရေသာ ခပ္အုိအုိမိန္းမႀကီး ႏွစ္ေယာက္သည္ ‘‘ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ အသက္ရွင္ပါေစေတာ္’’ ဟု ဆုေတာင္း၍ ေနသည္။
ယခုမွပင္ သိရေသ ာ မိန္းမတေယာက္က ေမးျမန္းသည္ကို ‘‘မေျပာၾကနဲ႔ မေျပာၾကနဲ႔’’ ဟု အသာလက္ကုတ္၍ တီးတုိးတားျမစ္သည္။ သူတုိ႔သည္ မေျပာရက္ၾက။ သန္႔ျပန္႔စြာ ၀တ္စားထားေသာ တရုတ္တဦး က‘‘အားကီး ရက္စက္တာပဲ’ဟု က်ေနာ့္ ဘက္သို႔ လွည့္၍ ေရရြတ္လ်က္ရွိသည္။ မ်က္ႏွာထားတင္းတင္းႏွင့္ ဘတ္စ္ ကား ဒရိုင္ဘာသည္ ေတာက္ေခါက္လုိက္သည္။
သိမ္ႀကီးေစ်းသို႔ ေရာက္ေသာအခါ လူသြားလူလာ ကင္းရွင္းေနေပၿပီ။ ေစ်းဆုိင္မ်ားပိတ္ထားေလၿပီ။ သတင္းသည္ တမုဟုတ္ခ်င္းပ်ံ႕ႏွံ႔၍သြားေလၿပီ။ ေမာ္ေတာ္ကား၊ လန္ခ်ားတုိ႔ကား ခပ္ျမန္ျမန္သြားလာေနၾကသည္။
ကားလမ္းေပၚမွဆင္း၍ လမ္းထဲသို႔ ၀င္လာေသာအခါ အိမ္၀တြင္ လူတုိ႔သည္ မႈိင္တုိင္တုိင္ႏွင့္ရပ္ကာၾကည့္ေနသည္ကို ေတြ႕ျမင္ရသည္။ လူတုိ႔သည္ အၿငိမ္မေနႏုိင္ၾက။ မုိးသည္မစဲဘဲ ရြာလ်က္ပင္။
လူတုိ႔သည္ ျဖစ္မွျဖစ္ရေလ၊ ျဖစ္မွျဖစ္ရေလ ဟု တတြတ္တြတ္ ျမည္တမ္းရင္းပင္ ညေနေစာင္းလာေတာ့သည္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ ဆုံးေၾကာင္းကား ညေနထုတ္ သတင္းစာမ်ားမွ ၾကားရေလၿပီ။
မည္သူ႔မ်က္ႏွာၾကည့္ၾကည့္ မ်က္ႏွာညိွဳးငယ္ႏြမ္းလ်စြာႏွင့္။ လမ္းမေပၚမွ စက္ျပင္ဆရာ တဦး၏ မိန္မပါးစပ္မွ ‘‘က်ဳပ္တုိ႔ေတာ့ ထမင္းလည္း မခ်က္ေတာ့ဘူး၊ စားခ်င္စိတ္လည္း မရွိေတာ့ပါဘူးရွင္’’ဟူေသာအသံသည္ သဲ့သဲ့မွ် ေပၚထြက္လာသည္။
ေန၀င္မီးၿငိမ္း အမိန္႔ထုတ္ထားသျဖင့္ ညဥ့္ဦးသည္ တိတ္ဆိတ္ကာ ေမွာင္လွသည္။ အိမ္သားမ်ား ဆံုတုိင္း ေန႔ခင္းက အေၾကာင္းကိုသာ ေျပာၾကသည္။ ရွဳိက္သံ၊ တမ္းတသံ၊ ညဥ္းညဴသံ၊ တသသံ။
တိတ္ဆိတ္ေမွာင္မည္းသျဖင့္ ေစာေစာ အိပ္ရာ၀င္ၾကေသာ္လည္း အိပ္မေပ်ာ္ႏုိင္ၾက။ ေန႔ခင္းကဟာ အိပ္မက္ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါေစေတာ့ဟု မိန္းမမ်ားက ဆုေတာင္းၾကသည္။
ညဥ့္နက္ေသာ္လည္း ေခ်ာင္းဟန္႔သံ၊ လူးလြန္႔သံတုိ႔သည္ ဆက္၍ေနသည္။ ရွဲခနဲ မီးျခစ္၍ေနာက္ေဖး ထၾက ျပန္သည္။
တေရးႏုိးဆံုလွ်င္ ‘‘ဘယ္ေတာ့မ်ားမွ ေမ့ေပ်ာက္ပါ့မလဲေနာ္’’ဟု အိပ္ခ်င္သံႏွင့္ဆုိၾကသည္။ တေရးႏုိးတုိင္းသတိရလ်က္ ရွိသည္။ မၾကာခဏအိပ္မက္ၿပီး ႏုိးသည္။ သို႔ႏွင့္ပင္ တေအာက္ေမ့ေမ့၊ တသသႏွင့္ထုိညကို လြန္ေျမာက္ရသည္။
၁၉၄၇
ၾသဂုတ္လ
“အယ္ဒီတာ စာပြဲ၊ စာေပ၊ အႏုပညာ ေ၀ဖန္ေရး ႏွင့္ ပန္းႏုေရာင္အို” စာအုပ္မွ
Burma honors its fallen martyrs amid political insecurity
Jul. 16 2010 - 02:29 pm
By Zin Linn,
Burma’s Independence has been blended together with blood and lives of the nation’s top leaders. July 19 has been known as Martyr's Day in Burma and citizens will commemorate their independence heroes as always amid political insecurity. On July 19, 1947, seven independence leaders of Burma were assassinated by a group of armed men while they were holding a cabinet meeting at 'The Secretariat' or government house in downtown Rangoon. The assassination plot was made by Galon U Saw, a former prime minister of British colonial Burma.
The assassinated cabinet ministers were General Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi), Thakin Mya, Dedoke U Ba Cho,U Razak, U Ba Win (oldest brother of Aung San and father of Dr Sein Win, the leader of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma), Mahn Ba Khaing and Meng -pawng Saopha Sao Sam Htun. Cabinet secretary U Ohn Maung and a bodyguard called Maung Htwe were also slain in the killing.
Most Burmese people believe that the then British authorities had involved in the assassination plot behind the curtain; two British officers were also arrested at the time and one of them charged and convicted for supplying arms and munitions to U Saw. Six months after the assassination, Burma gained its independence from British colonialist.
Trying to gain political power by means of gun or bloodshed is an unacceptable practice, Aung San Suu Kyi highlights time and again publicly. She also believes in non-violent politics to stop the bloodstained politics. That’s why she repeatedly voices that political problems must be solved out by means of political methods. Hence, she always states practicing dialogue is the best way for conciliatory conclusion in political dealings. She offers dialogue to the incumbent junta since September 1988 after founding of her party, the National League for Democracy. But, the authoritarian generals turn a deaf ear not only to the Lady but also to the ethnic leaders so far.
As a result, the socio-economic atmosphere of the country is worsening day-to-day because of political instability. The junta may not be able to manage the socio-economic situation, which is deteriorating fast. It will soon come face-to-face with a bleak future if it continues to refuse dialogue or the national reconciliation process being urged by the opposition the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA).
The regime has also ignored calls from the international community, especially from the UN, US and EU, to release over 2,100 political prisoners for meaningful dialogue with the oppositions. In addition, the groupings urge to review the 2008 Constitution, which will not bring real changes to the Burmese citizens. People are convinced that, like the referendum held at gunpoint, the secret ballot will not be free, fair and inclusive. The junta may not be able to deal with the worsening socio-economic situation if it continues to turn down the national reconciliation process being urged by the opposition NLD and the UNA as well as the UN. Without National Reconciliation settlement via dialogue, Burma may not rise above the current political and economic melancholy.
The remarkable withdrawal of the key opposition party-- the NLD -- from planned elections this year has added to the awareness that the votes would bring no change to Burma's political surroundings, other than a magic show of the generals who aim changing into civilian clothes to maintain authority. The withdrawal decision is in line with people’s opinion that NLD must flex its muscles to confront the unreasonable laws forbidding the Lady from participating and call for her expulsion from the party.
Actually, the 2010 election planned by Burma’s ruling junta seems to be a trap for overemotional politicians. Several Burmese politicians are eager to run in the incoming elections hoping a considerable political space. However, they are now stuck in the entanglements when the 'Election Commission’s Directive No.2/2010 dated June 21, 2010' came out in the daily papers. The analysts view the junta’s poll process as ‘deceit’ for there will be more and more complicated regulations before the unknown election date.
Political parties in Burma that want to assemble and give speeches at a designated place must apply to the Election Commission (EC) for permission at least seven days prior to the event, according to state-run media. The new 'EC Directive No.2/2010 dated June 21 requiring political parties to provide the specific place, date, starting and finishing time, and the name and address of speakers. The EC will issue a permit or reject the request at least 48 hours before the requested date.
It looks like creating hindrance towards the political parties on purpose. But, the junta-backed USDP has none of such obstacle. The election date has not been set and the regime has maintained tight restrictions on political opposition in the country and has not granted any operational breathing space for political parties to have a word with the public.
“The nearer the election, the more difficulties we have,” U Thu Wai, the chairman of Democratic Party (Myanmar), spoke out to the media.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration on 12 July criticized the upcoming general election of Burma as scheduled is “flawed” and that the military government has not taken any step towards establishing democracy in the country.
“We think that this is a flawed electoral process,” said State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley.
On the other hand, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is building a multipurpose network of tunnels, bunkers and other underground installations where they and their military hardware can be hidden against any external airborne attack, including most likely from the United States. At the same time, military junta has formed a strategic missile force that works with North Korean contractors. Burma’s missile force is armed with two types of surface-to-surface short and medium range ballistic missiles, such as the Scud-type Hwasong-6 from North Korea, and 122-mm and 240-mm multiple rocket launch systems brought in from China and North Korea.
Moreover, Burma's ruling junta has been in progress with a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons in a high-stakes bid to put off supposed unfriendly foreign powers. In fact, there has never been a serious threat of foreign invasion. To sum up, the junta – taking example of North Korean style strategy - is strengthening its military might to maintain its political-power everlastingly. According to military experts, Burma spends 40 to 60 percent of the national budget for the armed forces.
In contrast, 0.4 percent of the national budget is spent on health-care, while 0.5 percent is spent for education, according to a report released in 2007 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank based in London. UNICEF reported that SPDC spending on health care in Burma amounted to U.S. $0.40 cents per person per year in 2005, compared to U.S. $61 in neighboring Thailand.
Furthermore, the junta designs the 2010 election as a self-seeking political game undoubtedly to legalize the government by the military. As a result, one cannot discover an inch of political space in the military run parliament aftermath of the upcoming polls.
As the junta monopolizes the state’s assets, natural resources, businesses, institutions and so on, no other political party can compete with the military-backed USDP, led by the current Prime Minister Thein Sein. The political scenario looks like status quo under the gun for the head of Union Election Commission has to obey the order of the military chief.
General Aung San, the founding father of the Burma’s Independence Army, never intended the army to intervene in governmental affairs. A liberal and a democrat, he saw from the fascist Japanese army the dangers of military absolutism. But unfortunately, on July 19, 1947, he was assassinated by a foolish politician and the country lost a genuine national vanguard. Due to his death, the country’s fledgling democracy and unison also ended up.
Although 63 years has passed by, people are still honoring the country’s martyrs, especially Aung San of Burma. It is ironic that Burma’s military top brass are putting their oars in the parliamentary affairs of the nation against the will of General Aung San. Hence, Burma has to put more effort into its struggle for liberation.
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Zin Linn is an exiled freelance journalist from Burma.
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