Truth and Lies in Burma: The junta lives in a world of self-delusion

By DOMINIC FAULDER
Asiaweek, October 2, 2000

I first met Aung San Suu Kyi a few days after the bloody coup of September 18, 1988, that ensconced the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Looking tired and drawn after six weeks that had pulled her from total obscurity to global prominence, she was sitting stiffly in the somber study at 54, University Avenue, the home of her ailing mother, who lay upstairs in terminal decline.

I apologized for asking a "sensitive question", but wanted to know if she felt her future lay in Burma or England, the country where she had resided with her family for much of her adult life. Suu Kyi bristled visibly, and told me in no uncertain terms that she had always made it perfectly clear she would return home to Burma when her country needed her. It was my first glimpse of her steely resolve, powerful sense of destiny and capacity for elegant bluntness. The truth, as we have since discovered, was that she was back in Burma for the duration -- to pursue at whatever cost a vision tightly bound to the dream her father, pre-independence hero General Aung San, had not lived to realize. "And why is that such a sensitive question?" she shot back at me.

I shifted uncomfortably since one of the more obvious reasons was sitting alongside -- her husband, Michael Aris, an Oxford academic. He was quite impassive as the interview progressed, but the truth must have pained him greatly. The prospect of a normal married life had evaporated for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. Not then or at any point after in our encounter did Suu Kyi defer to Aris. Nobody then could have predicted the long years of cruelly enforced separation the couple and their two sons would endure as Suu Kyi doggedly clung to her vision of what was true and best for her homeland. When Aris died prematurely last year, he had wickedly been denied the chance of a last visit with his wife. This was purportedly on compassionate grounds. The junta argued, totally disingenuously, that he was too sick to travel and that medical facilities in Rangoon were inadequate.

Even some members of Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, have faulted her for being too unyielding and stubborn in her dealings with the junta. In response, she has frequently pointed out that the generals are themselves far from reasonable. And in cynically rebuffing the wishes of a dying man, they proved she was telling the truth. Reasonable people with any sense of decency would never resort to such emotional blackmail.

In recent weeks, Suu Kyi has been back doing what she does best: attracting international attention by highlighting simple truths. Though released from house arrest in 1995, she is many ways still a prisoner. Once again, she attempted to exercise some freedom of movement and travel beyond the confines of the capital. The first standoff on the outskirts of Rangoon was timed perfectly to embarrass the junta at the time of the United Nations' Millennium Summit. It worked.

After almost a week Suu Kyi and her supporters were roughly bundled back to town. Her security was at risk if she proceeded, contended the same junta that renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997 because "Law and Order" had been pretty much "restored". Later in September, Suu Kyi was again prevented from traveling, this time by train to Mandalay. No tickets were available. She'll know to book next time. On an earlier occasion, her carriage was simply uncoupled and she was left on the platform.

The junta claims that Suu Kyi gives them no credit for their many achievements and that she consistently sours the outside world's opinion of a nation shamelessly ravaged by British colonialists. The truth is that the British departed more than 50 years ago -- well before they left a number of other countries in the region that have gone from strength to strength. For most of the time since independence, Burma has willfully isolated itself from any normal foreign relations, never mind "interference". This is the country that even saw fit to resign from the non-aligned movement.

If, as the junta claims, it has pacified and stabilized most of the country, how is it that an allegedly free citizen cannot make a trip to Mandalay and other areas not particularly noted for ethnic unrest? Arguably, of all the population centers in Burma, Mandalay has seen the most dramatic changes in the past decade. It now even boasts an airport with one of the largest runways in the world. If this and other developments are genuinely achievements, wouldn't it make more sense for the generals to let Suu Kyi actually see them? What "truths" need they hide from her when they can showcase successes?

But the "truth" in Burma doesn't seem to resemble the truth in most other parts of the world. Would it be untrue to say that letting in Aris for a last compassionate visit could have done the junta's stock nothing but good? Would it be untrue to say that Suu Kyi touring the countryside during the U.N. summit would have been interpreted as a sign of normalization and mellowing? Would not the same hold true for an overdue fact-finding visit to Mandalay?

Burma may be ready for the truth, but apparently not yet the generals. Recently, the junta has been trying to convince the world that James Mawdsley, a young British-Australian held in solitary confinement in jail at Kengtung near the Thai border, blackened both his eyes and broke his own nose with his handcuffs during a scuffle with prison guards. Nobody believed similarly nonsensical explanations in the beating of Malaysia's former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim. Indeed, there is very real cause for concern about Mawdsley, given what he now knows firsthand of the true conditions inside Burmese prisons.

The last comparable case was that of James Leander 'Leo' Nicols in 1996. Nicols was a de facto honorary consul to various Scandinavian countries and a supporter of Suu Kyi. A diabetic, he was imprisoned for owning an unregistered fax machine. After relentless interrogation, he died having been denied appropriate food and medicine. A senior government spokesman claimed he was a victim of too many "fatty foods" -- not normally a complaint made about the cuisine at Rangoon's infamous Insein Jail. In fact, a brazen lie.

Surprisingly, the biggest recent casualty in the SPDC's battle with the truth has been one of its own brighter rising stars. At a business seminar in July, the deputy minister of national planning and development, Brigadier General Zaw Tun, spoke with a candor possibly unprecedented in a serving officer since General Ne Win staged his coup in 1962. Among many topics covered during a three-hour talk, he spoke of his superiors' fixation with a possible currency crisis (that already exists), inflated growth figures, failure to develop a free-market economy, and the counter-productive propaganda on state television. "Some who are holding responsibilities in the country lack proper awareness," he tactfully confided to his audience.

Zaw Tun was promptly dismissed for having the temerity to suggest the generals might be deluding themselves. His frankness, however unwelcome among the top brass, is actually a breath of fresh air. It proves that there are members of the widely reviled Burmese military establishment who at least recognize the truth -- even if they dare not speak it.

For Suu Kyi, who has never been afraid of speaking the truth as she sees it, there may be some cause for hope here. Even if they do not agree with much of what she has to say, it's actually quite easy for senior figures in the military to halt the flow of lies. The real challenge is for the two feuding parties to start discovering which truths they may actually be able to agree upon. Only then can they get beyond emotions and start trading facts instead of vitriole. Fact No. 1: it's never too late to start dealing with the truth.