Mission to Burma, but much less indie rock.

Mission to Burma
By Drake Baer
Staff Writer

For weeks, civilian protest has come to the streets of Myanmar, also Burma. Demonstrations over the incredible increase in petroleum prices have been met with force, with more than 150 protesters jailed, according to multiple reports.

At question is a country with an identity problem, as the ruling military regime refers to it as Myanmar and dissidents as Burma. In a lovely bit of Orwellian state department name irony, the government is led by Chairman Than Shwe of the State Peace and Development Council.

The regime has employed a group of paramilitary thugs, again ironically called the the Union Solidarity and Development Association to police the nation. Several thousand goons armed with wooden batons attacked protesters in Yangon, the nation's main city.

Amnesty International reports that over 150 people have been detained since August 19. On that day Once-subsidized gas prices experienced an increase of up to 500 percent. Rapid increases in staples are all too regular in the state, in 2003 the price of rice doubled in less than a year. The country's poor are being squeezed by the military junta.

The junta produced a constitution guaranteeing continued power on September 2. The military has been in control since 1962. The constitution was drafted over a period of 14 years, with the latest convention excluding any members of the opposition party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Needless to say, the process has been seen as less than classically democratic. Suu Kyi has been subject to state-mandated house arrest 11 of the past 17 years. Under the new guidelines, she would not be able to hold office, to her being the widow of a foreigner.

Constitutional provisions assuring human rights are less than steadfast, as the New York Times reports, “the document severely limits the rights of political parties and it hedges its provisions on human rights and political activity with limitations based on concerns of 'national security.'”

Burma is a nation that 50 years ago was primed to be a leader in the developing world. Ithas since earned the U.N. designation of “Least Developed Country,”

The regime's faux-constitution is another step in Burma's anti-development, as put by New Zealand political scientist Peter John Perry, “An opporunty has been at worst rejected and at best mishandled ... The reason for this is the position of the regime, its ideology, its inflexibility, its greed and its incompetence.”

The new constitution reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military appointees and the presidency for a military figure. The army will also set its own budget, retain the right to declare a state of emergency, and have the ability to seize power – should they deem it fit to do so. These are not the fundamental principals of a free state.

Amnesty International reports that “widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, amounting to possible crimes against humanity,” have been committed by the regime.

Public demonstrations are rare in the Southeast Asian nation, as they often end in blood, as was the case in the 1988, when protests over 1000 Burmese citizens were killed. In the fallout of the 1988 uprising, the Junta moved universities from the cities and the capital to a more remote location, to diffuse protest by students and civil servants, the New York Times reports. The new capitol is Naypyidaw, which roughly translates as “abode of kings.”

In 1990, the junta held a parliamentary election. To their dismay, the National League for Democracy won in a landslide, taking home 80 percent of the vote. Obviously, the junta had no other choice than to annul the results.

The Burmese junta is second only to the Mugabe (mis)Administration of Zimbabwe when it comes to completely and unequivocally squandering an opportunity for growth. The funds coming from natural resources, including a world-famous lumber industry, have been concentrated in few hands.

Burma is a place where a corrupt military has literally entrenched itself in power in its newly built capitol. The country is closed off to the world; very few journalists or academic are allowed within its borders. As such, we do not hear much from the state. It seems that the only way Burma might change is by pressure by nearby trading partners, most notably China. Burma is unstable, authoritarian state; even if it holds itself to be the opposite.