come.
Meanwhile, the effects of the government’s mismanagement of the economy became clear in 1967 when the scarcity of rice in Rangoon became a severe problem. Civil servants would sign in at their offices in the morning and then leave to spend the day searching for rice in villages outside the city. Although the government’s inappropriate procurement and distribution policies were largely to blame for the shortage, people’s anger turned against Chinese merchants, who controlled much of the black-market rice trade. Merchants were stockpiling rice, knowing they could sell it for a higher price as the crisis worsened. Some Burmese had also been irritated by the fact that the Chinese embassy was encouraging support for the Cultural Revolution among Sino-Burmese, including the wearing of Mao badges. Riots broke out, and the Chinese embassy and many Chinese-owned shops and homes were attacked. The military regime declared martial law and solved the problem by ordering all the warehouses to be opened and the surplus rice to be distributed. Dissidents have argued that this was an early example of how General Ne Win was able to deflect the people’s anger away from the regime and channel it into communal riots. 6
The military regime sought to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring public safety by announcing sweeps to rid the streets of crime. The police were ordered to round up a certain number of criminals during each sweep, and in order to meet their quotas they often arrested people against whom they had no evidence. The detainees’ families were not informed, and victims were usually not tried. The prisoners could only hope that for one reason or another they would eventually be released.
Tint Zaw, a Rangoon University professor who was imprisoned for his connections with student activists and for his refusal to join the regime’s Burma Socialist Programme Party, met many such hapless prisoners during his years in prison. He remembered one bizarre case where the wife of a man who was arrested assumed that her husband had gone off with another woman. She put an announcement in the newspaper stating that he was her legal husband and anyone keeping him would be sued. In those days, prisoners were still allowed to read the newspaper, and the man saw the announcement about himself and showed it tothe prison officer. An intelligence officer was sent to question him and only then was he released. Tint Zaw himself was never charged for his ‘crimes’. When he was arrested he was invited ‘to stay for some time’ in prison. That ‘some time’ turned out to be nine years.
Although General Ne Win had hoped to win popular support with his nationalization and land reform programmes, they led to economic disaster. In order to establish a more legitimate administration, he decided to reorganize his government. He and nineteen other senior officers resigned from the military in 1972 and assumed civilian titles. He also announced that the regime planned to draw up a new constitution and institute a one-party system, with elections for a People’s Assembly ( pyithu hluttaw ) and local councils. In theory, the one-party system would give people a voice in managing the country’s affairs, but that was to prove illusory from the start.
The BSPP era, 1974–88
While the new constitution was being drafted, government authorities announced that citizens were welcome to send in their suggestions. But when several Chins wrote in recommending the adoption of federalism and a multiparty system, they were arrested. Perhaps because the Chins had always been loyal to the government and there were no tatmadaw troops in Chin State, the authorities felt they had to act particularly harshly to stifle such demands. As a result, a member of a Chin youth group who signed his name on a letter calling for a federal union spent ten months in solitary confinement, a Chin major in the tatmadaw served a two-year prison sentence, and a Chin
Meanwhile, the effects of the government’s mismanagement of the economy became clear in 1967 when the scarcity of rice in Rangoon became a severe problem. Civil servants would sign in at their offices in the morning and then leave to spend the day searching for rice in villages outside the city. Although the government’s inappropriate procurement and distribution policies were largely to blame for the shortage, people’s anger turned against Chinese merchants, who controlled much of the black-market rice trade. Merchants were stockpiling rice, knowing they could sell it for a higher price as the crisis worsened. Some Burmese had also been irritated by the fact that the Chinese embassy was encouraging support for the Cultural Revolution among Sino-Burmese, including the wearing of Mao badges. Riots broke out, and the Chinese embassy and many Chinese-owned shops and homes were attacked. The military regime declared martial law and solved the problem by ordering all the warehouses to be opened and the surplus rice to be distributed. Dissidents have argued that this was an early example of how General Ne Win was able to deflect the people’s anger away from the regime and channel it into communal riots. 6
The military regime sought to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring public safety by announcing sweeps to rid the streets of crime. The police were ordered to round up a certain number of criminals during each sweep, and in order to meet their quotas they often arrested people against whom they had no evidence. The detainees’ families were not informed, and victims were usually not tried. The prisoners could only hope that for one reason or another they would eventually be released.
Tint Zaw, a Rangoon University professor who was imprisoned for his connections with student activists and for his refusal to join the regime’s Burma Socialist Programme Party, met many such hapless prisoners during his years in prison. He remembered one bizarre case where the wife of a man who was arrested assumed that her husband had gone off with another woman. She put an announcement in the newspaper stating that he was her legal husband and anyone keeping him would be sued. In those days, prisoners were still allowed to read the newspaper, and the man saw the announcement about himself and showed it tothe prison officer. An intelligence officer was sent to question him and only then was he released. Tint Zaw himself was never charged for his ‘crimes’. When he was arrested he was invited ‘to stay for some time’ in prison. That ‘some time’ turned out to be nine years.
Although General Ne Win had hoped to win popular support with his nationalization and land reform programmes, they led to economic disaster. In order to establish a more legitimate administration, he decided to reorganize his government. He and nineteen other senior officers resigned from the military in 1972 and assumed civilian titles. He also announced that the regime planned to draw up a new constitution and institute a one-party system, with elections for a People’s Assembly ( pyithu hluttaw ) and local councils. In theory, the one-party system would give people a voice in managing the country’s affairs, but that was to prove illusory from the start.
The BSPP era, 1974–88
While the new constitution was being drafted, government authorities announced that citizens were welcome to send in their suggestions. But when several Chins wrote in recommending the adoption of federalism and a multiparty system, they were arrested. Perhaps because the Chins had always been loyal to the government and there were no tatmadaw troops in Chin State, the authorities felt they had to act particularly harshly to stifle such demands. As a result, a member of a Chin youth group who signed his name on a letter calling for a federal union spent ten months in solitary confinement, a Chin major in the tatmadaw served a two-year prison sentence, and a Chin
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