scare.â
Nonetheless, the simple message was: All change! âThe nation,â wrote Bertil Lintner, âand possibly even more so the diplomatic community in Rangoon, was flabbergasted. International wire service reports were euphoric. Public outrage in Burma had forced an end to twenty-six years of one-party rule and one of Asiaâs most rigid socialist systems . . . Or had it?â 17
Bertil Lintner, the veteran Swedish Burma-watcher based in Thailand, photographed in November 2010 in Chiangmai. Lintnerâs book Outrage documented the uprising of 1988 and its bloody repression in great detail.
*
As Lintner indicated, things were not as straightforward as they seemed. By the time the congress ended two days later, it had rejected the idea of a referendum on a multiparty system that Ne Win himself had proposed. The Old Man was probably responsible for that, tugging the strings behind the scenes. It had also turned down four of the six resignations he had offered. Ne Win himself was allowed to bow outâbut only to be replaced as president and chairman of the party by the most brutal of his underlings, Sein Lwin, the man who had ordered the killings back in March and who had since been known as âthe Butcherâ to the protesters.
Sein Lwin, âthe Butcher, â Â who briefly replaced Ne Win as head of state in 1988, until forced from power by mass protests.
âSein Lwinâs takeover was aimed solely at preventing the loss of [Ne Winâs] own power and security,â Michael later wrote to his brother. 18 âAs Ne Winâs hit man and crony heâs used to combining the role of court executioner, astrologer, sorcerer and alchemistâliterally, not figuratively, in the peculiar mixture of magic and repression that the former regime has depended upon to stay in power, and which will now continue unabated.â
It was like offering the demonstrators a carrotâbut then cracking them over the head with a stick before they could take a bite of it. It was like opening Pandoraâs Box but then trying to slam it shut again before anything got out.
For whatever reason, acting on whatever senile, cock-eyed calculation, the Old Man had planted a seed, and nothing would be the same again. âUp to then,â diplomat Martin Morland remembered, âthe student movement . . . was completely unfocused. It was in essence anti-government: protest against brutality, a frustrated reaction against the inane policies, the demonetization, the hopelessness of the students, the lack of any future. There was no focus to it. Ne Win, unwittingly, provides a focus by calling for a multiparty system, and from there on in, the student cry is for democracy.â
And in that context, substituting the Butcher for the Old Man was like lighting the short fuse of a big bomb. The curfew, so destructive to the local economy, had been lifted at the end of June. Colleges remained closed, but a hard core of protesters had merely moved from their campuses to pavilions around the Shwedagon pagoda, the nationâs most important Buddhist shrine, where they continued to organize. And when Sein Lwinâs appointment was announced, the protests began almost at once. Martial law was declared the day after the congress ended, but instead of scaring people off the streets it simply raised the stakes. âDissatisfaction among the public gave way to hatred,â wrote Lintner. ââThat man is not going to be the ruler of Burma,â was a common phrase repeated all over the country.â 19 The Old Man himself had acknowledged that his country was ripe for profound change, and the fact that he had tried to eat those words as soon as they were out of his mouth could not alter it. He had indicated that the future did not belong to him and, the Butcher notwithstanding, that it might not even belong to the army. And quite quickly Aung San Suu Kyi became a very busy person indeed.
*
How
Nonetheless, the simple message was: All change! âThe nation,â wrote Bertil Lintner, âand possibly even more so the diplomatic community in Rangoon, was flabbergasted. International wire service reports were euphoric. Public outrage in Burma had forced an end to twenty-six years of one-party rule and one of Asiaâs most rigid socialist systems . . . Or had it?â 17
Bertil Lintner, the veteran Swedish Burma-watcher based in Thailand, photographed in November 2010 in Chiangmai. Lintnerâs book Outrage documented the uprising of 1988 and its bloody repression in great detail.
*
As Lintner indicated, things were not as straightforward as they seemed. By the time the congress ended two days later, it had rejected the idea of a referendum on a multiparty system that Ne Win himself had proposed. The Old Man was probably responsible for that, tugging the strings behind the scenes. It had also turned down four of the six resignations he had offered. Ne Win himself was allowed to bow outâbut only to be replaced as president and chairman of the party by the most brutal of his underlings, Sein Lwin, the man who had ordered the killings back in March and who had since been known as âthe Butcherâ to the protesters.
Sein Lwin, âthe Butcher, â Â who briefly replaced Ne Win as head of state in 1988, until forced from power by mass protests.
âSein Lwinâs takeover was aimed solely at preventing the loss of [Ne Winâs] own power and security,â Michael later wrote to his brother. 18 âAs Ne Winâs hit man and crony heâs used to combining the role of court executioner, astrologer, sorcerer and alchemistâliterally, not figuratively, in the peculiar mixture of magic and repression that the former regime has depended upon to stay in power, and which will now continue unabated.â
It was like offering the demonstrators a carrotâbut then cracking them over the head with a stick before they could take a bite of it. It was like opening Pandoraâs Box but then trying to slam it shut again before anything got out.
For whatever reason, acting on whatever senile, cock-eyed calculation, the Old Man had planted a seed, and nothing would be the same again. âUp to then,â diplomat Martin Morland remembered, âthe student movement . . . was completely unfocused. It was in essence anti-government: protest against brutality, a frustrated reaction against the inane policies, the demonetization, the hopelessness of the students, the lack of any future. There was no focus to it. Ne Win, unwittingly, provides a focus by calling for a multiparty system, and from there on in, the student cry is for democracy.â
And in that context, substituting the Butcher for the Old Man was like lighting the short fuse of a big bomb. The curfew, so destructive to the local economy, had been lifted at the end of June. Colleges remained closed, but a hard core of protesters had merely moved from their campuses to pavilions around the Shwedagon pagoda, the nationâs most important Buddhist shrine, where they continued to organize. And when Sein Lwinâs appointment was announced, the protests began almost at once. Martial law was declared the day after the congress ended, but instead of scaring people off the streets it simply raised the stakes. âDissatisfaction among the public gave way to hatred,â wrote Lintner. ââThat man is not going to be the ruler of Burma,â was a common phrase repeated all over the country.â 19 The Old Man himself had acknowledged that his country was ripe for profound change, and the fact that he had tried to eat those words as soon as they were out of his mouth could not alter it. He had indicated that the future did not belong to him and, the Butcher notwithstanding, that it might not even belong to the army. And quite quickly Aung San Suu Kyi became a very busy person indeed.
*
How
Similar Books
