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That empty feeling: Inside
Myanmar's forbidden
capital
Built in secret
by a paranoid military junta, and kept that way
ever since, Naypyidaw remains an enigma. The city
might be Myanmar's capital, but few foreigners
have ever been permitted access to its
tightly-guarded, tank-friendly streets. Until
recently. SIMON ALLISON reports on a
surreal visit to the heart of the regime.
NAYPYIDAW, MYANMAR - It is the stuff of
spy thrillers. Deep in the tropical jungle, a
paranoid military dictatorship pours billions of
dollars and man-hours into the construction of a
secret city, a
modern fortress from
which to rule their long-suffering subjects. The
roads, it is rumoured, were designed for tanks
rather than cars. The hills are riddled with
bunkers and arms caches. Everything is connected
by underground tunnels, and any details about the
city, even the fact of its existence, zealously
guarded.
But this is no spy thriller. This
is Myanmar, and the secret city is Naypyidaw - the
country's capital ever since it opened for
business in 2005. Even then, the city remained
shrouded in mystery. Some reports suggest that
government ministries were given just one day's
notice to pack up and go, and that civil servants
were abruptly relocated to housing estates
(colour-coded according to which ministry they
worked for). Others say that General Than Shwe - a
real-life Bond villain if there ever was one -
himself led the convoy of government officials
from Yangon (Rangoon), insisting that it depart at
11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, an
auspicious time in his beloved numerology.
The truth is difficult to ascertain,
because Naypyidaw (pronounced 'nappy-door')
remained a secret city: off-limits to most
foreigners, and absolutely forbidden for
journalists. Until now.
The thing is,
Myanmar is not quite the military dictatorship it
used to be. After nearly two decades as head of
state, Than Shwe did what Bond villains never do,
and stepped aside in 2011 to make way for his
hand-picked successor - another general, of
course. But Thein Sein, despite his strong regime
credentials, has shaken things up a bit,
instituting a series of reforms which has seen
Myanmar slowly emerge out of the diplomatic
wilderness. Most significantly, he has released
Aung San Suu Kyi, and allowed her National League
for Democracy (NLD) to contest and win
parliamentary by-elections. He has eased (although
not removed) the state's tight grip on political
expression, and scrapped the artificial exchange
rate which saw a dollar buy six Kyat in a bank or
800 Kyat from the scruffy guy on the steps outside
the bank.
While these reforms remain
tentative, and do very little to address the
decades of mismanagement and human rights abuses
to which the junta has subjected the country, it's
a start. And it's already had an observable
impact. Aung San Suu Kyi T-shirts are for sale in
the market, cars flutter NLD flags, and people
aren't afraid to talk politics - although they're
still guarded. "It's 50% better than it was," said
a teacher I spoke to in Yangon. "But there's 50%
more to go."
The words that come to mind
are glasnost and perestroika - the 'openness' and
'restructuring' that Mikhail Gorbachev instituted
in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Designed to
protect the state by bringing it a little closer
to the rest of the world, the reforms instead
hastened its demise. Myanmar's military junta
looks to be heading down the same road.
I,
meanwhile, was on the road to Naypyidaw. Unable to
resist the lure of the forbidden, I wanted to see
this artificial metropolis for myself.
I
arrived late at night, turfed from my bus into the
middle of the 'hotel zone', the only place where
foreigners are permitted to stay. There must be at
least a dozen industrial-size hotels dotted on
either side of an wide avenue, each a lonely
island on a kilometre-square plot. They're all
plush, expensive, and reek of government
subsidies. It's hard to know whether any guests
are in all these rooms. Staff say they're busy,
but every hotel I went into was empty, or nearly
so, my footsteps echoing in opulent lobbies.
Empty describes most of the city. The
expansive, tank-friendly roads are empty, aside
from the hapless policemen standing guard at
traffic circles, shivering and wet from the
unrelenting monsoon rains. The shops are empty.
What passes for tourist attractions are empty.
Many of the brand new housing estates are empty,
the paint already peeling. Eventually, this
emptiness takes on a surreal quality; it's a
little like being in one of those science fiction
movies where I am the only person standing after
some awful disaster, left alone to explore a ghost
town.
There were two notable exceptions.
First, the main bus terminal, which was as dirty
and chaotic as any street in Yangon (perhaps
because generals don't take buses). Second, the
bustling shopping centres; gleaming, shiny
replicas of malls anywhere in the world.
Tellingly, it was only in these fancy bastions of
modern capitalism that I had any trouble taking
photographs; openness is one thing, but allowing
the people to glimpse the price tags on those
Pierre Cardin shirts and Mont Blanc pens is
something entirely more subversive.
The
malls, though, are Naypyidaw in microcosm: a safe,
isolated place where Myanmar's elite can live in
the style to which they aspire, free from the
overwhelming poverty in Yangon and the political
resistance it generates.
But the
resistance is getting closer. As I wandered out of
the Junction Centre, the shiniest mall, I saw a
brand new Toyota Landcruiser pull into the parking
lot. On the dashboard, quite openly, was an NLD
flag, and the car's occupant was more than happy
for me to take a picture. This would have been
unthinkable just a few months ago, but the NLD has
become a legitimate political presence after their
overwhelming victory in this year's parliamentary
by-elections. They don't have a parliamentary
majority yet, but that's only because not all the
seats were up for grabs. That should change in
more elections in 2015, unless Thein Sein and his
junta backtrack on their promises. Even Aung San
Suu Kyi spends a lot of time in Naypyidaw now - as
a member of parliament, she has to.
This
will, however, always be the city that the
military built. It is neatly organised into
special zones that sprawl across the gently
undulating landscape, making it difficult to get
around without a car or personnel carrier. There
may not be many people around, but there are four
golf courses, golf being the generals' favourite
sport. It's spotlessly clean, and immaculately
manicured; verges are trimmed, flower beds are in
full bloom, and the rainforest is cut back neatly.
Road markings are bright. At times, Nyapyidaw is
more parade ground than city.
To crown his
creation, General Than Shwe made sure he left
something to remember him by, in the form of an
enormous, golden pagoda which monopolises the
skyline. I'll never forget my first glimpse of it.
It was raining, and I was soaking wet on the back
of a motorcycle. I looked towards the hills in the
distance, hazy through the mist, when suddenly the
mist took on a golden hue. A giant, shimmering,
bulbous phallus took shape. Than Shwe's phallus,
to be precise; the former dictator is said to have
paid for the 99 metre-tall monument with his own
money, an act of merit-making to appease the gods
and atone, perhaps, for his many sins.
It's an impressive edifice, but, like the
rest of the city, it feels forced and unnatural.
In appearance, it looks much the same as Yangon's
Shwedagon Pagoda, which is just 30 centimetres
taller. But the Shwedagon - an attraction which
will rank alongside the pyramids and Angkor Wat
once Myanmar opens up properly - is more than
2,000 years old, a product of centuries of
devotion and refinement. Naypyidaw's Uppatastanti
Pagoda, on the other hand, is a
hastily-constructed symbol of one man's ego, and
the gold leaf is already losing its lustre.
Built on hill, the base of the pagoda
provides the best view over the city. Or it would,
if the sun were shining and the air clear. Through
the rain and mist, I couldn't see more than a few
hundred metres in front of me. I couldn't really
see the city - it looked like there was nothing
there at all. Which, for this strange and unlikely
place, seemed perfectly appropriate. DM
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article is run courtesy of Daily Maverick. To
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