Page 2 of
2 Myanmar protests verge on mass
movement By Larry Jagan
the group's leaders, Kyaw Min Yu,
popularly known by his English nickname Jimmy, has
died in prison as a result of the injuries he
sustained while being detained by armed
vigilantes.
The International Committee of
the Red Cross has made discreet inquiries about
the prisoners, though no information is available
about their treatment or condition. The regime is
acutely aware of the public sympathy the group's
leaders command and as an
early concession released one
arrested member who had suffered a broken leg upon
being arrested. At the same time, the government
has warned that the other detained group members
face 20-year jail sentences if convicted and
sentenced.
Such harsh treatment could
politicize and add new fuel to the fire of the
protests, some analysts predict. It's still
unclear whether the protests are part of a larger
political strategy launched by the dissident
group. "They knew they would be detained again and
could face another stiff term in prison," said one
of the group's supporters. "So they had
contingency plans in place for that."
The
authorities have since placed all of the arrested
leaders' families under strict surveillance and
are searching for a key member of the group, Htay
Kywe, who is in hiding. On the run, he has become
the public voice of the movement through
interviews given to the Oslo-based Democratic
Voice of Burma and e-mail communications with the
international media.
In an e-mail sent
over the weekend to foreign journalists, including
Asia Times Online, he disputed the government's
accusations that the 88 Student Group is using
violence to try to overthrow the government, and
retorted that it is the junta that is using
violence as a pretext to detain the group's
leaders.
"We believe that no Myanmar
people ... will accept these acts of political
violence by the military government," said Htay
Kywe in the e-mail. "We, the 88 Generation
Students, together with people including monks,
students, workers and farmers, will continue our
efforts to remove the military dictatorship by
firmly resisting any kind of arrest and torture."
Economic squeeze Runaway
inflation, meanwhile, is causing economic chaos.
An unofficial consumer price index maintained by a
leading Yangon-based economic journal based on a
basket of essential commodities showed a 35% spike
in prices as a result of the fuel-price increase.
According to recent United
Nations-conducted surveys, more than 90% of
Myanmar's population spent 60-70% of their
household income on food. "These price increases
are likely to be the result of speculation and
anticipation, rather than a real increase in
costs," the top UN official in Yangon, Charles
Petrie, told Asia Times Online.
A UN
economist based in Yangon, requesting anonymity,
said in a recent interview: "I estimate that now
the vast majority of Burmese people are spending
over 80% of their monthly salaries on food."
As inflation gallops, the potential for
widespread unrest, not yet at the tipping point,
is growing. Already more people are living without
permanent shelter on Yangon's streets, many of
them workers who have day jobs but cannot afford
to travel from home and back, a Japanese
businessman and regular visitor to Yangon recently
observed.
Laborers who live in poor areas
on the outskirts of Yangon - after the government
razed their slums and relocated them there in 1988
in a policy designed to depopulate the national
capital - are now walking to work rather than
paying higher transportation costs. "Many workers
are taking more than an hour and a half to walk to
work," said an economist, a Myanmar national based
in Yangon. "Some even spend up to three hours
walking to their factories."
UN officials
believe the policy will in time impact adversely
on public health conditions - which because of low
government spending were already abysmal.
"Malnutrition will increase as a result" of the
policy, said a UN official. "While people will not
starve, there will be a slow increase in deaths
from diseases which should not be terminal - it
will especially affect children and the elderly."
The majority of people are not yet so
deprived that they are willing to risk joining the
protests. But tensions are bubbling away under the
surface, which could be accentuated in the weeks
ahead, particularly if rice prices were to surge.
Heavy rains and flooding in Myanmar's rice bowl
this year means yields and supply could be
substantially reduced compared with recent years -
providing yet another source of inflationary
pressure.
"The current protests are still
economic," said Khin Ohmar, a leading activist
based in Thailand with close links to protest
organizers. She said she believes it's only a
matter of time before the protests become
political. "Everyone recognizes that the root
cause of the inflation is the junta's economic
mismanagement. By concentrating on what really
concerns people in their daily lives, people will
be encouraged to participate [in the rallies], and
that will eventually generate a momentum for real
change - as happened in 1988."
The
dramatic events of August 1988, which likewise
were spurred by economic mismanagement, took
months to evolve. In late 1987, the military
demonetized certain denominations of the local
currency, the kyat, which wiped out many people's
savings overnight. The initial peaceful protest
marches were suspended after the regime violently
cracked down on them. Three months later, student
groups initiated a fresh series of protests which
by August of that year had grown into a mass
movement.
Nearly 20 years later, the
military's economic mismanagement and political
heavy-handedness are strikingly similar.
Larry Jagan previously covered
Myanmar politics for the British Broadcasting
Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based
in Bangkok.
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