Page 2 of
2 SPEAKING
FREELY Theater of the absurd in
Myanmar By Nancy
Hudson-Rodd
Neighboring Thailand should not
be the only benefactor of easy access to hundreds
of thousands of men, women and children who fled
Myanmar seeking refuge and work in dirty dangerous
positions. According to the Japan External Trade
Organization website, laborers in manufacturing
industries in Myanmar earn an average monthly
salary of about US$58, compared to $353 in
Guangzhou, China, the world's factory floor.
But the director, his production team, and
regional theatrical troops know maximum profit
opportunities can be made by selling access to
land. The director greatly increased industrial
and agricultural concessions to local and foreign
investors throughout the country, raising more
money for production of his play. Vowing to put
all land into production, the director assured his
actor farmers that he
would increase agricultural production by taking
more land from them.
The president's task
of "land management" was not easy "as squatters on
forest, virgin, vacant, and fallow land and others
act as if they owned the land. The result is
widespread problems and because of these problems
we are not in position to allot large numbers of
hectors of land for investment" (June 20, 2012,
New Light of Myanmar). Despite difficulties of
people posing as land owners, the director
persisted. He managed to sell off thousands of
acres of land.
Shadow plays In
the shadows, away from the limelight, serious
dramas are being played out. The Myanmar army
theatrical troops are fighting for control of
outlying regions, about 60% of the nation's land.
There are many casualties. The director has
lucrative deals with China in resource rich
northern Shan and Kachin States. Three
interconnected developments are occurring
simultaneously: a large increase in opium
cultivation since 2006 after a decade of steady
decline, due to official complicity in the drug
trade; increased Chinese agricultural investment,
especially in rubber, in northern Myanmar under
the Chinese government's opium substitution
program and; a related dramatic increase in
dispossession of farmers and local communities
from their land and livelihoods (Transnational
Institute Feb 2012).
"Stolen Lives: Human
Trafficking from Palaung Areas of Burma to China",
a report by the Palaung Women's Organization,
outlined harrowing accounts of women forced into
marriage with Chinese men, or as sex workers sold
to destinations across China. Young children and
babies are sold by drug-using fathers. When the
Palaung State Liberation Army surrendered in 2005,
Myanmar military troops poured in. Taxes imposed
on agriculture and trading increased. Opium
cultivation skyrocketed with official support. Tea
farming was no longer profitable. Young Palaung
women, former tea workers, became trade objects.
What is the truth of long-standing direct
seizure of farmers' land, property, livelihood,
and lives by army units and government
departments? Farmers are not free to farm in the
new play. They face increased threats in the
recent convergence of military, business and
administrative interests in new projects aimed at
displacing cultivators and residents from their
farms and homes. Army-owned companies, joint
ventures and other economically and politically
powerful groups with connections to the military
are seizing land.
Myanmar is being
advertised as the last emerging "golden land of
opportunity" for global business. Current and
former military officers still in government
together with their business partners are rushing
to become rich making deals. Military-owned or
connected companies and associates that dominate
the country's economy are hurrying to force
citizens off land that they can use to attract
foreign investors. In a recent grab of 815 acres
for construction of an industrial zone on the
outskirts of Yangon, members of parliament for the
military established Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP) wholly or partly own the
companies involved.
Twenty-six farmers in
Rathidaung Township, Arakan State, were sued (July
2012) by an army- backed businessman when they
sought to keep their shrimp and paddy farmlands
land that had been seized by the military in 1996.
The local businessman paid the western command
military for several land leases. The farmers have
no hope of a fair trial. The judge, court
officials and police side with the most powerful
military institution. As land grabbing
accelerates, the legal framework not only fails to
keep up but has gone backward.
On this new
stage, major roles are being snapped up by older
experienced actors. Individual farmers, village
groups, and lawyers are demanding acting rights in
the new democracy play. Three farmers in Mandalay
division (July 26, 2012) dramatically laid down in
front of a Kaungkin Company tractor when it was
clearing their land. "This is our land, if you
want to continue, go over us and kill us first."
Farmers in Mandalay Division, represented by Ye
Htin Kyaw of the Civil and Political Rights
Campaign Group, formed the "Movement of Working
Back on Old Fields" in defiance of their lands
being confiscated.
Myint Myint Aye of the
Public Affairs Network in Meiktila, Mandalay
Division, supports farmers in their fight against
land confiscation. Lawyer Than Swe held a
Peasants' Day Meeting in Kayan Township, Yangon
with 200 farmers from Yangon, Pegu, and Mandalay
Divisions to discuss and write a letter to Thein
Sein demanding farmers' rights to their land and
rights to form an actors' union.
It is
proving to be a difficult production. Current and
former military men, members of parliament and
business associates, many with years of acting
experience, follow whatever script the junta
commands. They have well-paid jobs. Farmers and
their associates want roles in the new play but
have been sidelined, accused of not being able to
follow a democracy script, of getting in the way.
In the old military play, not directed by a
people's elected president, citizens who taught
lines for a democracy script were imprisoned and
tortured for not acting the military script.
Ko Kyaw Soe, a member of the Human Rights
Defender Group in Taunggyi Township, Shan State,
conducted interviews with farmers for Sein Htay
and my research published in 2008 as "The
Arbitrary Confiscation of Farmers' and by the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
Military Regime in Burma". He was arrested at his
home in Taunggyi in September 2007 and taken to
Insein prison. He was sentenced to 10 years under
Article 17 of the Unlawful Association Act;
Article 13 of the Immigration Act and; Article 505
of the Penal Code. Ko Kyaw Soe was tortured,
repeatedly beaten, burnt with cigarettes, and
electrocuted. His family asked the authorities to
give him appropriate medical care. They were told
that the prison was adequately taking care of him.
Ko Kyaw Soe died on May 10, 2010 at the age of 39
in Myingyan Prison. He was the 144th political
prisoner to die in prison.
Individuals
like Ko Kyaw Soe were strictly disciplined,
tortured, killed, for teaching citizens about
human rights. This was during the time of the past
director General Than Shwe's military play. Why
does the new "reformist" director not favor actors
like U Myint Aye who have experience in teaching
democratic lines to citizens in producing his
democracy play? The military, with no democracy
experience, nonetheless have lead roles.
Individuals with democratic acting experience are
lucky to have minor roles in the new democracy
play. Foreign press and officials praise the
reformist director for releasing hundreds of these
individual prisoners.
But what is the
truth of continued detention and torture of
prisoners of conscience? Over 400 individuals,
including 16 women and 50 Buddhist monks, remain
in prison for their peaceful expression of ideas.
The exact number and location is not known. The
director denies the existence of prisoners of
conscience. He does not allow independent review
of the 42 prisons, 109 labor camps, and unknown
number of interrogation centers. The Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners Burma claims
less is known of atrocities committed in ethnic
minority states and border regions.
Skeptical reviews Others are
skeptical of the direction and quality of the play
in border areas. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
revealed extraordinary levels of state and
military violence against civilians in "Life Under
the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in
Chin State" (2011). They argue that at least eight
of the human rights violations studied, forced
labor, rape, torture, disappearances, religious
persecutions, killings, beatings, and widespread
pillaging, fall within the purview of the
International Criminal Court (ICC).
The
PHR report "Under Siege in Kachin State, Burma"
(November 2011) details gross human-rights abuses
by the army, which loots food from civilians,
fires indiscriminately into villages, forces
civilians to guide combat units and to walk in
front of army columns to trigger landmines. Human
Rights Watch (HRW) in "Untold Miseries in Kachin
State: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in
Kachin State" (2012) describe severe abuses
against civilians by the army. The Karen Human
Rights Group and Human Rights Watch report (July
12, 2011), "Dead Men Walking: Convict Porters on
the Front Lines in Eastern Burma", details abuses
against convict porters, including summary
executions, torture, and use of convicts as human
shields. "The press-ganging of prisoners into
deadly frontline service raises Burmese army's
cruelty to new levels" (Deputy Asia Director,
HRW).
Has the script changed? Director
Thein Sein makes clear (March 30, 2011 New Light
of Myanmar) the Tatmadaw's (Myanmar military)
major acting role in the new discipline democracy
play.
The Tatmadaw with a strong sense of
duty and loyalty saved the country several times
when the country was close to collapse and loss
of independence and sovereignty. In 1988, the
Tatmadaw Government saved the country from
deteriorating conditions and reconstructed the
country. The Tatmadaw, a significant
organization of the Republic of the Union of
Myanmar, has its defense personnel
representatives shouldering the duties entrusted
by the people in the Hluttaw as it was born as a
Tatmadaw to serve the national cause. While
shouldering these national duties the Tatmadaw
side by side with the people are safeguarding
the motherland for its perpetuity till the end
of the world.
It's a well-worn line
that the Tatmadaw serves the national cause. As
trained actors, members kill those who do not
follow. It continues to support its own actors.
The 1988 massacre was not a unique event. On May
30, 2003, forces affiliated with the SPDC attacked
a convoy carrying opposition leader Daw Aung Suu
Kyi. Seventy people were killed. No action was
ever taken by the SPDC to investigate the crime.
At least 31 people were killed during the
regime's brutal suppression of peaceful
pro-democracy demonstrations in 2007, including
Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai. Buddhist
monk U Thilavantha died from injuries sustained
from torture when detained during the 2007
demonstrations. Lieutenant General Myint Swe,
chief Rangoon Minister, ordered the soldiers to
shoot civilians. No investigation was conducted
into these murders. No action was taken.
Questions must be asked: Is the acclaimed
script of democratic Myanmar simply a re-run? Over
two decades after the massacre, Ko Ko Kyi, a
former political prisoner, leader of the All Burma
Students Democratic League and organizer of the
1988 nationwide strike and peaceful demonstration,
accepted director Thein Sein's check for over
$1,000 to help fund the 24th commemoration
anniversary of student demonstrations. "I feel
like this is a step toward reform. The president
always talks about national reconciliation. This
action can help build mutual understanding."
Many others wonder how that could be so
without knowing the truth of the history of the
state killings of 1988, 2003, and 2007. A certain
kind of state like Myanmar does not appear out of
thin air. What engenders a particular regime is
the material and ideological relations existing
among the country's citizens. It is necessary to
devote serious thought to these material and
ideological relations. The nature of them should
appall us. Truth controllers in Myanmar try to
smooth official historical memory to fit the
national ideological agenda. Thus military
directors accused of committing crimes against
humanity act with impunity.
So how to view
Myanmar's new democracy play? The directors seem
to control most sources of power. They invite
financial support but deny independent reviews
into the production. There are, however, cracks in
the theater company. Current international
favorable reviews won't last; local reviews are
already poor. A few actors will thrive in their
roles of power and new stars may emerge. But most
actors will have tough careers making a living in
Thein Sein's theater of the absurd, and it's
altogether unclear how many more lives will be
extinguished by those who lust to control the
script.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click here
if you are interested in contributing. Articles
submitted for this section allow our readers to
express their opinions and do not necessarily meet
the same editorial standards of Asia Times
Online's regular contributors.
Nancy Hudson-Rodd (PhD) is a
human geographer and research associate at the
School of Geography and Environmental Studies,
University of Tasmania, Australia.
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