Letters from Burma
Aung San Suu Kyi, 1996-1997

June 24, 1996

LIFE IS SELDOM DULL FOR THOSE WHO DISAGREE
"A Dissident's Life"

Life is seldom dull for dissidents in Burma. I just looked up "dissident" in three different dictionaries and the definition I like best is "one who disagrees with the aims and procedures of the government." That about sums up the position of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and others working for democracy in Burma: We disagree with the present aims and procedures of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Agreeing to disagree is a prerogative only of those who live under a democratic system. Under an authoritarian regime, disagreeing can be seen as a crime. This makes life for us rather difficult. Sometimes dangerous. But certainly not dull.

The main issue on which we disagree with SLORC is the matter of promises. We hold that a promise given to the nation should be honored, not cast aside with a shrug and a sneer when "it no longer suits" them. When the military regime took over power in September 1988 it announced that it had no intention of governing the country for a long period. It would assume the responsibility of bringing genuine multiparty democracy to Burma and power would be transferred to the party that proved victorious in "free and fair elections." The elections of May 1990 were hailed as one of the freest and fairest ever and the NLD won 82 percent of the seats. As this was not the result SLORC had expected it decided to forget its earlier promise and brought out Notification 1/90 (another nice Orwellian touch), according to which the job of the elected representatives was merely to draw up a state constitution. But once the NLD and other political parties had been made to sign an undertaking to abide by this notification, SLORC proceeded to organize a National Convention in which less than one fifth of the delegates were elected representatives of the people. The duty of the convention was to endorse the basic principles of the state constitution which had been laid down by the authorities without reference to public sentiment.

It has been recognized by successive resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly that the will of the people of Burma expressed through the elections of 1990 remains valid. In May, on the sixth anniversary of the elections, the NLD decided to organize a conference of its elected representatives. This would have been a simple enough matter in countries where political parties are allowed to operate as genuine political organizations. Not so in Burma. Even the day to day running of an NLD office requires perseverance, patience, ingenuity and cool nerves. To begin with, a landlord who rents out office space to the NLD is told that his house or apartment could be sealed off or confiscated at any time the authorities consider that the activities of the party justify such a move. Thus finding a place to use as a party office is the first hurdle that has to be overcome, giving members of the NLD much practice in political education and friendly persuasion. In some places the NLD was obliged to move its office several times because of pressure exerted on landlords. In others the NLD was made to shift its office from a main road to a back street so its presence would not be so obvious.

The presence of an NLD office is generally made known by its signboard. When political parties were allowed to register with the Multi-Party Elections Commission in 1988 they were also allowed to put up party signboards on the exterior walls or perimeter of their offices. But after a few months during which bright red and white NLD signboards blossomed all over Burma from big cities to forgotten little hamlets deep in the countryside, it was announced that no party signboards should be put up in offices at the village and ward level. The reason given was that a multiplicity of party signs in small villages and wards would lead to clashes among members of the respective parties. This was unconvincing as no such clashes had taken place and in many little villages and wards the NLD was the only party with an office and a signboard. We discussed the matter with the commission and a compromise was reached. Signboards would be allowed in village and ward offices which had already put them up, or sent in applications to put them up before, if I remember the date correctly, Dec. 16, 1988.

But there are still villages and wards where the decision of the commission has been ignored by the local authorities and NLD offices are still continuing the struggle to be allowed to put up signboards outside their usually very modest premises. There are places where NLD offices have been told to reduce the size of their signboards. There have been cases where local authorities have objected to NLD offices putting back signboards that had been temporarily removed for renovation. There have been instances of local authorities forcing NLD offices to remove their signboards; recently in some towns in the Irrawaddy Division, members of the local Red Cross and the Union Solidarity and Development Association have joined in these operations. Where else in the world has the matter of a party signboard turned into an open-ended saga?

September 2, 1996

PRISON MAY BREAK THE BODY, BUT NOT THE SPIRIT
"Death in custody (3)"

Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka was arrested in 1989 and sentenced by a martial law court to 20 years' imprisonment in October of that year. The SLORC had accused him of seeking to cause an insurrection within the armed forces. At the time he entered Insein Jail, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka was already suffering from a chronic disease that was laying his muscles to waste. His movements were stiff and jerky, and everyday matters, such as bathing, dressing or eating, involved for him a series of difficult maneuvers which could barely be completed without assistance. For a man with his health problems, life in solitary confinement was a continuous struggle to cope. And Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka struggled manfully. But his already much-eroded physical system was unable to withstand the inhuman conditions of Insein Jail for long. In June 1991, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka, navy officer and humorist, poet and political activist, died in custody at the age of 65.

Even during his darkest days in prison, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka's muse did not desert him. In secret he composed poems about the gross injustices committed under military dictatorship with a biting anger entirely removed from his delicate rendering of old English sonnets. "Twenty years, they say ... in accordance with that (legal) section of all things that is unclean and despicable," he wrote with contempt of the sentence which, for him, turned out to be one of death.

October and November of 1990 were months when the SLORC carried out a major crackdown against the movement for democracy. It was in these months that numbers of National League for Democracy members of Parliament were brought into Insein Jail. Among these men, elected by the people of Burma to form a democratic government but condemned by the military regime to imprisonment, was U Tin Maung Win of Khayan. He had been a prominent student leader in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1962, when students protested against the high-handed actions of the military government that had newly come into power, he was the chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Student's Rights. The next year, as the leader of the Rangoon University Students' Union, he was placed under arrest.

U Tin Maung was kept in prison for seven years. But neither that experience, nor the even more deadening one of life for a quarter of a century under the Burmese Way to Socialism, succeeded in killing his political convictions. In 1988, U Tin Maung Win took part in the movement for democracy in concert with other student leaders of the past. In the elections of 1990, he contested as the NLD's candidate in his native Khayan against his own brother who represented the NUP, the main adversary of the democratic parties. Five months after his victory in the elections he was arrested.

U Tin Maung Win spent a month at Ye-Kyi-ain, an infamous military intelligence interrogation center, before he was sent to Insein Jail. When he was charged with high treason in January 1991, he was not able to be present at his trial because he was too ill. By Jan. 18, U Tin Maung Win was dead. The authorities claimed that he had died of leukemia but before he was incarcerated just four months previously there had been no sign that he was suffering from such a grave disease. It is the contention of those who saw his body before burial that he died as a result of ill treatment in prison.

Last year, U Kyi Saung, secretary of the NLD branch in Myaungmya, a town the Irrawaddy division, was arrested. He had attended a Karen New Year ceremony in a Karen village and there, he had read out the message of goodwill that the NLD had brought out for the New Year. This peaceful, innocuous act of courtesy was reported by the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the "social welfare" organization formed under the aegis of the government, the Myaungmya Township Law and Order Restoration Council and to the local military intelligence unit. The TLORC thereby arrested U Kyi Saung under Section 5 of the 1950 Emergency Act, which has come to be known as the "Can't Stand Your Looks" section as it is used indiscriminately against those whom the authorities cannot abide. An elderly man, U Kyi Saung's health deteriorated rapidly and he died in May 1996 before his trial was completed.

I have written only about well-known members of the NLD who died in custody but they are not the only victims of authoritarian injustice. Prisoners of conscience who lost their lives during the 1990s represent a broad range of the Burmese political spectrum and even include a Buddhist monk. Of those sacrificed to the misrule of law, the oldest was 70-year-old Boh Set Yaung, a member of the Patriotic Old Comrades' League, and the youngest was a 19-year-old member of the NLD. The exact number of deaths in custody cannot be ascertained but it is not small and it is rising all the time. The price of liberty has never been cheap and in Burma it is particularly high.

Monday, September 16, 1996

DEFINING POLITICAL DEFIANCE, DEMOCRACY
"Some Problems of Definition"

There is an expression much bandied about these days which, in its Burmanized form, sounds very much like "jeans shirt." This has nothing to do with the denim mania that has come to Burma, together with foreign bars and cigarettes, walking shoes, expensive batiks, Pajeros and all the other paraphernalia so dear to the hearts of the small, privileged elite who have profited wonderfully from the selective open market economy. The expression actually refers to "Gene Sharp," the author of some works on "political defiance." These writings seem to be exercising the authorities in Burma considerably. Last month, 19 political prisoners were tried in Mandalay and they were all sentenced to seven years imprisonment, each on a charge of high treason. The possession of copies of books by Gene Sharp seemed to have been taken as part of the evidence against the defendants. (Not that "defendant" is an appropriate word to use in connection with political detainees in Burma as they have no real right of defense at all.)

At a government press conference this month, more references were made to political defiance. When a correspondent asked whether these political defiance courses initiated by Gene Sharp trained people to commit political assassinations and other accts of violence, a spokesman for SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) said they did not know, as they had not attended any of those courses. It is very puzzling that courses about the contents of which the authorities are totally ignorant should be seen as in any way connected with treason. It was also alleged at the press conference that I had talked about political defiance with an American visitor. When a correspondent asked me whether this was so, I said that it was not so, as I could not at all recall any conversation about Gene Sharp or his books or the courses in political defiance he is said to have conducted. Later, it occurred to me that both my interviewer and I had merely been thinking of political defiance in terms of SLORC-speak. In fact, political defiance is no more synonymous with Gene Sharp than with denim shirts. It can be defined simply as the natural response of anybody who disagrees with the opinions of the government in power. In that sense, the great majority of people in Burma are perpetually engaged in political defiance in their hearts, if not in their actions.

Another interesting question posed by a correspondent at the SLORC press conference was why the authorities objected to the opposition carrying out its work. The answer was that it was dangerous. A government that has promised a transfer to "multiparty democracy" views the work of the opposition as DANGEROUS? A self-proclaimed conservationist might as well chop down trees indiscriminately and massacre rare, and not so rare, species with wild abandon.

There are two problems of definition in the above paragraph. This repeated reference to "multiparty democracy" since the SLORC took over power: Surely the expression is tautology? And "one-party democracy" would be oxymoronic. Democracy basically means choice, and political choice means the existence of more than one effective political party or force. "Democracy" by itself should be sufficient to indicate a pluralistic political approach.

Then there is the question of the word "opposition." The NLD (National League for Democracy) is often referred to as "the opposition." But it was the NLD that won the only democratic elections held in more than 30 years and won them with an overwhelming majority such as was not achieved by any other political party in those countries that made the transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. The word "opposition," when applied to a party which won the unequivocal mandate of the people, takes on a peculiar ring. But leaving that aside, how does one define the work of an opposition in any country which claims to be heading toward (multiparty) democracy?

A group guided by the political legacy of a prominent communist leader who engaged in armed rebellion against the government for several decades after Burma regained her independence, and who later laid down arms and recanted, came to see me some months ago. They read out the political guidelines laid down by their late leader which, among other things, condemned the idea of any work aimed at removing a government in power. I explained to them that this was unacceptable to anybody who truly believed in democracy. In a genuine democracy, it is the legitimate function of opposition parties to work at removing the government through the democratic process. Any political ideology that disallows parties from carrying out opposition activities and presenting themselves to the country as viable alternatives to the existing government cannot be said to have anything to do with democracy. To view opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundations of democracy.

Monday, December 2, 1996

MAINTAINING HUMAN DIGNITY IN THE DARKNESS
"A Normal Life"

Recently, when a friend asked me how things were with me since the authorities had taken to barricading off my house periodically, I replied that things were fine, I was simply carrying on with my normal life. At this she burst out laughing. "Yours in not a normal life, in fact it's the most abnormal life!" And I could not help but laugh too.

I suppose the kind of life I lead must seem very strange to some but it is a life to which I have become accustomed and it is really no stranger than a lot of things that go on in Burma today. Sometimes as we walk around the garden while the road outside lies quiet, shut off from the rest of the city, my colleagues and I agree that were we to write about our experiences in the form if a novel it would be criticized as too far-fetched a story, a botched Orwellian tale.

No doubt there are other countries in the world where you would find the equivalent of the huge billboards brazenly entitled "People's Desire," advertising the following sentiments:

• Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views
• Oppose those trying to jeopardize stability of the State and progress of the nation
• Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal affairs of the State
• Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy.

But I doubt that in other countries you would find just around the corner from such an unwelcoming, xenophobic proclamations, a gigantic, double-faced, particularly unattractive version of a traditional boy doll with puffy white face, staring eyes, a stiff smile and an attache case (that bit is not traditional) welcoming tourists to Visit Myanmar Year. Bizarre is the word that springs to mind. "Fascist Disneyland," one frequent visitor to Burma commented.

There is so much that is beautiful and so much that is wrong in my country. In the evenings when I look out to the lake from my garden, I can see the tattered beauty of the casuarinas, the tropical lushness of the coconut palms, the untidily exotic banana plants and the lushness of the barbed wire fence along the edge of the shore. And across the still waters festooned with dumps of water hyacinth is the mass of a new hotel built with profit rather than elegance in mind. As the sun begins to go down the sky lights up in orange hues. The Burmese refer to this hour as the time of blazing clouds and also the time when the ugly turn beautiful because the golden light casts a flattering glow on most complexions.

How simple it would be if a mere turn of light could make everything that was ugly beautiful. How wonderful it would be if twilight were a time when we could all lay down the cares of the day and look forward to a tranquil night of well earned rest. But in Fascist Disneyland the velvety night is too often night in the worst sense of the word, a time deprived of light in more ways than one. Even in the capital city Rangoon, electricity cuts are not infrequent and we are suddenly plunged into darkness. The inability of the government to supply adequate electric power makes it necessary for many households to contrive arrangements of their own, linking up a wire to a neighboring source that they might enjoy a bit of light at night. The local authorities turn a blind eye to such arrangements, accepting due compensation for their discretion. However, if you happen to be a member of the NLD, trying to bring light into your household can easily result in a two-year prison sentence. The other, and more real, darkness of night in Fascist Disneyland is that so many political arrests are made during the hours when all decent people should be resting and allowing others to rest.

Visitors to my country often speak of the friendliness, the hospitality and the acme of humor of the Burmese. Then they ask how it is possible that a brutal, humorless authoritarian regime could have emerged from such a people. A comprehensive answer to that question would involve a whole thesis but a short answer might be, as one writer has put it, that Burma is indeed one of those lands of charm and cruelty. I have found more warmth, more wholehearted love and more caring concern among my people, as we hope together, suffer together and struggle together, than anywhere else in the world. But those who exude hate and vindictiveness and rave about annihilating and crushing us are also Burmese, our own people.

How many can be said to be leading normal lives in a country where there are such deep divisions of heart and mind, where there is neither freedom nor security? When we ask for democracy, all we are asking is that our people should be allowed to live in tranquility under the rule of law, protected by institutions which will guarantee our rights, the rights that will enable us to maintain our human dignity, to heal long festering wounds and to allow love and courage to flourish. Is that such a very unreasonable demand?

8 May, 1997

The "Fighting Peacock Maidens" of Freedom

May is the month of merry madness and darling buds when, in temperate lands, people are turning their faces towards the kindly light of the spring sky. The Burmese word may means young woman or mother. It is a soft sounding word with a spring flavour in a country that knows no spring, but its softness belies the hard lot of many of our women, especially women involved in politics.

Some years ago, just before I was placed under house arrest, I was sent a poem by somebody who called herself Fighting Peacock Maiden". I do not know who she was and what role she played in the democracy movement. Somehow I had the impression that she was young. But her knowledge of the path of politics, perhaps a knowledge acquired through poetic inspiration rather than practical experience, was mature and disturbingly acute.

She entitled her poem, "Thorn and Pride".

Grasp bravely
The signpost of pride,
Let it be steadfast;
As we struggle forward
To continue the journey
Another step. . .
Holding fast to our conviction,
Grasp strongly
Don't let it waver!
We dare
To stay here,
To blossom here,
To drop here.

How many of our women, in particular the mothers and wives of prisoners of conscience, have to take that hard another step" each day? A prisoner is allowed a laminate visit from his family once a fortnight.

The preparations for this visit begin a few days in advance as mothers, wives, sisters and daughters start shopping and cooking and packing the parcels of food and medicine without which their loved ones would be unable to survive the tough their election, a third of the women members of Parliament were deprived of their positions and their liberty. A high toll indeed.

Life is not easy for women political prisoners. They are kept together with ordinary criminals and often subjected to humiliating treatment from the wardens. Delicate young women used to a sheltered existence find themselves consorting with murderers and have to learn the basic rules of harmonious human relationships.

One prisoner of conscience gave birth to her baby in the jail hospital and, for the sake of the child, had to let her family take it away from her after a couple of months.

It needs fortitude and good humour to cope with a prison environment and some of the women proved to have ample reserves of both.

There were those who danced at the time of the Burmese New Year at the cost of a period of punishment in solitary confinement- and considered that they have done well out of the bargain. They got their priorities correct.

But of course it is not all fun and games in a penal institution far from it. There must have been times when women confined by the walls of prison and bound in uncongenial companionships must have longed for the wings of a dove that they might fly to gentle lands ruled by compassion. There must have been times when they wished that the gods were kindly beings who looked down on mere mortals not with stern indifference but with sweet understanding.

For women not incarcerated in prison but fighting for their right to engage in the everyday work of a political party, there are different kinds of challenges.

The women of the NLD are of all ages and come from all strata of society and have learned to approach their work with an insouciant gaiety in the face of what might be euphemistically termed "grave official disapproval".

There are comfortable housewives; brisk businesswomen, well qualified pro regime of Burmese jails.

The unfortunate ones who are kept in prisons far from their home towns - a gratuitous piece of cruelty - can only look forward to a monthly visit at best. Octogenarian mothers have made this bittersweet trip regularly, determined to exchange a loving look and a smile of encouragement with sons grown gaunt after years away from the comforts and the carefully prepared food of home.

Young wives, pretty brows furrowed with anxiety, try to present a brave image of strength and health as they search for words that will not betray the difficulties faced by families torn apart.

Children chatter inconsequentially, unconsciously following the lead of their elders in the attempt to make the abnormal appear as everyday fare. And all the while they are thinking of the years of separation that still stretch ahead.

I know a mother who made a vow to wear the tree bark brown colour of ascetics for the rest of her life if her son was not released by her 60th birthday. That birthday has come and gone and her son remains in prison. She continues to face each another step with pride, her sad face beautifully above the somber colour of her clothes.

During the elections of 1990, 16 women candidates were returned successfully All 15 belonged to the National League for Democracy. Of these, five were imprisoned shortly after the elections and one was disqualified on the pretext that her accounting of campaign expenses was unsatisfactory. Thus within months of fessionals, lively pensioners and dedicated young students. They are joined together in the belief that it is their duty to fight for the kind of society where they and their families are respected for their human worth rather than for their social status.

The women often display impressive organizational capacity and initiative quietly finding their way around the restrictions placed on the activities of the party.

There were also several young women with a decided talent for acting. One of them had to spend her nights plaiting ropes to support a living for her elderly mother and herself but she did not miss coming to any of the rehearsals for a. play in which she portrayed a young village girl engaged in resistance activities during the war.

For our water festival, we arranged an entertainment programme that ranged from pop songs to a Burmese version of Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man." There was also a dance of peacock maidens, resplendent in shimmering blue-green, symbolising the beauty of committed struggle.

I have no idea where the "Fighting Peacock Maiden" who sent me the poem might be, but I would like her to know that there are those who have not fallen away, who are prepared to take another proud step toward that goal within their hearts, with complete conviction but with a wonderful lightness of spirit.