Myanmar's fate lies in hands of junta 'bulldog'

But stubborn leader Shwe shows no willingness to heed calls for reform

David Longstreath / AP file Myanmar junta leader Sen. Gen. Than Shwe has remained publicly silent throughout the crisis in his country, and has not responded to calls for compromise with protesters.

BANGKOK, Thailand - The old soldier who leads Myanmar is called "the bulldog," and for good reason.

Pro-democracy demonstrators by the thousands may be willing to sacrifice themselves in the streets but stand little chance of success unless they — or other forces — can oust a jowly high school dropout with delusions of royal grandeur from his post of virtually absolute power.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe has shown no willingness to step down as head of the ruling junta, compromise with protesters, or listen to international calls for reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

After snubbing special U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari for three days, Than Shwe finally met him Tuesday. That came only after his foreign minister told the United Nations that change "cannot be imposed from outside."

"The very fate of Burma is linked to Than Shwe, whose manic, xenophobic and superstitious character bode ill for a country that needs to pull itself into the 21st century and into the international community of democratic nations," says the Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based news magazine that maintains a "Than Shwe Watch" column.

Although there is continuing speculation about rivalries within the top military ranks, Than Shwe (pronounced tawn shway) wields near-absolute control over one of the world's largest armies, a 400,000-strong force that turned its guns on university students, brutally beat Buddhist monks, and hauled thousands away to unknown incarceration sites.

The 74-year-old junta leader has remained publicly silent throughout the crisis, sequestering himself in his remote, bunker-like capital, filtering news from the demonstrations and the outside world through the narrow prism of more than a half-century of military service.

"As long as he is No. 1, things probably will not change. He is very, very stubborn, and he doesn't see the problem being with his council but with the demonstrators," says Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar scholar at Japan's Meio University.

Naypyitaw (pronounced NAY'-pee-daw), or "Royal City," is the new capital deep in the countryside that Than Shwe ordered built in a bizarre act laden with royal pretensions.

Rumors swirl around general
Numerous, but unconfirmed, stories have circulated about the portly, bemedaled Than Shwe acting like a king and his daughters ordering military officers to treat them as royalty. Diplomats say some members of his family and possibly even Than Shwe himself are also locked into corrupt dealings with rich businessmen, a common practice among the military elite.

It also is rumored that the very mention of Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced ahng sahn soo chee), the detained opposition leader who has become an international icon for democracy, is said to throw him into spasms of anger.

One of the few glimpses into his life came last year when a video surfaced depicting the extravagant wedding of one of his daughters, further fueling deep-rooted hatred of the military among the population in one of the world's poorest countries.

The leaked video showed his daughter, Thandar Shwe, wearing a staggering collection of diamond encrusted jewelry and extravagant clothing as the normally grim-faced junta members sat on gold-trimmed chairs and enjoyed a five-tiered wedding cake and champagne.

The Irrawaddy said the wedding cost $300,000 and the bridal couple received wedding gifts worth $50 million.

Than Shwe's early years were hardly so glittering.

Born in the central part of the country during the days of British colonial rule, he did not finish high school and worked as a postal clerk before joining the army at the age of 20.

Making his way through the ranks
It is not uncommon for ordinary people in Myanmar not to finish high school. But among its elite, many are highly educated, with university and postgraduate degrees.

The young officer served for a time in the army's psychological warfare department, and in 1962 helped Gen. Ne Win stage a coup against a democratic government that ushered in 45 years of continuous military control.

Rising through the ranks, he was posted to the country's frontier areas where the government has waged a brutal campaign against ethnic minority rebels— a campaign that continues to this day.

Along the way, he developed a reputation as an inward looking hard-liner, and later as an adept political manipulator who trusted few and tolerated no rivals.

To ensure loyalty of the officer corps, he ordered that the salaries of battalion commanders be raised tenfold.

Suppressing the powers of others
In 1992, four years after the military gunned down thousands in a failed pro-democracy uprising, Than Shwe emerged as the chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, the country's 12-member ruling body.

When the council's intelligence chief, Gen. Khin Nyunt, began to accumulate considerable power, Than Shwe in 2004 had him placed under house arrest and imprisoned or purged hundreds of his followers.

Khin Nyunt, a relatively flexible, sophisticated man who had initiated a dialogue with Suu Kyi, was regarded by some as a hope for at least some change in Myanmar.

"I met Gen. Than Shwe three times and found that he is a strongman with a great deal of self-confidence," said Thailand's former army chief, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin. "He has a strong belief that he has been doing the best for his country, so I think it will be hard to change anything in Myanmar despite the pressure from all over."

Two exit scenarios are touted: that one of his rivals, possibly the junta's No. 2 man, Senior Gen. Maung Aye (pronounced mawng ay), will overthrow him, or that nature will take its course. Than Shwe suffers from hypertension, diabetes and possibly intestinal cancer.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21103992/

Aung San Suu Kyi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese: ; MLCTS: aung hcan: cu. krany; IPA: [àuɴ sʰáɴ sṵ tʃì]); born 19 June 1945 in Yangon (Rangoon), is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar, and a noted prisoner of conscience and advocate of nonviolent resistance. A Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship. She is currently under detention, with the Myanmar government repeatedly extending her detention. According to the results of the 1990 general election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but her detention by the military junta prevented her from assuming that role.

She is frequently called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; Daw is not part of her name, but an honorific similar to madam for older, revered women, literally meaning "aunt".^[6]

Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945. Her father, Aung San, negotiated Burma's independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, and was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. She grew up with her mother, Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San U in Rangoon. Aung San Lin drowned in a pool accident when Suu Kyi was eight. Suu Kyi was educated in English Catholic schools for much of her childhood in Burma.

Khin Kyi (Ma Khin Kyi) gained prominence as a political figure in the newly-formed Burmese government. Ma Khin Kyi was appointed as Burmese ambassador to India in 1960, and Aung San Suu Kyi followed her there, graduating from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi in 1964.^[7]

She continued her education at St Hugh's College, Oxford, obtaining a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 1969 and a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 1985. She also worked for the government of the Union of Myanmar. In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Dr. Michael Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture, living abroad in Bhutan. The following year she gave birth to her first son, Alexander, in London; and in 1977 she had her second son, Kim.

 Political beginnings

Aung San Suu Kyi and her father General Aung San

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother. By coincidence, in that year, the long-time leader of the socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democratisation on August 8, 1988 (8-8-88, a day seen as favorable), which were violently suppressed. A new military junta took power.

Heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence^[8][9] , Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratisation, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she would leave the country, but she refused.

One of her most famous speeches is the "Freedom From Fear" speech, which begins:

Detention in Myanmar

In 1990, the military junta called a general election, which the National League for Democracy won decisively. Being the NLD's candidate, Aung San Suu Kyi under normal circumstances would have assumed the office of Prime Minister.^[10] Instead, the results were nullified, and the military refused to hand over power. This resulted in an international outcry.

Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. During her arrest, she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990, and the Nobel Peace Prize the year after. Her sons Alexander and Kim accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. Aung San Suu Kyi used the Nobel Peace Prize's 1.3 million USD prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.

The military government released Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in July 1995 but made it clear that if she left the country to visit her family in the United Kingdom, it would not allow her return. When her husband, Michael Aris, a British citizen, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, the Burmese government denied him an entry visa. Aung San Suu Kyi remained in Burma, and never again saw her husband, who died in March 1999. She remains separated from her children, who live in the United Kingdom.^[11]

The junta continually prevented Aung San Suu Kyi from meeting with her party supporters or international visitors. In 1998, academic and journalist Maurizio Giuliano, after holding several meetings with her, was asked to leave the country and not allowed to enter again.^[12] In September 2000, the junta put her under house arrest again. On 6 May 2002, following secret confidence-building negotiations led by the United Nations, the government released her; a government spokesman said that she was free to move "because we are confident that we can trust each other". Aung San Suu Kyi proclaimed "a new dawn for the country". However on 30 May 2003, a government-sponsored mob attacked her caravan in the northern village of Depayin, murdering and wounding many of her supporters.^[13] Aung San Suu Kyi fled the scene with the help of her driver, Ko Kyaw Soe Lin, but was arrested upon reaching Ye-U. The government imprisoned her at Insein Prison in Yangon. After she underwent a hysterectomy in September 2003,^[14] the government again placed her under house arrest in Yangon.

In March 2004, Razali Ismail, UN special envoy to Myanmar, met with Aung San Suu Kyi. Ismail resigned from his post the following year, partly because he was denied re-entry to Myanmar on several occasions.^[15]

On 28 May 2004, the United Nations Working Group for Arbitrary Detention rendered an Opinion (No. 9 of 2004) that her deprivation of liberty was arbitrary, as being in contravention of Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, and requested that the authorities in Burma set her free, but the authorities have so far ignored this request.^[16]

On 28 November 2005, the National League for Democracy confirmed that Suu Kyi's house arrest would be extended for yet another year. Many Western countries, as well as the United Nations, have expressed their disapproval of this latest extension.

On 20 May 2006, Ibrahim Gambari, UN Undersecretary-General (USG) of Department of Political Affairs, met with Aung San Suu Kyi, the first visit by a foreign official since 2004.^[17] Suu Kyi's house arrest term was set to expire 27 May 2006, but the Burmese government extended it for another year,^[18] flouting a direct appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Than Shwe. Suu Kyi continues to be imprisoned under the 1975 State Protection Act (Article 10 b), which grants the government the power to imprison persons for up to five years without a trial.^[19]

On 9 June 2006, Suu Kyi was hospitalised with severe diarrhea and weakness, as reported by a UN representative for National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.^[20] Such claims were rejected by Major-General Khin Yi, the national police chief of Myanmar.

On 11 November 2006, USG Gambari, who was undertaking a mission to Myanmar for four days to encourage greater respect for human rights there, met with Suu Kyi. According to Gambari, Suu Kyi seems in good health but she wishes to meet her doctor more regularly.^[21] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Burmese government to release Aung San Suu Kyi, as it released 2,831 prisoners, including 40 political prisoners, on 1 January 2007.^[22]

On 18 January 2007, the state-run paper The New Light of Myanmar accused Suu Kyi of tax evasion for spending her Nobel Prize money outside of the country. The accusation followed the defeat of a US-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Myanmar as a threat to international security.^[23]

On 25 May 2007, Myanmar extended Suu Kyi's detention for yet another year which would keep her confined to her residence for a fifth straight year.^[24]

On 1 October 2007, in relation to rising political unrest in Myanmar, a United Nations emissary spent over an hour meeting with her within her guarded residence.

On 2 October 2007 Gambari returned to talk to her again after seeing Than Shwe and other members of the senior leadership in Naypyitaw.

    If any political figure today is an incarnation of Mara (the Buddhist Devil), in my opinion it would certainly be the Myanmar junta leader, General Than Shwe. If any political figure today is an incarnation of the Buddha (The Enlightened One) , in my opinion it is the beautiful democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, "Daw" Aung San Soo Kyi. Like Nelson Mandela outlived and overcome his Aparthied jailers, I pray so too will Aung San Soo Kyi outlive and overcome her Satanic jailers led by General Than Shwe and assume her rightful place as President of Burma (Myanmar).

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