Bedtime Reading for the Generals
covering burma and southeast asia
Friday, March 29, 2024
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Bedtime Reading for the Generals


By Aung Zaw AUG, 2004 - VOLUME 12 NO.8


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(Page 2 of 4)

Journeys outside Rangoon are smothered in security measures.

 

It’s hard to reconcile such a scenario with the generals’ claim to have established stability in regime-ruled Burma.

 

The claim is based on post-1988 actions that certainly appear to have created a largely quiescent country.

 

Urban dissidents were suppressed, while nearly 20 rebel groups in the countryside struck ceasefire deals with the generals.

 

Today, Burma is a relatively safe corner of Southeast Asia to visit.

 

But still the generals are uneasy. Why else are they sleeping at the office and traveling around under the heaviest security?

 

The answer, according to Burma-watchers: they actually need instability as a raison d’etre.

 

“They want to show stability has been achieved, but the trouble is they also want a little bit of instability,” commented a journalist in Rangoon.

 

It’s a fact that military-ruled countries need instability as a pretext for remaining in power, with the support of security forces.

 

A perceived threat to stability occurred in May last year, when opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy were attacked by thugs backed by the government. The generals saw Suu Kyi and thousands of her supporters as a threat to which they responded by force.

 

The War Office became the generals’ second home in 1988

 

The ambush was well planned, with the support of local security forces and the Union Solidarity Development Association, the junta’s mass organization.



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