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Missed Deadlines Too many times, hopes for freedom in Burma have been raised only to be cruelly dashed by Yishi Mokhtra Aliran Monthly 2003:9 Please support our work by buying a copy of our print publication, Aliran Monthly, from your nearest news-stand. Better still take out a subscription now. We also welcome donations.
While Razali was in his 11th visit to Rangoon, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in effect that the �transformation of Myanmar into a democracy� should take place �by the year 2006� - when the country (or should one say almost certainly the current regime in power) is scheduled to take over as the chair of ASEAN. As the clich� goes �time will tell� whether these speculations materialise. Or should one say that just as there was a �Buckley�s chance� of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi being released by the time of the 2003 ASEAN summit, the Secretary-General�s target date of 2006 as �Myanmar Democracy Year� would continue to be � yet again - pious hopes. It is mathematically, politically, more probable that the only serving UN Secretary-General to receive a Nobel Peace prize would be re-elected for an unprecedented third-time as Secretary-General than for �Myanmar to become a democracy� by the year 2006. Dashed hopes The story of missed deadlines and dashed hopes in Burma can be traced back for decades - virtually since military rule began on an early March day in 1962. When the late Prime Minster U Nu was arrested in the early morning hours of 2 March 1962, he was not aware that there was a coup and that his Chief of Staff, General Ne Win, had taken over the reins of power.
Still, U Nu thought that he would be released soon and he vowed to keep the (Buddhist) Sabbath until the day of his release which, one military officer assured him, should take place in the next several days (that is some time in March 1962). At a press conference held on the day of U Nu�s (eventual) release on 27 Oct 1966, U Nu recounted that story and stated that he had just ended his �sabbath�. In Feb 1969, U Nu managed to leave the country and in a press conference held in London on 27 Aug 1969 proclaimed himself the �legal Prime Minister�. In the latter part of 1969, U Nu went to various places such as Hong Kong and Japan in his �campaign� to oust what he then called �the cruel and sadistic government of General Ne Win�. News items of that time indicated that U Nu said he intended to �return� to Burma in one year (that is by 1970). Over a year later, in early December 1970 Time magazine ran a news item about Burma under the title �Voice from the Jungle�. Time stated that U Nu had broadcast from an exiled radio station based at that time near the Thai-Burma border and that U Nu�s voice had not been heard in Burma �for eight long years�. In the 1970 Time article, U Nu or his followers claimed that �final victory� would be achieved by 1971. U Nu did return to Burma in response to an Amnesty granted by Ne Win and the then Burma Socialist Programmed Party (BSPP) government on 29 July 1980 but it was a very different return from what he had envisaged and predicted in 1969 and 1970! 
During what came to be known as the 8888 pro-democracy uprising the students and the student leaders who were in the forefront of it gave the BSPP government until 8 pm, 7 September 1988 to announce its �resignation� and to hand over power to an interim government. The (demanded) announcement of the BSPP government�s resignation did not come. Instead at 4 pm on 18 September 1988, after a brief playing of martial music, the new military council State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) announced on radio and television that it had taken over on a very different form. It was a very long-lasting �interim government� indeed!
Famous last words But hope continues to rise perennially not only among Burmese in and out of the country but even among seasoned Burma experts and academics. In an interview in early 1992 a well-known academic on �Burma studies� predicted that 1992 would be the �last year for SLORC�. Around mid-2001 one journalist writing for the now defunct Asiaweek was so sure that Aung San Suu Kyi and SPDC would come to a comprehensive agreement at the end of 2001 that he reminded his readers that when - �not if� he strongly inferred - that event took place they should remember that they read it �here first�. Around July and Aug 1998, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) gave the State Peace And Development Council (SPDC) a 21 Aug 1998 �deadline� to convene the Parliament that was elected in the 1990 elections. More than five years later the �recognition� of the results of the 1990 elections, far less the �convening� of the elected Parliament is but a mirage � and a very faint and if not already totally faded one at that - in the Burmese political landscape. It is true that the SLROC/SPDC had in the past also missed some �deadlines� as well. Some time in early 1992, the then SLORC (it might have been the current Prime Minster General Khin Nyunt) announced that the government intended to �capture� Manerplaw, the headquarters of the then strongest armed opposition group, the Karen National Union (KNU). The target date: on or before Armed Forces Day 1992 (that is 27 March 1992). Manerplaw did not fall to SLORC on Armed Forces Day 1992 but it did fall less than three years later in late January 1995. Even the UN Secretary-General has currently joined the �hope-raising exercises� by stating another deadline of 2006 as the �target year� to achieve �democracy in Myanmar�. Yet notwithstanding these series of bitter disappointments, those inside and outside of the country who continue to hope for positive change in the golden land of Burma should not despair. I recall hearing some predictions that the year 1978 �would (have) be(en) the last year of the Suharto regime� in Indonesia. It took another 20 years for Suharto to be ousted in May 1998. And contrary to what some people had feared Suharto � unlike the late Ne Win who for about a decade after his �retirement� in 1988 was a power or at least a �factor� behind SLORC - did not �pull the strings� of his successors. Before Razali�s visit, Ali Alatas, the wily (okay, suave) Indonesian politician who had served Suharto also came back from Rangoon empty-handed.. It is perfectly understandable for hopes to be raised and for speculation to be made in the context of Alatas� and Razali�s (eleven, in the latter case) visits to Rangoon - especially so since the UN Secretary-General himself has raised the stakes and �hoisted� yet another deadline. Still, the many �missed deadlines� and �crushed hopes� of the past several years, nay decades, should compel one to be cautiously pessimistic regarding the continuing Burmese saga.
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Yet notwithstanding these series of bitter disappointments, those inside and outside of the country who continue to hope for positive change in the golden land of Burma should not despair.
