I read “Lifting the Bamboo Curtain” with some interest since Robert Kaplan has written several books and articles that I thought were quite good, although I have to admit most of the things he has written post 9-11 were difficult to digest given his almost sole focus on the role of the American military as an instrument of US foreign policy. Unfortunately, his recent Atlantic article shows this same focus, but it appears Kaplan is trying to return to some of the themes he wrote about extensively in the 1990s, such as the role of NGOs. However, his foray into Burma, while raising interesting points, suffers from a lack of historical background. It seems as if Kaplan thinks modern Burmese history and US involvement with Burma began with Aung San Suu Kyi. I know most New Mandala readers are quite familiar with Burmese history but, nonetheless, I’d like to point out a few of the article’s flaws.
To begin with, Kaplan relies on the standard cliché that Burma is locked in time. As Martin Smith points out in his Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity nothing could be further from the truth. Burma has in fact declined precipitously in the last fifty years. It was once one of the leading rice exporters in the world; but even before Cyclone Nargis, it was having difficulties feeding its own people. The couple I stayed with years ago in Rangoon remembered when they used to travel to Singapore in the 1950s and reflected that back then it was primitive compared to Rangoon.
Speaking of the 1950s, Kaplan’s assertion that Chinese intelligence and elements of the Thai political and military establishment have begun to support and operate with anti-regime ethnic groups in recent years only makes sense if “recent” means since 1950, if not a couple of years earlier. In fact, Chinese and Thai (and US) intelligence agencies have been involved with various ethnic insurgent groups right from the start and an understanding of their roles is crucial to any analysis of the current situation in Burma. For example, the Karen insurgents simply could not and cannot survive without some level of backing from Thailand. The intensity of Thai support has ebbed and flowed but it has always been there, particularly within elements of the Thai military and business community which in many cases are one and the same!
Chinese intelligence has also been operating in the Shan States since the 1950s. After their defeat by the Communists, elements of the Kuomingtang Army essentially invaded swathes of the Shan States with covert US support, cooperated with local anti-regime ethnic insurgents, and supplied intelligence to the CIA. In the 1960s the Communist Chinese backed an invasion of the Shan States by exiled elements of the Burmese Communist Party (BCP) — along with volunteer Revolutionary Guards — which drove out the KMT and in turn allied themselves, and recruited among anti-regime ethnic minorities.
When the BCP broke up due to a mutiny by the rank-and-file ethnic minority soldiers against the Burman party leadership, the Chinese continued to support the mutineers even while switching support from the defunct BCP to the military regime in Rangoon. In fact, it is impossible to understand the rise of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), arguably the most powerful armed ethnic minority group, without Chinese support. The UWSA also has a ceasefire agreement with the military junta, has clashed with various Shan insurgent groups, has displaced Shan, Lahu and other tribal groups along the Thai border by re-settling over 100,000 Wa civilians in that region, and has become one of the world’s largest drug trafficking organizations all while enjoying a level of Chinese support. Strangely, Kaplan fails to mention the Wa. This is odd since their recent displacement of other ethnic minorities and armed clashes with other insurgents argues against his contention that the tribes show little propensity to fight each other, as least as far as the Shan States are concerned.
Another significant ethnic group that is missing from Kaplan’s discussion is the largest group in the country, the Burmans. While I am personally biased towards the ethnic minorities, the Kachins in particular, putting these biases to one side the fact is those ports and pipelines he mentions are going to go through the Burman heartland before they get to the Shan, Chin, Karen, Kachin, Wa, Lahu, Lisu, Palaung, Pa-O etc. Any realistic US policy must take in to consideration the Burmans, and their suffering under the military regime, in addition to the ethnic minorities.
A policy based on managing the hill tribes and aligning with the ethnic minorities may be difficult given the fact that the Burmese military isn’t the only group to oppose some sort of federalism for Burma. I suspect that opposition to federalism runs pretty deep among the Burman majority, and a US policy that is “all about the tribes” isn’t going to help things. Maybe a policy based on helping repair the damages inflicted on the Burman majority by military rule would be better.
As for change being brought about by some sort of coup or re-alignment within the military, this is hardly new thinking. People have been waiting for that and potential mutinies of the rank-and-file soldiers since Ne Win took over in the 1960s. More recently, some observers thought that Khin Nyunt, the head of Military Intelligence was going to the man of change once Ne Win died. Well, Ne Win is dead, Khin Nyunt was removed from his office by an even more intransigent faction within the regime, and his Military Intelligence power base was dismantled. I too hope that the regime might moderate in the future, but there is over 40 years of history warning against reliance on that particular deus ex machine. What happens if Than Shwe is replaced by a younger version of himself?
The biggest flaw in this article is Kaplan’s thesis that successful US policy depends on dealing adroitly with the Burmese hill tribes. This formulation would be amusing if it weren’t so patronizing towards the tribes to be managed. The US dealing adroitly with tribes? I could characterize the maternal side of my families over 200 years of dealing with the US in North America in many ways, but adroitly isn’t one of them. Southeast Asia isn’t much better. The Kachin fought one of the most successful guerilla actions of WWII against the Japanese with US help in northern Burma, but after the war the US abandoned them. As far as I am aware, the US showed no interest in protecting the interests of their former tribal allies in the run-up to the Panglong Agreement or afterwards. The chaos the Shan States suffered beginning in the 1950s is due in part to exactly the sort of policy Kaplan suggests the US now undertake. Furthermore, the Hmong, Lahu and Yao in the US are here because of a policy in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that included many of the features Kaplan suggests for Burma.
If the US is to become adroit in managing the tribes of Burma, it is going to need some practice, and unfortunately, China, India, and Thailand are way ahead of the US in this regard. It is strange that Kaplan, a writer who is so attuned to ethnic geography in many of his other books and articles fails to note that Burma’s ethnic groups extend well beyond its borders. There are large Karen and Shan populations in Thailand. The Shan are part of a larger Tai ethnic group which extends from Vietnam to India, and from Thailand to Yunnan province in China. (”Shan”, “Siam” and “Assam” all share the same linguistic root.) Chins are found in Burma and India. The Kachin inhabit not only the Kachin and Shan States of Burma, but also Northeast India and Yunnan, China. This ethnic geography provides India and China all manner of political, economic, and, just as important, cultural connections with Burma’s hill tribes that the US simply does not have. For an example of the complex transnational cultural connections, I would suggest looking at Nicholas Farrelly’s series of posts on Kachin Manau (a ritual dance) in Burma, China and India.
I think the fundamental error Kaplan makes is to assume that the missionaries’ success was due to their adroitness in managing tribes, or the ability to go native. That isn’t the case. The missionaries, like everybody else, were and are blinded by their own cultural, religious, political, and socio-economic biases. What made, and makes, a successful missionary is a genuine, deep concern for others and a willingness to work for their best interests, as far as the missionary can discern them. If that were the basis for the US policy for Burma, both for the hill tribes and the Burmans, then maybe Kaplan is right after all about taking a leaf from the missionaries’ book.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Hla Oo // Aug 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm
“It seems as if Kaplan thinks modern Burmese history and US involvement with Burma began with Aung San Suu Kyi.”
A very good point, in deed.
If you compare Burma to the econo-political developments of other comparable SE Asian countries, especially Indonesia, the main soaring point is General Ne Win’s steadfast refusal to abandon “Burmese Way To Socialism” for more than 20 years. By then in late eighties, Burma has really fallen behind and had to apply for a LDC status with UN so that all world bank loans could be forgiven.
Without Ne Win’s socialism and without that dreadful sanctions later after Ne Win, Burma would have a sort of democracy now as in the once-military-ruled Indonesia.
And believe it or not while the Burmese army has willingly abandoned the Ne Win’s Socialist legacy and started the economic reforms after the 1988 uprising, the negative results of that uprising has unfortunately hindered their genuine efforts and virtually killed off the nascent free- market-economy of Burma.
The current economic and trade sanctions by the Western democracies are the dire and horrible results of influential Burmese exile opposition which resides in the west and has forced a huge dark cloud permanently over our Burma. They are now blocking the sun rays urgently needed for the substantial growth of Burmese economy.
Without that much needed economic development, there won’t be a positive political development essential for the gradual progress of democracy as eventually happened in Indonesia and Thailand.
You hit the nail right on the head, Aiontay, wh0ever you are, Thanks!
2 aiontay // Aug 19, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Thanks Hla Oo for the compliment, but from where I stand the Burmese military failed to follow the Indonesian military- not a bunch of guys I’d choose to emulate-in two crucial respects. First Suharto did allow civilians to have some key positions in the government. Suharto’s hand picked successor was not from the military. Ne Win and his successors have not allowed any civilians in positions of power.
Second, I don’t think the military has abandoned the essence of Ne Win’s socialism, which is the military control of all economic resources. The difference is that they allowed outsiders in to exploit Burma’s resources and took a cut from the proceeds rather than attempt to exploit Burma’s resources without outside help as did Ne Win. This is not to say the Indonesian military didn’t take their cut; one only has to look at Suharto’s children to see that, but the scale simply isn’t the same.
3 Moe Aung // Aug 20, 2008 at 9:45 am
Thanks, aiontay. People often don’t see the wood for the trees. And what you call yourself, a self-proclaimed image such as the Burmese Way to Socialism, ain’t necessarily so. A kleptocracy by any name is still a kleptocracy. The difference, as you say, is whereas Ne Win treated the country like his own fiefdom his successors have taken advantage of the globalisation lark with its opportunities that international capital has to offer in order to enrich themselves. The ensuing feeding frenzy in the heightened exploitation of the natural and human resources of the country lays bare the hypocrisy of their nationalist rhetoric and sloganeering.
4 Stephen // Aug 20, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Supporting Aiontay’s well-founded position that the ’socialist’ policies of exploitation through a controlled-economy have continued into the so-called ‘liberalization’ period of post-1988 is research done into agricultural policy in contemporary Burma. Koichi Fujita and Ikuko Okamoto in their 2006 paper “Agicultural Policies and Development of Myanmar’s Agricultural Sector: An Overview” state:
5 aiontay // Aug 22, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Stephen, you raise a point that is extremely important to keep in mind in any discussions about Burma policy, the fact that the majority of the population, of whatever ethnic background, is rural and agricultural. This point was also brought home in the Packer article where he wrote about the gulf between the dissident from Rangoon and the rural population she was helping in the delta following Nargis. For the majority of Burma’s population, does it really matter whether the oil pipelines are built by Americans, Chinese or Indians, does it matter who gets to attend Australian universities, or does it matter whether Western backpackers can follow the Lonely Planet guide through Burma guilt free? For the Burmese population, the three agricultural policies you mention have much more of a daily, direct impact. What would a future US policy look like that was based on the situation of the rural population?
6 Stephen // Aug 22, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Indeed. I believe that the numbers of those in ‘rural’ areas and of those engaged in agricultural in Burma are both estimated at about 70% of the population. In respect to the concerns of this rural population, Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung’s 2003 paper on “Rural Perceptions of State Legitimacy in Burma/Myanmar” is, I think, quite important. She argues that this demographic has strong political concerns that tend to be more focused on the local-level implementation of State (primarily agricultural) policy than they are on the “high profile issues singled out by the international press” (p. 8).
I think that one can make a strong case for prioritizing reform of agricultural governance in Burma over issues of like the release of political prisoners or handing over power to the NLD, but the challenge is how to carry this out. If agricultural governance is, as Fujita and Okamoto have shown, largely about “avoidance of social unrest and sustenance of the regime” then agricultural reform is highly political and potentially subversive to military rule. As far as I am aware the FAO has been quite unable to address any kind of agricultural reform despite the multimillion dollor projects they are currenly implementing in Burma. Instead, the SPDC has only allowed them to implement programmes focused on increasing overall production of select crops; which, given policies of agricultural exploitation, are largely about “sustenance of the regime“.
7 Moe Aung // Aug 23, 2008 at 4:49 am
Sadly for Burma this particular group of ruling class appears to have no political insight, programme or competence whatsoever even in their own interest in order to consolidate and sustain their power in the long run except how to crackdown on dissent and protest using a blunt instrument or rather fire power. Crony capitalism and strongarm civilian squads as an adjunct to the kleptocracy is unlikely to broaden their power base among the masses in any meaningful way. There is no one else to blame but themselves for the unabated social unrest in a nation where the traditional expression is “happiness is so long as you can eat some leftover rice and cool down with a fan in one hand”. Is that really much to ask?
8 Hla Oo // Aug 23, 2008 at 10:34 am
My late mother told me often about a memorable scene from the last democratic election in Burma, between U Nu and Kyaw Nyein after their split of then ruling party AFPFL called Pha-sa-pa-la. U Nu was for Pha-sa-pa-la(Thant-shin) and U Kyaw Nyein the Pha-sa-pa-la(Te-mye). Army was the caretaker government then.
U Kyaw Nyein was openly supported by the Ne Win led army even though they were not supposed to do so. So in Middle Burma, where my mother was then, army actively canvassed for Kyaw Nyein and they basically tried to buy the rural votes. They paid money in advance to every village head that guaranteed their votes for Kyaw Nyein. Army even arranged the transportation for the whole villages to to nearest voting station well guarded by the same army.
The voting day came and the army trucks brought in loads and loads of villagers into the town. But once they entered the booth and saw the large photo of U Nu on his ballot box, they all lined up there and sat down on the ground and shitkhoede (similar to Thai wai) to his photo and voted for him en mass, of course to the frustration and anger of army officers supervising the voting process. The villagers had well forgotten their promises to vote for Kyaw Nyein, for they all innocently believed that U Nu was the Next Buddha.
The outcome was a landslide win by U Nu and two years later in 1962, wtih a clear support from Kyaw Nyein’s Socialist opposition, Ne Win led army staged a violent and successful coup. Burma was ruled by the same army since then. That basically shows the crucial role played by the Burmese villagers like what Thai villagers had done in Thailand for Thaksin’s Thai Love Thai party.
They used to say in eighties that Bangkok was Thailand and Thailand was Bangkok. But in the case of our country, Burma is villages and villages are Burma. The army knew it very well and they always reacted, for the villages are their main and probably only support base as almost all the soldiers and many of the officers come from the villages.
As anywhere else in the world, the two most important things for the Burmese Villagers are religion and their land. Army mainly used Buddhism to wipe the Burmese Communist Party out of the mainland Burma. Interesting thing is that the BCP knew it very well and they never aggressively pursued anti-Buddhism objective in the villages even under their control, but just being a Communist party didn’t really help when it comes to religion.
One young soldier gave me a simple answer in the eighties when I frankly asked him why they were willing to shoot the protesting students on the streets of Rangoon. He just simply told me that the students were Communists. He also believed that while they were risking their lives and limbs fighting the China-backed-Communists on the front line the students were trying to stab their backs. It was a bone-chilling statement and I will remember it for the rest of my life.
And land. When it comes to land and what villagers are allowed to do with it is quite complex but also very simple. Believe it or not, modern Burmese system is very similar to the medieval English system where all the land was owned by the lords and the clergy and the peasants worked the land but they had the basic right to hand it down to their offspring. They could also sell their crops in the market after giving a part of their crops to the landlord as a rent. Only difference in Burmese system is that the Lords and clergy are replaced by the State.
Theoretically in Burma, every inches of farmland is owned by the state. But at the same time the farmer who works a small plot of land, normally only about 20-50 acres in average, has the right to formally transfer his right to work that plot of land to another villager or hand it down to one of his sons or daughters.
I personally owned a plot of land, about 80 acres in middle Burma as my inheritance from my late grandmother, but since I don’t live there I had to transfer the land to one of my cousins who still lives on and works the land. The elders and the village council sees to these matters so that the large scale commercial transfer of land doesn’t happen in the village, for it was against the law and it keeps the average villager happy as the system did for the English peasants.
Same as the medieval English peasants, the Burmese farmers have to
sell a part of their crops to the State cheaply as a rent, and only after that they are allowed to sell their crops in the market at the market prices.
9 aiontay // Aug 23, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Twenty to fifty acres is a small plot of land? In the area of the northern Shan State near Lashio where I briefly worked on an agricultural project that would be a huge farm. Also, while the behavior of the Army there did in some ways seem feudal, there was a crucial difference. The feudal system relied on customary law, which usually imposed some restrictions on what the nobility could extact from the serfs. Based on what I saw, the Burmese Army has no restrictions.
10 Moe Aung // Aug 23, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Thanks, Hla Oo, you certainly have loads to tell us from your own experience of life in Burma. I’d definitely love to hear more.
11 Stephen // Aug 25, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Twenty to fifty acres is a small plot of land?
A 1998 study of Karen State by the Burma Ethnic Research Group reported that with a population about 70% rural, over 60 per cent of farmers cultivate agricultural land of under 5 hectares (12.35 acres).
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