Reply #17: Walking a Stony Path article [View All]

[graphixtech]

Free all the monks and political prisoners!

(If there were a demonstration in the Kansas City area I would definately attend)

Walking a Stony Path
By Yeni
October 5, 2007
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8904


Opposition activists brave arrest and imprisonment in their campaign for democracy and social justice

Spirits were high as around 500 demonstrators, led by prominent pro-democracy activists, paraded through Rangoon on that fateful day in August. The demonstrators were a happy, optimistic crowd, talking about their hopes for a better life some time in the future.

For some prominent members of the 88 Generation Students group—notably Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Min Zeya—the demonstration would lead to imprisonment. But they were well prepared for it after each spending at least 15 years behind bars for their leadership role in the 1988 uprising.

Although they must have been fully aware that a return to prison awaited them, they refused to remain quiet in the face of the regime’s latest assault on the living standards of a downtrodden people. What they might not have been aware of was the possibility that their protest could become another milestone in Burma’s political history.

The regime is adept at rushing into effect swingeing price increases that it knows will anger the public and perhaps lead to isolated protests that it knows it can easily suppress. But this time it might have underestimated the depth of wrath felt by people who woke up one August morning to find fuel prices had been increased overnight by up to 500 percent. The increases had a knock-on effect on the prices of other daily necessities, adding to the public anger.

Although some observers have suggested that Burma’s military government, the State Peace and Development Council, might introduce neo-liberal-inspired economic reforms, the plain fact is that it is facing a massive budget deficit caused by its own inflationary spending.

A ten-fold increase in the salaries of civil servants and the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in such projects as the new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, the development of a planned cyber city, Yadanabon, and even a nuclear research reactor were examples of the regime’s profligacy.

It should have come as no surprise that the government had to raise taxes and increase the price of public services to help finance its extravagance.

The effect on the cost of living in a country where the per capita annual income is the equivalent of just US $170 meant nothing to the authoritarian regime.

A UN survey discloses that more than 90 percent of Burma’s population spends 60 to 70 percent of their household income on food. As a result of the recent fuel price hike and its effect on transport costs, the cost of a basket of essential household commodities leapt 35 percent. A typical city worker now has to spend more than half his daily wage of less than 2,000 kyat (US $1.5) in bus fares to and from work.

Popular frustration and anger have given the pro-democracy activists further cause to push the junta to listen to the voice of the people. The junta, however, has reacted by raiding homes, arresting leading opposition members and hunting down those who flee.

It hasn’t been able to stop the wave of demonstrations from spreading throughout the country, though. Now monks have joined in en masse, and the regime is clearly rattled.

The people, supported by the monks, are saying: “Enough is enough.” They are fed up with rising prices, plunging living standards, tired of power cuts and having to use generators to make their own electricity, impatient with inefficient public utility services. And they are tired of a government that takes no heed at all of their grievances.

As U Myint, a Rangoon-based prominent Burmese economist, wrote in an open-letter: “The deterioration in the quality of public utilities, such as electricity, water, sanitation, telephone service and public transport is a bitter pill for consumers.”

Burma’s ruling generals invariably complain that sanctions and the support such international pressure receives from the opposition National League for Democracy and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, have systematically weakened the economy by limiting trade, investment and foreign aid.

It’s true that the lack of access to international aid has fuelled inflation and led to macroeconomic instability. Sanctions should be lifted, but in the meantime the Burmese regime must agree to share power with the democratic leaders and create a business-friendly environment.

If the Burmese regime continues with its current policy, the political and economic situation could lead to chaos and extreme poverty. Without political and economic reforms, it may soon be too late to avoid another 1988 tragedy.

After 19 years in power, the current regime has yet to show that it can shape Burma’s fate alone. The time has come to work for genuine national reconciliation and to take steps towards democracy and prosperity, for the sake of every citizen of Burma.
(end)