BurmaNet News, September 8, 2010

[Editor]

September 8, 2010 Issue #4037


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Mass pullout from Shan state continues
Mizzima: Rangoon mayor pushes city staff to vote USDP

BUSINESS / TRADE
Reuters: China assures isolated Myanmar of its support
Irrawaddy: Burma buys 50 combat helicopters
Irrawaddy: Burma’s bizarre, bullying tax collection system

INTERNATIONAL
Guardian (UK): BBC World Service broadcasts in Burma face axe
AFP: Media watchdog slams Myanmar's pre-poll censorship

OPINION / OTHER
Global Post (US): Myanmar election: An outrage or an opportunity? – Lex
Rieffel and David Steinberg
Irrawaddy: Deconstructing law and politics in Burma – Elliott Prasse-Freeman


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Mass pullout from Shan state continues – Nang Kham Kaew

A key official charged with brokering negotiations between the Burmese
junta and the Wa army has now been withdrawn from the volatile region as
additional government workers leave Mongla territory.

The pullout from the two ‘special zones’ in Burma’s eastern Shan state
began this week. Although no official reason has been given, tension is
high between the junta and the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA)
over the ceasefire group’s refusal to allow Burmese troops to accompany
election officials in to survey the area prior to 7 November polls.

Added to the Wa withdrawal, which has included the junta’s liaison
official with the UWSA, more than 100 government workers from the Mongla
army-controlled region of Shan state are now in Kengtung, one of the
state’s principal towns that lies within Burmese army territory. As well
as the UWSA, the Mongla army has been ordered by the ruling State Peace
and Development Council (SPDC) to transform into a Border Guard Force
(BGF), or else face reprisals.

Like the majority of Burma’s ceasefire groups, both have however refused
the move, which would see their lower-ranking troops assimilated into the
Burmese army.

This has added to tension in the country’s border regions, many of which
are controlled by armed ethnic groups. Of particular concern is stability
along Burma’s shared border with China: junta chief Than Shwe is currently
in Beijing where Chinese Premier Hu Jintao is expected to urge the
military general to ensure no flare-ups occur prior to elections. An
outbreak of fighting in August last year between Burmese troops and a
Shan-based ethnic Kokang army forced some 37,000 refugees across the
border, and drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing.

A military analyst based on the China-Burma border, Aung Kyaw Zaw, said
that the issue would “definitely be included” in the bilateral
discussions, adding that “it is likely there will be small-scale, limited
battles before 7 November to seize some territory [from the Wa and
Mongla]”.

One of the government workers now Kengtung told DVB that “all government
staff in [Mongla and Wa] started being pulled out about two days ago;
everyone was [ordered] to leave.” He added that workers may be kept in
Kengtung for a month, despite no reason being given for the pullout.

In the Wa region a number of government workers in the health and
education sector have refused to leave, a UWSA official said.

“They have been stationed here for about five or six years already and
didn’t want to leave. Some of them are staying behind,” he said, adding
that permission had been given by Wa leaders for them to remain.

However he denied rumours that Burmese troops had been deployed near the
Wa border.

____________________________________

September 8, Mizzima News
Rangoon mayor pushes city staff to vote USDP

Rangoon – The mayor of Burma’s former capital has told departmental heads
to push municipal staff to cast their votes in favour of the main
junta-backed party in polls on November 7, city employees said.

Rangoon Mayor Aung Thein Lin told the municipal chiefs to hold special
meetings in their departments to pass on his message that city civil
servants should vote for the Union Solidarity and Development Party
(USDP), of which is a high-ranking member, according to a municipal
worker.

“But, it’s not the desire of the departmental heads. They just pass the
message on to the employees but they will have to collect advanced votes 

all of which will go to the USDP,” the municipal official said, on the
condition of anonymity.

The former brigadier general is chairman of the Rangoon City Development
and a central executive committee member of the Rangoon Division USDP. He
will stand for the South Okkalapa Township constituency seat.
The mayor reportedly used the same tactic ahead of the 2008 referendum on
the constitution.

“In the 2008 referendum, we had to cast votes in advance,” a city engineer
said. “We didn’t need to go to polling booths. In the forthcoming
election, I heard that the authorities will do the same thing. I live in
Insein municipal housing but they [USDP members] told me I didn’t have to
go to the Insein polling station. They said they would collect our votes.”

Municipal employees live in city housing in Insein, Sanchaung,
Kyeemyindaing, Mingalar Taungnyunt, Tamway and Botahtaung townships.

There are 21 departments in the Rangoon municipality and departmental
heads were required to join the USDP as members to keep their jobs. The
municipality has about 3,000 employees and nearly all are eligible voters,
of which, in the run-up to the elections, authorities have started to
collect lists.

The USDP filed a total of more than 1,100 candidates to contest seats in
the People’s Assembly, the National Assembly and in the States and Regions
Assemblies in the forthcoming election, making it the largest party.

With 975 registered candidates, the National Unity Party (NUP) is the
second largest.

Among the 47 political parties that have applied for registration, the
electoral commission has approved 42, while 32 have submitted lists of
party members.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

September 8, Reuters
China assures isolated Myanmar of its support

Beijing – Chinese President Hu Jintao assured Myanmar's reclusive leader
General Than Shwe on Wednesday of China's support for his diplomatically
isolated country ahead of controversial elections in November.

"China pays a great deal of attention to relations with Myanmar," state
television quoted Hu as telling Than Shwe, 77.

"Consolidating and developing Sino-Myanmar cooperation and friendship is
our unswerving policy. No matter how the international situation changes,
this policy will not alter," Hu added.

China is willing to increase its economic and trade cooperation with the
former Burma, especially in the energy sector, Hu added, without providing
details.

He said China and Myanmar must work hard on energy and other projects,
which "benefit both peoples."

Military-ruled Myanmar is subject to wide-ranging economic sanctions
imposed by Europe and the United States stemming from its bloody crackdown
on pro-democracy protesters in 1988 and continued detention of opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

But China is keen to maintain close ties with Myanmar, coveting its oil
and gas and access to the Indian Ocean for poor and landlocked
southwestern Chinese provinces. Yet it also frets about drug lords and
rebel armies operating along the border.

In August 2009, refugees flooded across into China following fighting on
the Myanmar side of the border between rebels and government troops,
angering Beijing.

Than Shwe told Hu that his government was committed to ensuring stability
on the border as part of a "long-set policy" of protecting its friendship
with China.

"Maintaining peace and stability on the border is of the utmost importance
to both countries," the report quoted Than Shwe as saying.

State television made no direction mention of Myanmar's November 7
elections, at which the ruling junta's civilian proxies are expected to
score a resounding victory. The U.S. and European governments have
condemned the poll as a sham.

Hu said that China "understands and supports the Myanmar government's
efforts to promote ethnic reconciliation."

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

____________________________________

September 8, Irrawaddy
Burma’s bizarre, bullying tax collection system – William Boot

Bangkok—Tax collection in Burma is made by anyone in a uniform—police,
soldiers, navy, militia, customs inspectors—but almost none of it is
recorded or put to use for the public good.

The arbitrary money grab is often nothing more than a source of extra
income for the collectors, says a comprehensive investigation of Burma’s
medieval-like tax quagmire.

“People all over the world are dissatisfied and complain about the taxes
they are obliged to pay. However, the [Burmese] military has transformed
taxation from a routine and legitimate function of government into
extortion and a tool of repression,” the Burma Network for Human Rights
Documentation, a Thailand-based NGO, alleges.

Much of the random tax is illegally collected at checkpoints on roads,
rivers and at ports and land borders manned by soldiers, sailors, police
or customs officials.

It ultimately undermines business and trade across the country and
pauperizes the people.

In Kachin State, 18 different state-linked groups were logged taking money
or goods at three “security” checkpoints.

The result often leads to the collapse of trade and transport businesses
which are financially bled to death, concludes the report “The Hidden
Impact of Burma’s Arbitrary and Corrupt Taxation.”

It provides a chilling view of the state of Burma’s economy only weeks
before national elections billed by the ruling junta as paving the way to
reform.

“We do not expect that people’s lives will improve after the elections
planned. The military is poised to maintain control over the political
life of the country. Its plan to transform the armed opposition groups
into a border guard force and various militias will maintain the
militarization of Burmese society—a system largely paid for through
arbitrary taxation,” the report says.

The Burma Network for Human Rights Documentation, known as ND-Burma,
commissioned economists from Australia’s Macquarie University Burma
Economic Watch unit to carry out the tax investigation, which was funded
by two agencies in the United States, the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED) and the Open Society Institute.

The NED is funded by the US Congress while the institute is financed by
billionaire investor-philanthropist George Soros.

The report is the result of an investigation conducted over two years. It
stems from an inquiry by the NGO into what was the biggest threat to
Burma’s economic health and human rights among the country’s population of
more than 50 million people.

“None of us expected at the beginning of the exercise that we would end up
focusing on taxation and its corruption,” said the authors.

The ND-Burma study concurs with two other recent reports on the state of
Burma’s economic health as the junta’s manipulated elections loom,
scheduled for Nov. 7.

Officially recorded collected tax figures for the 2009/10 financial year
record a modest increase—but to a laughably small US $1.1 billion.

This is translated by the junta’s Central Statistical Organization as
being $193 billion at the official exchange rate, said a report in August
by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Revenue from customs duties actually slumped by more than 46 percent
compared with the previous year, according to figures obtained and
interpreted by the EIU, to a mere $44 million at the free market adjusted
rate for the local currency.

“Although the junta is now accruing substantial earnings from natural gas
exports, little appears to be finding its way into official government
coffers,” said the EIU. “Anecdotal evidence suggests that extensive
off¬-budget military spending has continued in recent years.”

An Australian expert on Burma’s economy is more scathing: “Taxation
arrangements are chaotic, arbitrary, in large part out of the control of
central authorities, and singularly inefficient in either collecting
sufficient tax revenues or in imposing reasonable and non-distortionary
costs on productive enterprise,” said Sean Turnell, a senior professor of
economics at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Methods of assessing personal or household tax by self-appointed town
council collectors are mostly unorthodox but also utterly bizarre, said
Turnell in his report, “Burma’s Macro-Economy at the Cusp of the 2010
‘Elections.’” They include deciding the size of tax payment based on the
digits of a household’s telephone number, he said.

____________________________________

September 8, Irrawaddy
Burma buys 50 combat helicopters – Min Lwin

The Burmese Air Force (BAF) has bought 50 Mi-24 helicopters and 12 Mi-2
armored transport helicopters from Russia, according to a source from the
BAF.

The purchase of the M-24s marks the first time the BAF, known in Burmese
as Tatmadaw-Lay, has procured combat-equipped helicopters.

“50 Mi-24 fighter helicopters and a dozen Mi-2s were procured from Russia,
and are now being assembled in Flying Training Base in Meikthila,” the
source said. “After assembling the helicopters they will be divided among
four squadrons at Magwe Air Base and Ela Air Base.”

Burma currently has 15 air bases. Ela Air Base, not far from Burma’s
remote capital Naypyidaw, is the newest and is frequently used by Burma's
senior military generals and government officials for domestic and
international flights.

The procurement of the Mi-24s comes a year after a request was made to
Russia by BAF chief Lt-Gen Myat Hein in a bid to modernize Burma's ailing
air force and provide a weapon to conduct air strikes against infantry
battalions, most likely in Burma's ethnic areas where dozens of armed
groups still exert control.

“The main reason for purchasing the Mi-24s is for counter-insurgency,” the
source said.

In 1956, the BAF bought six Kawasaki Bell 47G helicopters from Japan, but
did not upgrade its fleet until 1975 when the US provided 18 Bell 205A-1
helicopters as part of an anti-narcotics program.

Since then, Burma has acquired some 70 helicopters, few of which are still
in service. The BAF has traditionally separated its helicopter fleet among
air bases at Hmawbi in Rangoon Division, Namsang in Southern Shan State,
Taungoo in Pegu Division and Ground Training Air Base in Meikthila, which
is in Mandalay Division.

One Mi-17 helicopter crashed in 2001, taking the lives of several senior
military officials, including Burmese army Chief-of-Staff Lt-Gen Tin Oo.

An Mi-2 helicopter from Taungoo Air Base crashed in June near Pindaya
Township, resulting in four deaths.

The BAF was founded in 1947 before Burma gained independence. Its
principal raison d'être for many years was a campaign against the the
Burmese Communist Party in the jungles of Burma's north and a decades-long
war waged against several the country's ethnic armies, most notably the
Karen National Union.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 8, Guardian (UK)
BBC World Service broadcasts in Burma face axe – Rajeev Syal and James
Robinson

The BBC is locked in talks with the government over drastic cuts to the
World Service budget which could force it to withdraw from Burma and
several other countries.

The Foreign Office, which funds the World Service through an annual £272m
grant, has told executives to prepare for a possible budget cut of 25%
from April 2011 as part of the public sector cutbacks.

The BBC service in Burma is one of those identified by the government as
under threat, according to a diplomatic source. "The Burma office is up
for grabs. It is a question of costs. It is very expensive and has
relatively few listeners. The 'human rights' argument doesn't hold much
sway with the new Foreign Office."

The World Service Russian presence, which reaches about 700,000 listeners
and a further 1 million through its Russian-language website, may also be
vulnerable to cuts, according to BBC insiders.

BBC sources said talks with the government would continue for six weeks,
however, and claim no final decisions have been made.

The outcome of the consultation will be known on 20 October, when the
chancellor, George Osborne, outlines the scale of the government cuts in
the Treasury's public spending review.

The apparent threat to a Burmese service that has been used by dissidents
to monitor the ruling military junta and learn of the outside world has
angered Labour.

David Miliband, the shadow foreign secretary, called on the government to
confirm it will ringfence the BBC Burmese service. "The World Service is a
steady, credible voice in parts of the world where the only other messages
blend threats and propaganda. Scrapping the World Service in Burma would
be a gift to the military junta, and an insult to political prisoners
locked in Burma's jails for no crime."

The BBC first broadcast in Burmese 70 years ago at the start of war in the
far east. Since then the BBC Burmese section has witnessed and recorded
all the political events, including military crackdowns and the election
victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in May 1990.

It broadcasts for over an hour every day and attracts an audience of 8.5
million, according to figures released by the BBC earlier this year.

Although best known for its radio broadcasts the World Service also runs
websites and TV stations in 32 countries in dozens of languages. It has a
global audience of 241 million across TV, online, radio and mobile phones.

The World Service was criticised for pulling out of eight countries in
eastern Europe three years ago to fund new services in the Middle East,
including a new Persian TV service.

The BBC argued that audiences in the former Soviet bloc were falling while
the Foreign Office believed its resources could be better employed in a
region where Britain is attempting to effect change.

The Russian service was maintained, however, and any move to close or
reduce it would also be controversial.

Asked to comment on claims that the government plans to cut BBC Burmese, a
Foreign Office spokesperson said: "As part of the spending review we are
in discussion with the Treasury about all aspects of the FCO's future
budget, including the FCO's grant in aid to the British Council and World
Service.

"The outcome of the spending review will be announced to parliament on 20
October. It would be wrong to comment on the details while the review is
under way.

"The foreign secretary [William Hague] has repeatedly made clear the
importance he attaches to both the British Council and the World Service.
He has also made clear the need for all parts of the FCO family, including
the Council and World Service, to contribute to efforts to boost
efficiency and cut public spending," she said.

BBC sources stress that executives are examining a number of scenarios in
an attempt to reduce costs, including reducing investment in some
platforms as an alternative to ending their presence in some countries.

A spokesman for the World Service said: "Like all publicly funded bodies,
we have been asked to consider the likely impact of significant funding
cuts and applying them to a wide range of scenarios.

"It is important to note that no decisions have been made; and we will
discuss any confirmed impact on our services with staff first.

"We will continue to argue confidently that the BBC World Service is one
of Britain's most effective and vital assets in the global arena;
particularly at a time when other governments are increasing, not
reducing, their own investments in international broadcasting."

____________________________________

September 8, Agence France Presse
Media watchdog slams Myanmar's pre-poll censorship

Bangkok— Myanmar's ruling regime has increased its censorship of the
country's already highly restricted press in the run up to the first
election in 20 years, an international media watchdog said Wednesday.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which describes the military-ruled
country as as a "censors' paradise", said there was nothing to suggest
local or foreign media would be able to freely report on or ahead of the
November 7 vote.

It said media restrictions were tightening as the polls approach, citing
as one example the week-long suspension of the weekly Modern Times for
changing the headline of its weather forecast without permission.

An article about the possibility of heavy rain in September was given the
headline "Will it come in September?" which the censors suspected was an
allusion to the anti-government Saffron Revolution in September 2007.

"Without press freedom, the election will just be a sham," the group said
in a statement.

Military-ruled since 1962, Myanmar has more than 150 privately-owned
newspapers and magazines but they are all subject to pre-publication
censorship by a press scrutiny board run by an army officer, RSF said.

"This kind of censorship is virtually unique in the world and prevents the
emergence of any editorial independence," added the watchdog, which ranks
Myanmar 171st out of 175 countries in its 2009 press freedom index.

RSF said police were also continuing to prevent the circulation of any
pro-opposition publications and coverage of election preparations was
restricted to a few -- mainly pro-junta -- media.

"The coverage is above all limited to the electoral manoeuvring of the
generals in the government and the registration of political parties," the
group said.

The election has already drawn strong criticism for tough restrictions on
pro-democracy parties and rules that bar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
from standing.

Suu Kyi was never allowed to take power after her 1990 election victory
and has been in detention for much of the last 20 years.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 8, Global Post (US)
Myanmar election: An outrage or an opportunity? – Lex Rieffel and David
Steinberg

Washington — The military junta in Myanmar recently announced that the
country’s first election in 20 years will be held Nov. 7.

This is the country formerly known as Burma, that went to the polls in
1990 and voted overwhelmingly for the National League for Democracy (NLD),
only to have the results thrown out by the junta.

This is the military junta that has kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house
arrest for most of the past 20 years and made her one of today’s leading
global symbols of the struggle for democracy and human rights.

This is the junta — led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe — that has presided over
the world’s longest continuing civil war (since 1949), that brutally
suppressed monk-led demonstrations (in 2007), that was slow in responding
to the worst natural disaster in the country’s history (Cyclone Nargis in
2008), and that allowed the country to sink to the bottom rank of the
world’s countries by most social and economic indicators.

And Than Shwe is the dictator who has been impervious to the sanctions
imposed by the United States and other democratic countries, as well as to
pleas from the United Nations to bring an end to decades of flagrant human
rights abuses.
Click here to find out more!

Why then is the junta holding an election now?

There are multiple reasons for the scripted performance that is underway.
In particular, the military’s ideology calls for their continuing
leadership to safeguard national unity. The military junta has been ruling
by decree since 1988 and an elected government holds the prospect of
mitigating domestic unrest and the international condemnation that annoys
them. Moreover, in 2003, the junta promised to implement a seven-step
“roadmap to discipline-flourishing democracy.” Free and fair elections are
Step Five.

The most compelling reason, however may be that the election is Than
Shwe’s solution to one of the biggest challenges faced by any
authoritarian state: succession. Hoping to avoid the ignominious ending of
Gen. Ne Win, his predecessor — who was placed under house arrest while
members of his family were put in prison — Than Shwe has opted for a
stage-managed transition to handpicked loyalists who will protect him, his
family and business cronies. He will still be calling the shots, pun
intended.

Responding to growing pressure from democracy and human rights advocates,
the U.S. Congress is now considering imposing more sanctions against
Myanmar because its draconian campaign regulations have tilted the playing
field sharply in favor of government-supported parties. In addition, a
recent news leak indicated that the U.S. government might support a U.N.
commission of inquiry as a first step toward criminal indictments of
Myanmar’s leaders for their human rights abuses.

Approaching its own difficult mid-term elections on Nov. 2, the Obama
administration is bending to the political winds due to the high costs of
pursuing a more nuanced policy on an issue without an internal political
constituency.

Similarly, the European Union and other democratic countries are taking
harder stances. Between now and Nov. 7, a rising crescendo of voices
condemning the election process is likely. Support of many kinds will flow
to opponents of the regime inside Myanmar and among the large exile
community in Thailand and elsewhere. An internal boycott movement has
already started.

Almost all independent experts expect the election to be carried out
peacefully, with the junta’s favored party winning the largest block of
seats in the national parliament on top of the 25 percent reserved for
military officers.

They also expect that the new government due to emerge two or three months
after the election will quickly be accepted by Myanmar’s ASEAN partners,
the major Asian powers — China, Japan and India — and the U.N. A key
point, however, is that the new government will almost certainly be
different in some important respects. It may adopt policies more conducive
to private sector-led growth, and may evolve toward a more representative
form as other Asian countries have done.

For the U.S. government and the international community, the ultimate
policy challenge after the election will be to forge a relationship with
the new government that benefits the 50 million people within Myanmar’s
borders who have been deprived for at least two generations of basic
access to education and health services and other benefits of modern life.

As so often the case in policy choices, the perfect will be the enemy of
the good. The momentum of recent opposition will intensify pressure from
the West to make the political system more democratic quickly. But
Myanmar’s Asian partners will not join this chorus, and the Western
pressure could be counterproductive.

What lessons have Americans drawn from their efforts over the past 10-20
years to bring democracy to conflict countries such as Somalia, Sudan,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea? We
may be proud of our record of fighting for good causes, but most of the
rest of the world is not impressed by the results.
Click here to find out more!

The path to democratic rule in most Asian countries has been a long one
associated with periods of authoritarian rule driving rapid economic
growth based on free market principles, and the opening of alternative
avenues of social mobility. In the process, middle classes with a vested
interest in pluralism and good governance have been created.

A similar process in Myanmar would certainly be frustratingly slow for
most Burmese. With smart, nuanced policies, however, the U.S. and other
Western countries could help to ensure that the November election is a
major step toward a democratic and prosperous Burma or Myanmar.

Lex Rieffel is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in
Washington. David Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian studies at
Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and the author of
"Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know."
____________________________________

September 8, Irrawaddy
Deconstructing law and politics in Burma – Elliott Prasse-Freeman

Aung San Suu Kyi has reiterated that the now-disbanded NLD should sue the
junta over its election laws, a strategy that she first invoked last May.
The strategy is curious, given that she has spoken continually over the
past two decades about the absence of the rule of law in Burma.

If there is no rule of law, why attempt to utilize legal channels to
effect change? Is this a flailing attempt at relevance and voice, a way to
fight the increasing marginalization of Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) now that it has refused to re-register as a political
party? Or is it a highly sophisticated strategy, highlighting the gap
between the law’s ostensible claims and its actions, and therefore
creating a break in the legitimacy of the junta’s order, thereby
compelling some political action that would lead to (gradual) change?

We must start by assessing the concept of law in Burma. Suu Kyi’s
long-standing claim is that there is no rule of law and she is correct.
Instead of a set of impersonal rules, law in Burma operates as a tool of
power.

The state “illegalizes” a staggering number of actions in the political
and social sphere (little association, no sententious utterances; even
punitive punishments against breaking traffic rules), and thus those who
would challenge the state are always operating from a position of relative
instability. Law is a way of providing military-state leverage over
everything, especially political threat.

While this has not been lost on Suu Kyi and the NLD in the past, in this
act of suing the junta they appear to appeal to the law as if it is not a
political tool, as if it has sovereignty unto itself, power that would
bind the junta as well. There is a contradiction: either there is no rule
of law, or the law operates autonomously, such that one could sue a ruling
dictatorship.

Logically this fails, but politics operates on a separate logical plane.
We must ask: what is the political worth of suing the junta over the
electoral process? To whom then are they appealing? If it is to external
audiences (to try to ensure the “international community” does not
“recognize” these elections) then it is more of the same, as this supposed
“community” of international actors lacks the will, the tools, and more
importantly the legitimacy to alter the trajectory of politics inside
Burma. The last two decades stand as proof.

If, on the other hand, Suu Kyi is directing this symbolic political act at
her putative constituents (the Burmese people), the situation becomes more
interesting. By holding the junta's “law” at its word, and saying,
essentially, “We know this is all a sham, but to highlight how much of a
sham it is, we will pretend that it's real, and force the junta to follow
its own logic,” is this a powerful form of resistance? Do we see here an
example of “using the master's tools against him?” More importantly, will
the people respond?

Not likely. Sadly, there appears to be no mechanism through which suing
the junta would lead to political change. First, it is likely people are
under no illusions that the law is an independent device rather than an
enforcer of the existing order. Second, it is likely that the energy of
the dissent will get “captured” by legal processes: by risking
participation in a “legal” process, the act of resistance risks getting
co-opted and thereby neutered. Third, even if the people did see the act
of suing the junta as transgressive, there is no attendant political
message from the NLD to impel these citizens to risk participation in
political action. And how should they get involved in politics? There is
no answer. Read this way, the politics of suing the junta is a dead end.

But perhaps a mobilizing political maneuver is not what Suu Kyi intends
from the legal suit. Indeed, I have assumed that by suing the junta Suu
Kyi actually believes she can effect political change. But perhaps Suu Kyi
simply wants to save face, and by doing so, maintain the NLD’s symbolic
power. Such an organizational survival tactic is a savvy move.

However, the enduring question remains: won’t the NLD continue to fade
from relevance without constructing resonant alternative political
messages?

Opportunities do exist. The regime is powerful but also out-of-touch. It
has established a sophisticated patronage scheme wherein it is the only
conduit toward social mobility, but it has also been unwilling to deliver
services to the people. It has crushed political opposition, but has been
incapable of indoctrinating the population with its propaganda.

This system creates significant fissures between despotic state and
grassroots society, allowing civil society groups to emerge and deliver
social services. Therefore, opportunity may exist around (if not within)
the upcoming elections. If activists can politicize the pacified civil
society, for instance by blaming absent services on governance failure,
explicitly political messages may reach a populace excluded from public
decision-making.

Turning the prosaic struggle to survive in Burma into an active political
idiom could spur the 52 million people to demand accountability for the
health, education, and welfare failures that the military has perpetuated.

Start with alternative messaging: “That you don't have electricity, health
care, enough money to send kids to school—this is not an accident, this is
a governance issue!” Continue by getting back to the proverbial streets:
using canvassing, outreach, guerrilla art, and Internet to bang that drum
about these daily struggles. Radio shows can highlight the struggles of
average Burmese people, and the NLD can outline what it would do
differently if allowed to rule.

This phenomenon may lead to a gradual amelioration: people make gentle
demands on the state, and the state responds to the multiplicity of
demands with concessions in order to maintain stability. In addition, an
active politics engaging the average person will result in growing
relevance for the NLD, which it can deploy in future political battles.

If there is no such evolution, the risk is that the democrats will be
stuck in a courtroom, while the country staggers on without them.

Elliott Prasse-Freeman is a research associate with the Carr Center Human
Rights and Social Movements Program.  An honors graduate of Harvard
College, he spent five years working in international development for
various agencies—from the UN to international NGOs—where he directed
projects in Burma, India, Thailand, and other countries in Southeast Asia.