Competing Analyses

There are two interesting analyses of the situation in Burma right now. One from the old media, the other from the new. Let's start with Denis Gray from the Associated Press. He is the AP bureau chief in Bangkok, Thailand, and has reported on Myanmar since the mid-1970s. (He reported on the 1988 uprising where thousands were gunned down in the street.)

Every sign of dissent over the decades has been crushed, including a major uprising in 1988 that ended when troops gunned down thousands of peaceful demonstrators and imprisoned the survivors.

The world has changed in many ways since 1988. The Iron Curtain fell a year later, showing freedom can emerge if authoritarian regimes aren't ruthless. Globalization brought increasing economic integration to Asia, including investment in a poor place like Myanmar. The Internet has made it increasingly difficult for governments to control information and dissent.

But in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, there are no outward signs of any change in the cardinal principle of the generals: Retain power at all costs, no matter international pressure and condemnation.

"The risk of not cracking down is infinitely greater than risk incurred in cracking down," said Mary Callahan, an expert on Myanmar at the University of Washington. "What we've seen in the last two days is a very clear message they are moving to put down what they consider a threat to the nation."……..

……By Myanmar standards, the crackdown so far has been muted. Though the military will not be satisfied until it has won, several restraining forces may be at work that would prevent a replay of 1988 and indicate some willingness to make compromises later.

One is the rise of neighboring China — the regime's leading trade partner and military supplier. Beijing has recently made low-key but telling statements urging the rulers to reconcile with the opposition and restore stability.

Gray's take is that the odds are heavily stacked against the uprising. He really does not see this working out well for democracy.

But there are no signs the generals, ensconced and safe in the remote new bunker-like capital of Naypyitaw, intend to relinquish any of the real power they have held since the last civilian government was toppled in 1962.

Questions have been being raised about whether soldiers — who are virtually all from the Buddhist ethnic Burman majority — would defy the taboo on mistreating monks and other countrymen. Most Burmese males spend at least a token few weeks as monks as a show of devotion.

However, there are no signs of cracks among the military's rank and file. Soldiers have shown no sympathy for protesters, and none has changed sides as happened in 1988 when some air force personnel joined demonstrations. Troops are kept isolated in barracks; their families get free housing and medical care.

"Judging from the nature and habit of the Myanmar military, they will not allow the monks or activists to topple them," said Chaiyachoke Julsiriwong, a Myanmar scholar at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

The junta keeps an army of 400,000. That is pretty darn large for a small country and absent foreign enemies, it can only be for one reason – to hold power internally. Switching them to new media, Richard Fernandez, Pajamas Media Sydney editor reports thusly:

The most important development in Burma over the last 24 hours is that the protest movement has not retreated before the government crackdown. The blogger Jotman reports that many thousands gathered at the Sule Pagoda yesterday, September 27. The government responded by opening fire killing several people, including a Japanese journalist.

If the Burmese government thought this would end things they were wrong. The protesters quickly picked themselves off the floor and immediately afterward, as the Irrawaddy reports, crowds continued through the city defying the curfew.

Crowds defied the curfew in several parts of Rangoon on Thursday evening. A 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew was clamped on the city on Wednesday, but as darkness fell on Thursday crowds of protesters still roamed the streets. At Hledan junction, security forces fired warning shots after the crowds ignored orders to disperse and go home.

The lastest report from Irrawaddy dimly hints that it is the generals who may be starting to crack. Unconfirmed reports from a Western diplomat speculate that the government may try opening negotiations with the opposition and that Senior General Maung Aye, not the nominal paramount General Than Shwe is now in charge.

One western diplomat in Rangoon has speculated that army chief vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye may meet the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi soon in an attempt to ease increasing tension in Burma. The source added that Maung Aye calls the shots for the moment.

Whether or not this is true, the generals are under increasing pressure.

I hope the protesters can get the upper hand. But if other brutal regimes have fallen by failing to act ruthlessly to suppress dissent, I also hope the Burmese junta has failed to learn that lesson. If they did, the uprising is in trouble. Agam in Thailand has more.