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Burma: The Land of Dope and Orgy

By Saneitha Nagani

George Orwell in his essay on the Lion and the Unicorn: Socialist and the English Geniuswrote that, One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming

strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In that regard the way I see my country of birth under themilitary rule as the land of dope and orgy will go against the grain of patriotism .

When one think about one s country, who would not wanted to look at it in all glowing terms? It wasnot an exaggeration when Orwell wrote, When you come back to England from any foreign country,you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in a few minutes dozens of

small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass isgreener, and the advertisements are more blatant. Unfortunately, for me I cannot say anything likethat because being an exile I can never go back unless there is a total change of government fromthe military dictatorship to a democratic one.

Whether one is an Englishman or not, one could not help from having goose bumps or chills tinglingdown the spine when one listened to the British patriotic song, Land of Hope and Glory . Not onlythe music of Edward Elgar but lyrics such as, Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shallwe extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set; God, who madethee mighty, make thee mightier yet, God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet wouldmake one pumped up in almost every sense.

When I was young I do love singing our national anthem. We would compete each other by singingat the top of our voices words like, da doh pyei da dohmyei doh paing-de myei; pyidaung-su goathet pei-lo doh karkwe malei, da doh pyei da doh myei doh paing-de myei. (In English it goes likethis this is our country this is our land, we will give our lives to protect to the Union, and this is our

land. ) However, under the present military government the national anthem in its essence andmeaning has changed to something like, da doh pyei da doh myei tayoke paing-de myei; tayoke-gyi go athet pei- lo thudoh karkwe nei da doh pyei da doh myei tayoke paing-de meyi . (In English, thisis our country this is our land but now owned by the Chinese; they (the military) will give their livesto protect the Tayoke-gyi (big Chinese); this is our country this is our land but now owned by theChinese. )

Orwell in his satire Animal Farm that when pigs began waling on their hind legs the last of TheSeven Commandments, All animals are equal was changed to All animals are equal but someanimals are more equal than others and in Burma under the military take over in 1962 it is like allpyithu or citizens are equal but some pyithu in green uniforms are more equal than others. Like pigs

in Orwell s satire the military in Burma have privleges from special shops, special schools, specialhospitals, to special protection under their constitution. Unless you are Chinese either a visitingdignitary, an illegal, a local born, a member of Triads or a drug lord you can not enjoy suchprivileges.

In a recent report in The Irrawaddy magazine about the situation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs(MOFA) in Burma, even though it has traditionally exercise a practice that when staff to theembassies abroad were assigned they have to take turns between countries in the developed world

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and the Third world countries also known as plum and lime postings. However, as MOFAbecame an acronym for Ministry of Family Affairs sons and daughters of the generals have onlyoverseas postings of what one can termed as plum and cherry. The sister of Zaw Phyo Win, son-in-law of Senior General than Shwe and now the Burmese ambassador to China, Aye Aye Myat has saidto have been enjoying her posting in London since 2006 and her assignment there is also said to

have been extended. This is one example of four legs good but two legs are better and if is happensthat the father of those two legs wore green military uniform then even much, much better.

In the ruling military elite most of them have had their commanding positions in what we could callthe Drug land Command . Like Than Shwe and many before him under Ne Win s military regimethose who held key positions in the ruling junta must have to served in the Eastern Command. Thetransport command there was the most formidable drug trafficking machine which operates underfull knowledge of the ruling generals. Just as the Sicilian Mafia is the most profitable multinationalon earth the military in Burma, with the collaboration of former Lo Hsin-han, his son Steven Law, thelate drug lord Kun Sa, and in some form of agreement with the Wa together with their networkoverseas, is also one of the biggest crime syndicates in the whole of Southeast Asia if not Asia.

The military, making them above the law, has always been involved in the orgy of extra-judicialkillings even during the period of U Nu s parliamentary government. It may not be that daring orblatant in the region where the majority of the population are Burmese but it was quite a commonoccurrence in areas of ethnic minorities. When I was young some parliamentarians from the Pao

ethnic background were murdered by the military intelligence just beyond the outskirts of our town.The sad thing was that, these culprits not only have the guts to brag about the killings but also toldus who got the rings, who got the watches of those murdered Pao parliamentarians.

Should anyone be surprised or shocked when a former undercover officer in the Burma s militaryintelligence now living in Australia went public in the press and confessed that he had committed atleast twenty four executions while working undercover? He also said that he was involved in at leastanother hundred murders. As an agent of the military intelligence he also said that he was to identifyand killed his targets. If such a low level official in the military intelligence establishment couldimplicate himself in such atrocities, how are we to know to what degree a commander in the militaryintelligence turned diplomat in Washington like Major Aung Lynn Htut can also be attributed tothose orgy of extra-judicial killings . Isn t it time for him to come clean with his past? END