Burma's Sopranos Part 2

8/4/2019 Burma's Sopranos Part 2

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Burmas Sopranos: The Military Regime and ItsCronies in Burma - Part 2

By Saneitha Nagani

The words of Khalil Gibran came into my mind when I thinkabout the military, the military regime and the political situation inBurma. I read those words in Robert Fisks book on the war inLebanon, Pity The Nation: Lebanon At War, in which he mentionedKhalil Gibrans poem at the very beginning of his book:

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eatsbread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows notfrom its own wine press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and thatdeems the glittering conqueror bountiful.Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yetsubmits to its awakening.Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks inthe funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebelnot save when its neck is laid between the sward and theblock.Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher isa juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose

strong men are yet in the cradle.Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragmentdeeming itself a nation.

Burmas military, borne out of Burmas independence movementand sworn to the oath is the military that served and protect thepeople and not for a handful of men and their self interests, has aproud history under the leadership of its founding father the lateBogyoke Aung San. However, ever since the militarys takeover ofpower in March 1962 under Bogyoke Ne Win it has become a topsy-

turvy sort of situation. The military has become the military for afew and enemy of the people. It has become worse under thecurrent military government of Senior General Than Shwe and itssuccessor Thein Seins quasi civilian government or Thein Seinscivilian government with military characteristics. The code theyhave sworn to live by during their struggle for independence hasbeen broken smothered into dirt. There is neither a code nor anideology to live by or defend for. The current military regime wassaid to have even tried to wipe the memory of its founding fatherBogyoke Aung San and the proud history of the military under hisleadership.


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While the regime made every concerted effort to send messages ofcondolences to the demise of each and every Chinese leader, themartyrs day which falls on the 19 July when Bogyoke Aung San andhis cabinet colleagues were assassinated just before Burmaregained its independence from the British was all but forgotten.

Unlike each year even under Ne Wins phony Socialist governmentthe day went by without state commemoration ceremony as theyused to be. The military and the military regime must havecherished Paukphaw relationship with the Chinese than itsrelationship with the countrys martyrs and its people. China hasbeen their saviour and they dont want to bite the hands that feedthem, I suppose.

As far as I can recalled the military got its creed from the statementput out by the Commanders of the Patriot Burmese Forces (PBF) at aconference in Pegu on 12 August 1945, which General Ne Win wasone for the signatories. The creed to live by since was that since assoldiers they have sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Burmathey should never allow themselves to be used for the protection ofa handful of people nor for anyones personal gains but to protectand defend the interests of the people as a whole. That promisewas broken and the code was smothered in dirt. The military nowfunctions like a crime syndicate Mafia or Yakuza.

The Italian anti-Mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, who was murderedby the Mafia in 1992, would certainly object me from using the word

Mafia to describe the military in Burma. Apart from their use ofviolence to intimidate and instil fear in the public, there was nothingcommon between the two crime syndicates. The Mafia (or Yakuza)has a very strict code that they lived by and operated on. Burmasmilitary, however, operated on the whims of the Senior GeneralThan Shwe. The late judge Falcone objected to the inflated use ofthe term Mafia to the field of all organised crime stating that, .. Iam no longer willing to accept the habit of speaking of the Mafia indescriptive and all-inclusive terms that make it possible to stack upphenomena that are indeed related to the field of organized crimebut that have little or nothing in common with the Mafia. According

to him it may be a misuse of the term in describing the militaryregime in Burma as Mafia. To him, it is not. Mafia ethics coveredlove, lust, marriage, fidelity, pride, envy, revenge, ambition, avariceand gallantry has little to do with it. Its most attraction was itssuperb indifference to the law. Their members only need to keepfaith with one another.

My use of that analogy may be a bit far fetched but I have myreasons to do so. While members of Mafia were initiated into thefamily by rubbing the blood from the pricked finger on to a paper

with the image of the saint, however, members to Than Shwesruling military council, the State Peace and Development Council


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(SPDC) were picked from those commanders who either served withhim in what is virtually the drugs trafficking command that is, theEastern Command in the Shan States. They usually have closerelations with the notorious drug lords from every ethnic group(who, by coincidence are mostly from Chinese extraction. They must

also be so tainted and involved in the drug business that none ofthem could afford to rat on the other thereby co-existing by thesaying of the Mafia that, Once youre in, youre never out and theonly way out is in a box.

Senior General Than Shwe was not even like a lion that would huntdown and killed its prey. He and his gang of military thugs are morelike a pack of hyenas who preyed on the spoils of others (BogyokeSaw Maung who took over power staging a coup in 1988 with theblessing ofU Ne Win was purged once he outlived his usefulness).Than Shwe runs the military like the Mafia, the family or LaFamigliahas to come first. The former drug lords like the late KhunSa, Lo Hsin-han, his son Steven Law and their crony Tay Za wereamong those given protection for their monopoly on business inbuilding, real estate, ports and transport just to name a few. Themilitary itself was never was dissociated from this concept of themilitary as being the family. Each one of them owe to each otherby a myriad of obligations which must be honoured. This can easilybe worked out from the rotation and promotion of the regionalcommanders. Who served with whom or under whom and this factorhas always been crucial in selecting a commander than his

capability as a professional soldier.

If you look at the ruling elite in Ne Wins era, either in the BurmaSocialist Program Party (BSPP) or in the government, most of themwho were in leadership positions have served with him in Tat-MahaLei(Fourth Burma Rifles). People who hold or held key positions inthe SPDC, and now in Thein Seins quasi civilian government themajority of them have either served with Than Shwe or have servedin the Eastern Command. According to some reports the currentpresident of the mutant military-civilian government was in bedwith the notorious Wei Brothers when he was serving in the Eastern

Command. The current Deputy President Thiha Thura Tin AungMyint U, no doubt should be fully aware of how the No 222 transportbattalion (Htauk-po Tatyin) stationed inAung-Tha-byei was used astransport facility for drug trafficking. He was a high school studentwhen his father was stationed there.

Like the Mafia, they may or they may not produce narcotic drugsthemselves but they are in business with the drug lords and thefacility such as the use of No. 222 transport battalion and theirprotection played a crucial role in the multi-million, if not billion

dollars, drug business in the Shan States. Not only were theyinvolved in the BCC bank saga they have also established a bank


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where their hedge funds are being deposited such as the MyanmarEconomic Holdings (MEH). The triads that you can never shieldyourself from when you are in the military politics in Burma is, thegenerals, drugs and the Chinese (particularly the ones in Yunnan).

China may have played an active role in drafting the internationalanti-drug agreement that was finalised in June 1988 in Vienna and italso was the second country to ratify the document there wereallegations that the Mainland China has become a major exporter ofamphetamines, particularly to Japan and Taiwan. The reports thatthe former drug lord Lo Hsin-han and his son Steven Law have beenthe middle-men for business investments and joint venturesbetween the military regime and China also pointed out Chinasinvolvement in the international drug trade. A report in China NewsAnalysis of September 15, 1997 mentioned that, Because of theproximity to the Golden Triangle, the border regions in Yunnan andGuangxi have been routinely considered among the regions mostexposed to drug trafficking and drug abuse. In a comparativelyfrank speech, then Yunnan provincial Party Secretary Gao Yanreminded his audience that Yunnan is one of the poorest provincesin the country; six million of its people live in poverty, and 73 of itscounties have been listed by the central government as povertycounties. Perhaps Gao Yan meant to suggest that Yunnans poormight have good reason to succumb to the temptations of profitablepoppy growing.

Not only that former drug lords such as Lo Hsin-han, his son StevenLaw and others like the late Khun Sa have been put back into thelegal fold, one could say that with the protection of the military andthe military regime they have monopolised the whole drugtrafficking business. The Wa and the USWA may take the brunt ofdrug trafficking accusations but the main player has always beenthe military whether it was for protection to the poppy growers,transport or money laundering on a very large scale. Like in mostillegal business the military leadership make sure that there wasthe element of deniability where the money trail would not lead tothem nor charges could be laid on them. One has to wonder why the

regime was so worried when the contents of the safe in theBurmese embassy in Bangkok, Thailand was cleaned out by a groupof rebel students who laid siege at the embassy for some days. Itwas reported that there were a list of names of whom internationalant-drugs trafficking authorities might be interested.

Now that a tyrannical regime like Colonel Muammar Gaddafis isabout to end even he was reported to have saying that he still haveelite presidential troops to fight with when it was opposed by thepeople of almost every strata then it is in a situation where these

soldiers have to wonder will it be worth sacrificing their live forGaddafi? The United Nations Security Councils resolution on Libya


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may not go as far as to allow NATO to remove Gaddafis regime byuse of force, can it stopped Libyan rebels from doing that whenneither the UN resolution nor the countries like China and Russiathat were reluctant to act on Gaddafis regime killing his own peoplewho were protesting against his regime from being assisted with

modern weapons from countries that wanted Gaddafis regime tostep down.

IfThan Shwe and his successor Thein Seins civilian governmentwith military characteristics were to learn some lessons from thesituation the Gaddafis regime is in right now and from the ArabSpring that is sweeping away one despotic regime after anotherinto the dustbin of history the military, it rank and file in particular,should reassess their role whether it time for them to go back tobasic and live by their creed of the military of the people for thepeople and not the military for a handful of people and theirpersonal gains. Time to say goodbye to the Burmas Soppranosand their cronies. END

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Burma's Sopranos Part 2