BURMA: Junta Effects ‘Capital Flight’ to Remote Hills

By Larry Jagan Reprint | | Print |

Larry Jagan

BANGKOK, Nov 17 2005 (IPS) - By all accounts, Burma’s new capital at Pyinmana is now up and running and officials, unhappy with the bizarre move into the country’s central hills, no longer running away.

Since the dawn of Nov. 6, at a moment deemed astrologically auspicious, convoys laden with government paraphernalia and personnel have been rolling out of Rangoon, and heading for Pyinmana, some 400 km away to the north, in central Burma.

“Due to changed circumstances, in which Myanmar (as the military rulers call Burma) is trying to develop a modern nation, a more centrally- located government seat has become a necessity,’’ was the official explanation for the massive relocation underway.

All of Burma’s government administration will be moved to Pyinmana by yearend and be ready for workers’ families as well. Each ministry will even have a school attached, a Burmese businessman involved in the construction of the complex told IPS.

“Administrative and office buildings, as well as living quarters for more than 5,000 people have been completed,” he said.

But thousands of civil servants are, for now, separated from their families for lack of amenities and staff are reported to be virtually held as prisoners within a fortress-like campus.

The first bureaucrats to arrive at the new administrative centre were dismayed. “There’s no water, no electricity and no windows or doors fitted in the living quarters,” a senior government official told his family in Rangoon over the telephone. “I have to sleep in my office.’’

“There is nothing to eat, drink and nothing to buy. Just nothing,” another civil servant told his wife. “My boss even told me that he now understands what hell is,” he added.

Several senior civil servants have taken early retirement in the past few months, including the director general of the labour ministry and senior members of the foreign ministry.

Many more are now expected to try and retire or resign but they may not be allowed to, a western diplomat in Rangoon said.

The government has issued a warning that civil servants who try to abscond will be hunted down and treated in the same manner as army deserters, an interior ministry source said.

Privately, many are worried for the fate of the side businesses and small dealings they had built up in Rangoon, using their contacts in the government.

Meanwhile, vast sums of money have been channelled into building what the top Burmese Gen Than Shwe has named ‘’ Nay Pyi Daw‘’ or Place of the King.

More than 30 building companies have been taking part in the massive construction effort, with each company given a specific project within the overall plans, according to a construction contractor who is building a residential block.

The whole project is costing millions of dollars, according to a contractor. “It’s an open budget- no expense is being spared,” he said. A sergeant in charge of overseeing a part of the construction can commission work worth a 100 million kyat (ten thousand dollars), without referring it to his superiors, he added.

Some buildings have been torn down and rebuilt at least three times because some commander was not happy with the finished work when he saw it. “These people are so ignorant they cannot read the architectural plans; they can only decide when they see it constructed,” the builder said.

Mansions for the senior generals, government offices and national headquarters for the country’s ethnic groups and the powerful Union Solidarity and Development Association are also being built.

Bunkers, tunnels, a large military hospital, apartments, airstrips and a golf course are being built according to eyewitnesses. Two luxury hotels and two large supermarkets are also being constructed, according to an architect involved in the project.

At the end of the mass relocation, government administration and military headquarters will have been shifted to the 100 sq km complex at Pyinmana.

The creation of the new capital is primarily the idea of the top Gen Than Shwe. The plans have been in the pipeline for several years now and building started on it more than two years ago.

“This is typical of Than Shwe’s pretensions to be the new Burmese monarch. Like all the Burmese kings before him, he is building a new palace-capital for posterity,” said senior Burmese analyst, Win Min, who is in Thailand.

Ironically, Pyinmana served as the hideout from where Aung San, father of incarcerated, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, led a resistance movement against the Japanese army which occupied Burma during World War II.

“The planned retreat is essentially strategic,” said an Asian diplomat who regularly deals with Rangoon.

For months, Rangoon had been rife with rumours that the country’s military rulers were planning to retreat to the hills in central Burma because of fears of a foreign invasion from the sea.

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 reinforced the top general’s fear that Washington might attack Burma, according to analysts. Burma’s military strategists have long argued that the country’s defences were vulnerable to an attack from the sea.

“Than Shwe has a bunker mentality,” said Win Min. “But the motive behind this move is to make sure the military is in a better strategic position to control the regional commanders, the ethnic rebel groups in the border areas, the future parliament and combat social unrest throughout the country,” he added.

Foreign embassies are likely to have to follow the Burmese government into the hills. For now, they have been asked to fax all communications to Pyinmana, although a liaison office will continue to function in Rangoon.

Ministers have also been dismayed at the lack of consultation and the suddenness of the shift to Pyinmana. “Nobody agreed to this move, I don’t think even Gen Maung Aye (slated to succeed Than Shwe) … but we all just shut our mouths,” a senior military officer confided.

There is acute confusion with Burmese citizens waiting to pick up their passports suddenly finding the concerned office shifted 400 km away. Prices of consumer goods, already soaring because of the recent ten-fold increase in petrol prices, are set to increase further.

“The whole thing is absurd. The generals have made another major blunder,” said a Burmese businessman.