POLITICS-BURMA: Lessons in Revolution for Indonesia

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Satya Sivaraman

BANGKOK, May 27 1998 (IPS) - Indonesia’s pro-democracy movement, which forced the resignation of President Suharto, has evoked an acute sense of deja vu in military-ruled Burma.

Ten years ago, Burma itself was in the grip of a countrywide pro-democracy agitation that led to the fall of dictator General Ne Win, who like Suharto misruled his country for more than three decades.

The parallels do not end there, say political analysts and activists.

Last week’s transfer of the presidency from Suharto to his one- time crony and vice president Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie also bears close resemblance to the way Ne Win handed over power to trusted military subordinates who formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC).

The junta, which last year renamed itself the State Peace Development Council, has ruled Burma since the turbulent events of 1988. It has not stepped down despite losing general elections in 1990 to the opposition National League for Democracy. May 27 marked the eighth anniversary of the polls.

Burmese pro-democracy groups fear that if the Indonesian students and activists spearheading the anti-Suharto movement do not insist on a complete transition to democracy, the new Habibie government could consolidate its grip on power in coming months and continue the dictatorship under a new name — just like the Burmese generals have done.

“In September last year, when General Ne Win made his first public appearance in nearly a decade by visiting Indonesia, everybody talked about how Ne Win and his men were trying to learn from the politics of dictatorship from Suharto,” said Woe Min of the All-Burma Students’ Front.

“Now it seems to be Suharto’s turn to learn from Ne Win,” Woe Min said.

However, Burmese activists also point out that the Indonesian military and Suharto’s cronies seem to handling the transition to a post-Suharto regime with greater finesse than the Burmese generals did in 1988.

Several thousand pro-democracy agitators were killed in military-ordered crackdowns in Burma before Ne Win reluctantly handed power over to his handpicked successors.

In contrast — barring a few incidents — the Indonesian military avoided direct confrontation with pro-democracy protesters and played a more behind-the-scenes role in seeing to it that anti-Suharto movement does not become a full-scale toppling of the entire military and business elite.

“It is the sophistication of Indonesia’s dictatorship — with the military controlling domestic party politics without taking, due to its covert role, public blame for the government’s shortcomings — that has always attracted the attention of the Burmese junta,” says an Asian diplomat in Rangoon.

Equally attractive to the Burmese generals has been the way Indonesia, despite its dismal human rights record and large socio- economic inequalities, has managed to project itself as a South- east Asian success story.

Till the past few months when Indonesia’s political and economic crisis made Suharto’s continuance in power seem more and more impossible, he was hailed by western governments led by the United States as a regional “statesman”.

Official visits between the Burmese and Indonesian governments increased sharply in the early nineties, since the generals in Rangoon were keen to seek support from their “elder brother” dictatorship.

SLORC is reported to have even translated and distributed the Indonesian constitution as a model for the new charter now being drafted in Rangoon. The charter seeks to give the military complete dominance over national politics.

The closeness between the two regimes was also reflected in the fact that Burmese embassy in Jakarta is the country’s largest in the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.

Suharto is also believed to have played a key role in getting ASEAN to grant Burma membership last year. In return, Indonesian business groups, particularly those belonging to Suharto’s children, have struck lucrative business deals in Burma.

Political analysts in the region have long believed that ASEAN’s policy of “constructive engagement” toward Burma was born out of a desire to prevent the contagion of pro-democracy movements from spreading across the region, and to gain exclusive access to Burma’s rich and little exploited natural resources.

“What is happening in Indonesia now — the assertion of power by the people — is precisely what the leaders of ASEAN countries like Suharto have been afraid of all these years,” said a Burmese journalist based in Rangoon, who preferred anonymity.

But he added that Indonesia may still end up Burma’s way, if anti-Suharto forces commit the same mistake made by pro-democracy groups in Burma in 1988: being unable to seize power from the military effectively, despite the fact that there was virtually no government in the country for nearly six months.

Reports reaching here say that in Rangoon itself, Indonesia’s turbulent events have been blacked out by government-run news and media channels. They said the number of troops in key areas of the capital were also increased as a precautionary measure.

Still, many Burmese have been able to follow the events closely by listening to international radio broadcasts — with reports of divisions within the Indonesian army being of particular interest.

Some pro-democracy activists believe the developments in Indonesia will have a serious impact on the thinking of Burma’s generals and could even exacerbate differences within them.

With socioeconomic conditions in Burma worsening day by day, the activists do not rule out the outbreak later this year of new pro-democracy movements. If that happens, generals in both Burma and Indonesia could find themselves learning lessons from their people — instead of from each other.