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'After Baghdad, Yangon'
By
Nelson Rand
MAE SOT, Thailand - If George W Bush
is wondering where next to take his "regime change"
crusade after he's polished off Saddam Hussein, Saw
Bawah has a suggestion: Myanmar.
Saw Bawah is a
medic with the Karen National Liberation Army. Recently
he came across the border from his jungle base camp in
Myanmar to this small Thai town to watch the US-led
"shock and awe" campaign against Iraq on a television in
the office of the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), an
armed ethnic group opposed to the ruling junta in
Yangon.
Saw Bawah's Karen group has been
fighting for an independent homeland in eastern Myanmar
since 1949. On this day he sat with his face right up to
the TV screen, watching in awe as coalition planes
dropped bombs on Baghdad and firefights erupted in Umm
Qasr. It was an information overload for this man who
rarely receives any news from the outside world - let
alone live TV coverage of a war. He couldn't tell the
difference between Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Information
Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and Americans on the
television set, but he knew what was going on: Britain
and the US were taking action against a brutal dictator
and his regime.
Said Saw Bawah: "I hope that
when the US is finished with Iraq, it'll do the same in
Burma."
He was not alone in his sentiments. It
is here in Mae Sot where political dissidents, exiles,
and ethnic leaders and guerrillas from neighboring
Myanmar congregate to battle their own repressive
government - politically and militarily - that has been
ruling their country with an iron fist since 1962.
Like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Myanmar is ruled by
a repressive government that has been blasted repeatedly
by the international community for human-rights abuses
including rape, torture, the imprisonment of political
prisoners, and the killings of ethnic minorities. The
International Labor Organization has slammed the country
for its use of forced labor, Reporters Sans Frontieres
calls it the "world's largest prison for journalists",
and a report last May by the Shan Human Rights
Foundation documenting the systematic use of rape by the
Myanmese army on ethnic-Shan civilians received
widespread publicity and condemnation of the Yangon
government by the international community.
Myanmese dissidents and ethnic insurgents based
in and around Mae Sot know what life is like living
under such a regime, and so they watch with envy as US
and British troops invade Iraq to destroy Saddam's
government.
"We would have liked the Americans
to do what they are doing now in Iraq to have done in
Burma 50 years ago," said Aung Naing Soe of the ALP. He
was among 15 Myanmese from his and Saw Bawah's ethnic
factions who sat glued to the television set, flipping
the channels between CNN and the British Broadcasting
Corp.
There were no debates or arguments in the
ALP office about the war. Nobody criticized the US and
Britain for their actions, disputed the morality of the
invasion, or condemned military action for causing the
loss of innocent lives. Everyone agreed: war was the
right course of action. Everyone there wanted the US to
do the same to Myanmar, and they all were willing to
lose an innocent family member in a military strike if
it meant freedom for Myanmar. "We are not fighting for
our individual families," said Naing Soe, "we are
fighting for the freedom of our country." (The ruling
junta officially changed the name of the country from
Burma to Myanmar in 1989.)
"The people of Burma
know only too well about Iraqi suffering, as they have
suffered themselves under the hands of a brutal military
regime possibly worse than that of Iraq," said a Myanmar
activist in the ALP office who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "But for Burma there is no end in sight as
they don't have the natural resources that interest
other countries like oil. Where does this lead them in
their struggle for democracy? ... Another 50 years of
murder, rape, torture, summary executions and genocide -
unthinkable."
Ethnic groups in Myanmar such as
the Karen, Shan, and Arakanese accuse the Myanmese
government of genocide in their ethnic areas. In the
words of one senior KNLA commander, Saw Ner Dah Mya,
"The Burmese government wants the Karen to survive only
in museums."
The country is besieged with
international sanctions for its poor human-rights record
and is widely condemned for not honoring the results of
1990 national elections in which opposition leader Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory. The country is
also the world's second-largest producer of opium.
Saw Thashee, an aide to senior KNLA leaders,
said the KNLA would be willing to give 10,000 Karen
troops to help the US in Iraq if they would help them
afterward to free Myanmar - a very generous if not
impossible offer considering the KNLA only has about
5,000 soldiers.
There was only one person in the
ALP office who took a different stance on the war with
Iraq. "I'm against it," said Ran Naing of the ALP.
"Because the US didn't ask me to come and help them."
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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