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BURMA: Picture of Normalcy Presented to UN Envoy

Moe Yu May

RANGOON, Nov 15 2007 (IPS) - Over the past few days, Burma’s military regime has yet again proved its mastery at conjuring up an image of normalcy when an important visitor is in town.

But the drama played out for United Nations human rights envoy Paulo Sergio after he touched down in this commercial centre on Sunday has nauseated and angered the monks and ordinary people who have been at the receiving end of the junta’s extreme repression.

Gone from view were the intimidating figures of armed soldiers who had crushed a peaceful protest in late September. Downtown Rangoon did have a sizeable presence of plain-clothes men on duty to prevent attempts at staging demonstrations during Pinheiro’s five-day visit.

Similar deception was evident on the roads leading to the residence of Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who has been kept under house arrest for over 12 years. Barbed wire fences were rolled on and off the roads depending on Pinheiro’s movements in that area.

Yet there were moments when the true side of the country’s brutal military regime burst to the surface. On Tuesday, Su Su Nway, a leading labour rights champion who had been in hiding after the crackdown on the protests, was arrested in Rangoon.

The visit of Pinheiro, a Brazilian diplomat, was viewed by many here as a test of how open the military regime was to international scrutiny. For the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is officially known, had banned the U.N. envoy from visiting Burma, also known as Myanmar, for the past four years.

Initial signs suggested the SPDC’s willingness to compromise, given that Pinheiro was permitted to visit the notorious Insein prison in Rangoon soon after he arrived. Many of Burma’s over 1,100 political prisoners have long been held in this jail. It was also in Insein that hundreds of protestors were locked up after the brutal crackdown. But sources say that the opportunity for the envoy to interview the victims were limited during his first visit.

Pinheiro was also permitted to visit other detention centres, monasteries and a cemetery to gather details of human rights violations in this former Burmese capital. But it was scrutiny that was well publicised. On one occasion the junta’s officials took the envoy to the Htein Pin cemetery followed by a posse of journalists from the state-owned media.

As such accounts made their way across Rangoon, they prompted a reaction of cynicism and anger. ‘’The military government is like a sore on our body. It doesn’t give us any good thing. It badly infects the whole body,’’ a 26-year-old Buddhist monk told IPS. ‘’Only the U.N. and international pressure can cure that sore, I think.’’

This monk was among the scores of saffron-clad clergy who were beaten and arrested for their defiant role in the peaceful protests through the streets of Rangoon, which was the first of its kind seen in this country in nearly two decades. He was initially held at the General Technology Institute (GTI), a vocational training centre, in northern Rangoon, for 19 days before being moved to Insein prison.

The protests began in mid-August following a sudden steep hike in fuel prices. It was first led by civilians and former university student leaders known as the ‘’88 Generation’’ for the pivotal role they played in triggering a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, which was brutally crushed with some 3,000 people killed.

On the eve of his visit, Pinheiro warned the junta that any obstruction to his work, to inquire into the human rights violations that occurred during the September crackdown, will not be taken lightly. He threatened to stop his mission and ‘’fly out of the country’’ if his hands were tied.

The number of lives lost during the crackdown still remains unknown. The state media in Burma has reported that 10 people died after armed troops and riot police targeted the tens of thousands of monks and civilians who had taken to the streets in Rangoon and other cities. But anti-junta groups say the death toll was much higher, closer to 200 lives lost.

Rangoon’s citizens are hardly surprised that the junta downplayed the death toll to convince Pinheiro that the situation is less grim than reported in the international media, such as the BBC and Voice of America (VOA). ‘’I bet you this military junta would use every tricky way to hold its power,’’ a retired education officer said in an interview. ‘’(The junta) wrote in the (state-owned) newspapers’ back cover that the BBC is lying or VOA is lying, which is not correct. They are the liars actually.’’

But there are some who welcome the presence of Pinheiro and Ibrahim Gambari, a U.N. special envoy who was in Burma the previous week, as an opportunity to free the country from its oppressive environment. Gambari, who has visited Burma twice since the crackdown, has described his meetings with leading members of the junta and Suu Kyi as ‘’positive.’’

‘’I think dialogue will give us the best opportunity to solve all problems,’’ an artist in his mid-40s who was deeply involved in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising told IPS. ‘’We have to persuade the regime to accept the dialogue approach. We might need to use diplomacy sometimes (and) at the same time we have to organise and educate the government to come along.’’

Suu Kyi has already set the tone for this by her recent gestures during Gambari’s last visit, added a senior Burmese journalist based in the central city of Mandalay. ‘’It was like opening a window from her side. Aung San Suu Kyi passed a message of generosity to the world through U.N. envoy Gambari.’’