On 7 March 2002, Ne Win and his daughter Sandar were placed under house arrest in Rangoon. Sandar’s husband and three sons were taken into custody for allegedly plotting to kidnap General Than Shwe with two other colleagues, and hold them at Ne Win’s home until they agreed to reorganize the government to suit Ne Win’s future plans.
Ne Win died on 5 December, and General Than Shwe no longer needed to contend with anyone.
Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest again in May 2003.
Abandoned by the SPDC, the Butcher died on 12 April 2004 in acute poverty.
On 27 March 2006, over 12,000 troops marched in the new capital Naypyidaw for a massive military parade to mark Burma’s Armed Forces Day—the anniversary of the 1945 uprising against the Japanese occupation of Burma. Names of townships in development were all derived from ancient Indian Pali.
August 2007 saw protesters again on the streets of Burma after the junta raised the price of cooking gas by 500 per cent and doubled the cost of transport fuels. The movement gained momentum and became known as the Saffron Revolution. Buddhist monks had joined in, leading it. It was the largest protest seen in Burma since 1988. Hundreds of protesters led by thousands of monks marched in Rangoon.
The junta cracked down. Than Shwe ordered the soldiers ‘shoot to kill’.
Than Shwe then finalized the Constitution, giving ultimate power to the army commander-in-chief, sequestering 25 per cent of the seats in the parliament to unelected military appointees.
Burma, under Ne Win’s Tatmadaw, underwent a dark period when it was suspicious of everyone and abused all equally in its bloodlust. Under Than Shwe, the situation got darker. After the military rout of the Karens, Naypyidaw turned towards the Rohingyas of the Rakhine State.
British colonial policies had encouraged migrant labour from Bengal, India, to settle in the Arakan region of Burma, bordering what is now Bangladesh. This was for rice cultivation and profits. Many Muslims entered Burma—the Muslim population tripled to a million, living alongside the Yakines or Rakhines. The British promised these Muslims—who became the Rohingyas—separate land in exchange for support. During the Second World War, the Rohingyas sided with the British, while Myanmar’s nationalists supported the Japanese.
The Arakan was a front line where the Muslim Rohingyas fought with the British, while the Yakine Buddhist nationalists joined forces with the Japanese. Muslims and Buddhists attacked each other, leading to massacres on both sides between 1942 and 1943—just like it happened between the Burmese and the Karens. Following the war, the British rewarded the Rohingyas with prestigious government posts but not with an autonomous state.
After Burma’s independence in 1948, some of the Rohingyas in Arakan rebelled against U Nu’s government for an autonomous state. Most Rohingyas did not, and some religious leaders even condemned the religious justifications used by the rebels. However, the rebels’ demands were shared by many, including recognition as indigenous Burmese peoples and rejection of Buddhist claims that Burmese Muslims were outsiders. The rebels also demanded that Muslims be integrated into the Burmese government and army, and improve the economy and education in Arakan. When talks with the government failed, the rebel guerrilla forces drove Buddhists out of villages in Arakan. The Burmese Army responded by razing Muslim villages and mosques.
Ne Win’s military coup in 1962 ended formal Muslim and all other minority political activity, which was seen as a threat to Burmese national identity.
In 1978, Ne Win’s Tatmadaw launched a military operation called Nagamin (Dragon King), and began screening the population and registration of foreigners. More than 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, amid allegations of army abuses. The army denied wrongdoing of any kind. This operation forced relocation of Muslim villagers, and was accompanied by widespread looting, rape, arson and the desecration of mosques.
Between 1991 and 1992, in response to the increasing fighting capability of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), the SLORC’s overture was Operation Pyi Thaya (Clean and Beautiful Nation), to expel ‘foreigners’ and Rohingya insurgents (specifically of the RSO) from the area. It resulted in the displacement of another 200,000 to 250,000 ethnic people, but failed to prevent further attacks by the RSO, which continued until the end of the 1990s.
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On 25 July 2010, General Than Shwe, ostensibly on a religious pilgrimage, arrived in India. He began his five-day visit starting his tour at Bodh Gaya, its earlier Pali name Bodhimanda-Vihara, where the Mahabodhi temple is situated. It was here that Gautama Siddhartha, sitting under the Bodhi tree, attained enlightenment. He then went to several Buddhist temples in Kushinagar. Was it his quest for enlightenment or to remind his host of Pagan’s first Bamar king Anawratha’s ascendancy over the ancient Pyu and Mon kingdoms, whose culture originated in India? Or was it to strengthen ties between Burma and India before a storm brewing ahead?
Aung San Suu Kyi was still under house arrest.
However, in Gaya, the general was greeted by activists with posters accusing him of crimes against humanity. Scores of pro-democracy campaigners demonstrated in New Delhi, accusing the general of ordering the ruthless crushing of a pro-democracy Saffron Revolution led by monks in 2007, the exploitation of forced labour and a systematic repression of basic human rights on a daily basis.
Unperturbed, the general then held talks with the Indian government, signing agreements on economic cooperation, drug smuggling and terrorist activities across the India–Burma border.
In 2012, sectarian violence erupted again across nine townships in the Rakhine State, displacing another 35,000 people—mostly Muslims. Human Rights Watch reported that the attacks against Rohingya and Muslim communities, in general, were organized, incited, and committed by local Yakine political party operatives, Buddhist monkhood and lay Yakine, visibly supported by state security forces. Rohingya men, women and children were killed, many buried in mass graves and their villages and neighbourhoods razed to the ground.
In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest that she was on since November 2010, and won a monumental victory in a general election held on 8 November. The NLD won an absolute majority of seats in both houses of the parliament, placing her in a position where she could govern the country. The military was stupefied. In their conviction of triumph, foreign observers were allowed. Regardless, the military held the defence, home affairs and border affairs ministries, and retained the veto over constitutional change as well as the right to place the country under martial law at any time.
Dowsing her elated spirits surging from such a pinnacle of success for which she had endured so much pain, sacrificing her husband and children, salvoes of dissent, louder than Sein Lwin’s, crashed on her. November 2016 saw a major resurgence in the Arakan. On the morning of 25 August 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched coordinated attacks on 24 police posts and the 552nd Light Infantry Battalion army base in Rakhine State.
Aung San Suu Kyi knew that she was walking a tight rope between the Tatmadaw and the Ethnic Armed Forces, who continue holding unbending positions. Unless the attrition begins hurting both sides and brings about a stalemate which could only hurt more, a genuine negotiation can never be achieved.
Real power still resides with the military in Burma, in control of the state’s entire security apparatus.
For the Nobel Laureate, the country’s problems do not stop with the Rohingyas. There has been no conclusive settlement with the Shan, Karen, Kachin and other ethnic groups. Armed conflict continues, and hundreds of thousands remain displaced. Human rights abuses—including arbitrary detention, land confiscation, rape and torture continue in the name of development.
The country is yet far from being ‘Aung San’s Burma’.
Meanwhile, Naypyidaw watches.