Felled by the junta

The descent of Myanmar into a despotic state is a sordid tale of quixotic rulers, a narcotics-based economy and international intrigue and apathy

Mohan Guruswamy Delhi

India exists in probably the most unenviable neighbourhood in the world. If the countries that surround it are least governed, it's not because they are in an advanced stage of Marxist development. All around India, the institution of the State is withering away, in varying degrees, under the weight of ethnic and religious strife and competing aspirations, exacerbated by the avariciousness and ambitions of leaders.

But not all of them are in similar dire straits. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka might be closer to India in terms of standards of governance (although that may not be saying much for them, given what is prevalent here). Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are also caught up in their internal struggles, with few of the institutions that characterise a modern State. But even by such poor standards, Myanmar would be in a class by itself. It seldom makes the news — but when it does, it is usually for all the wrong reasons.

It recently made the news when the head of the Myanmarese junta, General Tan Shwe, sacked and arrested the prime minister and the third-ranking man in the junta, Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, who was also the head of Myanmar's feared military intelligence service. Nonetheless, Khin Nyunt was widely perceived as a "liberal".

Tan Shwe, the hardliner in the junta, immediately followed this shake-up with a visit to India. In the past few days, he has taken observers by surprise by ordering the release of 4,000 activists incarcerated for their support of the pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Also released was Min Ko Naing, seen by many as an ally of the National League for Democracy's Aang San Suu Kyi, who was incarcerated for 15 years. It was only over a year ago when Myanmar last made the news because of the renewed house arrest of  Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace.

The Myanmarese military junta took her into "protective custody" after a violent incident on May 30 that year, when her motorcade was ambushed in a northern town by as yet "unknown" miscreants, and in which she was reportedly injured. The then Burmese military intelligence chief, Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, accused her of "provoking the untoward events". (Suu Kyi has been under arrest for about half the time since she returned to Myanmar — then Burma — 17 years ago. After her previous arrest, which lasted 20 months, she was released in May 2002.) today, while Min Ko Naing has been released, Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.

India shares a 1,400km-long border with Myanmar that runs arbitrarily across forested ridges from Arunachal Pradesh to Mizoram. It's an open border and locals are free to move up to 20 km on either side: both countries have made a virtue of a situation over which they have little control – geography and history have made the political border irrelevant.

Like the rest of South Asia (with the exception of Nepal and Bhutan), Burma was a part of the British Empire; on April 1, 1937, the Government of Burma Act separating it from India came into effect.

Burma, now called Myanmar by the military regime, has a population of about 49.5 million, divided among 19 major ethnic groups. Most of the country is densely forested and rich in natural resources, not just jade, rubies, pearls and sapphires, but also oil and natural gas. Myanmar is the world's largest exporter of teak.

Since 1951, the production of narcotics has become a major occupation in the tribal regions abutting China and Thailand, and like elsewhere in the world, the development of narcotics as an industry coincided with the arrival of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in eternal pursuit of its phantom wars. Myanmar's first drug warlords were the Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese generals, whose forces the CIA was arming and training to "retake" China. The drug business then passed into the hands of tribal warlords like the notorious Khun Sa. Drugs are a high-growth business and, even today, the military regime derives "taxes" from it by allowing safe havens for their manufacture. Khun Sa now runs his business from Yangon.

Drugs are easily Myanmar's principal export, although this primacy is not reflected in the national income accounting. Myanmar today produces 84 per cent of the opium in Southeast Asia; most of it is in Shan state, where Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army calls the shots. On June 19, 2002, Mathew Paley, deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the US State Department, testified to a Congres-sional Committee that Myanmar was producing 800 million methamphetamine tablets a year. It's not without irony that the Americans are now spending a fortune trying to break the stranglehold of the drug lords and in interdicting the drug supply chain. Drugs, CIA arms and the dense forests have spawned many insurgencies in Myanmar. Out of the 387 known terrorist and insurgent groups in the world, Myanmar accounts for more than 40.

Some years ago, I crossed over into the Myanmarese town of Tamu from Moreh in Manipur. Tamil traders dominate the business in Tamu, but the really big business is in the hands of Chinese businesspersons. Tamu is like a Wild West town with more guns than people. It may largely be a shantytown, but it has some really good Chinese restaurants where the fiery fare can be dowsed down with plenty of Heineken beer. The trade across Tamu/Moreh now exceeds more than Rs 1,000 crore, and the exports from India, by head loads, consists of light engineering goods and machinery, durables like pressure cookers, suitcases, pharmaceuticals, garments and lots of acetic anhydride needed to process heroin from the opium base. Most of the goods go into southern China.

From the other side, there is a flow of scotch whiskey and other fine liquors, silks from China, teak logs, and lots of drugs on their way to Kolkata and Chittagong for export to the US to feed the unending appetite of the American underclass. But this is not without collateral damage in India. According to Manchen Hangzou, originally from Manipur and an AIDS researcher now working in New Delhi, over 40 per cent of Manipur's youth are addicted to heroin and other drugs; and because of indiscriminate needle use, over 50 per cent of addicts are HIV positive.

This is no longer a time-bomb: the bomb has exploded in Northeast India and the fallout is travelling Westward. This has not even left the security forces untouched. A few years ago, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy was intercepted by the Bihar Police, who found that it carried over seven truckloads of drugs. Investigations revealed that an inspector general of police of the CRPF was the mastermind. The issue has got lost in judicial processes and lethargic prosecution, leaving the officer to run about Delhi quite freely.

The problems of Myanmar are not going to go with the replacement of the military junta by a democracy led by the still popular Suu Kyi. On the contrary, a government headed by Suu Kyi could just be what will trigger a break-up of Myanmar. Suu Kyi might just end up like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, guarded day and night by foreign troops. In either case, these troubles are going to spill over into India in larger doses. The drugs will not stop flowing — just as in Afghanistan, even after the Taliban was routed. The tragedy here is that the problems are many but the options limited. They are only made worse by an indecisive government. Who cares who is in the hot seat when nothing changes?

In 1978 Atal Behari Vajpayee, then foreign minister of India, visited Myanmar. In the capital, Yangon (then called Rangoon), he promised that the body of King Thibaw — the last king of Burma who lost to the British in the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 — lying in an obscure grave in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, would be returned to Burma where it could be interred with the honours befitting a king. Likewise, the body of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal, who was buried in Rangoon, would be returned to India for a similar burial. Vajpayee also promised a pension of Rs 250 per month to King Thibaw's granddaughter, Tu Tu, who was living a life of poverty in Ratnagiri.

The Burmese "royalty" in India is yet to see a paisa of the promised largesse. India's failure to do even this much tells a great deal about its Myanmar policy.