Burma Virtually Shut Down by Street Protests

Hundreds of thousands of Burmese protesters, maintaining their pressure on the reeling regime, virtually shut down the nation on Friday as diplomats expressed deep concern that public order was in peril.

As half a million people roamed the streets of the capital of Rangoon, government offices were reported deserted, public services were crippled and air and rail transportation was halted. Indeed, events continued to move so swiftly that the beleaguered government, the third in a month, seemed unable to establish a timetable for change.

“The ground under the government has shifted so far and so fast that it simply can’t survive,” one Western envoy told reporters.

‘Government Control Eroding’

Other diplomats said they saw the same signals but were not as pessimistic. “Government control is eroding,” one cautioned, “but it has not disintegrated.”

At a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the late independence leader Aung San, told the cheering crowd near the Shwedagon Pagoda that the immediate appointment of an interim government and a multiparty political system were crucial “to avoid anarchy and bloodshed.”

She demanded a “government the people can trust” but warned that “democracy can only be obtained in a peaceful and unified way.”

But formation of an interim government would place great pressure on the largely unstructured opposition forces, which have won a number of political concessions but so far have put forth little beyond the demand that the present regime be ousted.

And the lack of high-profile leaders has hurt the opposition as well. Aung San Suu Kyi has been identified by some as a potential leader because she is the daughter of the revered Aung San. But she has little political experience and is married to a foreigner, a British professor of Asian history, and makes her home in Cambridge, England.

The Associated Press reported from Rangoon that another potential opposition leader, Gen. Tin Oo, had written in a letter to President Maung Maung that “it is now long overdue to abolish one-party (government) in favor of a multiparty system. It is imperative to immediately transfer power to an interim government . . . composed of people acceptable to the country.”

For now, the general wrote, “the country is in the grip of a general strike paralyzing the whole administration.”

Maung Maung proposed Wednesday that leaders of the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party meet Sept. 16 to endorse his call for a multiparty political system and set a date for a nationwide referendum on the issue.

‘We Want Democracy’

But a placard seen at one demonstration Thursday said in response: “We Want democracy, Not a BSPP Meeting.”

In Bangkok, one knowledgeable Burmese exile, Thant Myint U, a grandson of former U.N. Secretary General U Thant, told reporters that he received information that the homes of 38 ministers and deputy ministers had been burned down by angry Burmese mobs, and that their possessions, including televisions and video recorders, were being sold on the streets of the capital.

“Every place where civil administration has collapsed, the people have organized councils of elders and monks to oversee the distribution of food and try to prevent looting,” he said.

Thant Myint U’s information bolstered wire service reports Friday from Burma that the situation is deteriorating rapidly for the beleaguered government.

Transportation Snarled

Trains and domestic flights were reported halted by strikes. At the same time, foreign ships are stranded in the port of Rangoon, factories and oil refineries are shut down, and workers at Burma’s six daily newspapers stayed off the job for the second day.

People are hoarding necessities, and the price of rice has reportedly soared.

The Burmese army was said to be in control of only the airport, the Inya Lake Hotel, where most foreigners are staying in Rangoon, and at the house of former strongman Ne Win.

Official Radio Rangoon said protesters had commandeered 27 buses in the capital, stolen gasoline under threat of violence and driven the vehicles around the city. At the same time, a riot by 2,000 inmates and a fire were reported at Insein prison in the Rangoon suburbs, where most of those arrested in the swelling anti-government protests are held. Radio Rangoon said that several inmates were wounded in the protests.

However, the British Broadcasting Corp.’s television network, quoting sources, said up to 1,000 inmates had been killed at the prison when guards opened fire during the riot. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the BBC report.

In lifting martial law Wednesday, President Maung Maung called for “civility” as political options are explored. On Thursday, Aung Gyi, the military-based regime’s foremost critic, was released after four weeks in prison along with 1,700 other dissidents and told a rally that the army and the demonstrators must avoid a conflict.

1,000 Reported Killed

In raging protests two weeks ago that drove hard-line former Gen. Sein Lwin from the presidency after just 17 days in office, 1,000 or more demonstrators were reported killed by troops that fired into their ranks.

Meanwhile, the problem persists of who can emerge as a strong opposition figure to lead Burma in the event the government is unable to function.

Besides Aung San Suu Kyi and Gen. Tin Oo another name prominently mentioned is Aung Gyi, a former military colleague of Ne Win, who resigned as president in late July. Aung Gyi has earned a reputation of speaking critically against the regime. But to many students the 70-year-old Aung Gyi remains a conservative figure, too closely tied to Ne Win, who seized power in a 1962 coup.

His anti-government credentials were bolstered this spring by a series of letters he wrote to Ne Win and leaked to the opposition. The letters were critical of the government’s political and economic policies, but Aung Gyi was invariably respectful of his old ally, whom he referred to as “the general.”

‘Not One of Us’

“We like Aung Gyi, but he is not one of us,” one Rangoon demonstrator told a reporter earlier this month.

Proposals for an interim government also put the ruling party on the spot. Maung Maung, a civilian and a jurist, was probably the most acceptable man the party could put forward to replace the hated Sein Lwin, who had replaced Ne Win. But the opposition, still led by students but now bolstered by Buddhist monks and some members of Burma’s middle class, has already lost patience with Maung Maung.

Furthermore, the new president has declared that he and other top leaders of the government will not stand for office in any new elections, and power likely remains in the hands of Ne Win. For a quarter century of autocratic rule, Ne Win was careful not to let any ruling-party colleague establish a position as either a threat or a successor.

But with no credibility left after its callous and disastrous 17-day imposition of Sein Lwin on the country, the ruling party has backed away from any confrontation, playing for time and orderly change that would leave it some role to play.