Burmese Hope to Beat Regime ‘at Own Game’

“We have to take this step by step,” Aung San Suu Kyi said, explaining the fragile condition of the Burmese opposition, which just two weeks ago appeared to have a despotic government on the run.

At that time, Aung San Suu Kyi--the daughter of a Burmese independence leader--and two former generals, each with a separate following, were rejecting a civilian president’s promise of democratic elections. No deal, they said, unless the vote is carried out under a nonpartisan interim regime.

But this week, the three opposition leaders, united in a new political party, are on the verge of committing to elections under a hard-line military junta. Events are forcing the opposition to endorse the legitimacy of the generals’ regime just to stay in the political arena.

“If we do not acknowledge this government and their process, we will automatically be discounted,” said a spokesman for former Defense Minister Tin Oo, one of the opposition leaders. “Our position is to beat them at their own game.”

Tragicomic Politics

So far--and this has surprised many Burmese and some Rangoon-based diplomats--the opposition leaders still have options and have not been jailed. But the bloody stampede for democracy in Burma has been turned on its head by the Sept. 18 military takeover. And the clarity of the struggle is becoming obscured by sometimes tragicomic politics.

For instance, behind-the-scenes strongman Ne Win and his ruling clique, stung by popular rejection, are renaming the players. The people said Ne Win’s “Burmese Way to Socialism” was a failure, so last weekend the authorities discarded the label Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma and reverted to Union of Burma, the name adopted at independence in 1948.

Likewise, the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party was retitled the National Unity Party. Opposition leaders, who had finally come together last week as the National United Front, noted the similarity and renamed their organization the League for Democracy. Then, on Tuesday, former Prime Minister U Nu established a second opposition group, which he called the Democracy Party.

If contested elections ever take place, what now seem to be nonsensical maneuvering may tend to prevent ballot confusion. Students and Buddhist monks, the shock troops of the two-month-long rebellion, have been scattered or driven underground since the military took over. Workers who joined them in the massive anti-government protest marches of August and early September have been frightened off the streets of Rangoon. There have been no demonstrations in the last week.

Official Rangoon Radio reported Tuesday that 348 “destructive elements” had been killed since Sept. 18. Diplomats in Rangoon think the total is at least twice that number and Burmese who fled to the Thai border area have reported instances of soldiers executing suspected protesters.

Soe Hlaing, a lawyer from Pegu north of Rangoon, Tuesday reached a military camp of Burma’s Karen minority near the Thai border. He said he had seen nine people “systematically killed” on a bridge near his home. “Each was shot with a gun,” he said, “one bullet to the heart.”

With few exceptions, the Burmese regime describes the dead as looters or others caught while committing crimes, while the opposition--and many diplomats--say they are demonstrators or bystanders.

By midweek, 400 or more Burmese students had arrived on the Thai border. They told military leaders of the Karen and Mon guerrilla armies--who have taken them in--that they want arms and training.

“We’re going underground for an armed struggle against the army,” a young man who described himself as the secretary of the Burmese Youth Liberation Front told a Thai reporter at a Karen camp. “In one or two months, the students will begin fighting back. But we want to stay independent. We don’t want to link up with any other rebels or minority groups.”

The cautious relationship between the Rangoon students and the border guerrillas reflects the long struggle between the Burmese majority that lives on the river plains in the heart of the country and the autonomy-seeking minorities that populate the highlands.

Hard-pressed themselves by the Burmese army, the guerrillas are expected to be reluctant to turn over guns to the students unless it furthers their own cause. But the Thai-Burmese border is a smugglers’ paradise--opium, timber, consumer goods and guns.

“If the students can get money, they can get weapons,” a Bangkok-based Western diplomat said.

In Rangoon, the political opposition will look for other means of pressure, its spokesmen say, citing:

-- Continued walkouts by government workers. The test will come Monday, when they have been ordered to report to work or face dismissal.

-- Calls for increased international pressure. In the United States, a beacon to the largely moderate pro-democracy movement, Congress has deplored Burma’s heavy-handed military repression and the Administration has suspended the $14-million aid program, although the amount is too small to allow much leverage.

Japan and West Germany, the No. 1 and No. 2 aid donors to Burma, have blocked some loans. Japan, with more than $300 million in loans and grants out to Rangoon, has a commanding position, but past attempts by Tokyo to induce economic reforms in Burma have been unsuccessful.

The longtime isolationist policies have had an effect. As explained by A. K. Myint, a Burmese surgeon active in exile opposition affairs in London:

“When I left Burma seven years ago, I came here and people asked where I was from. ‘Rangoon,’ I told them. ‘Where’s that?’ they said.

“Can you imagine? After all those years of British rule? ‘Mountbatten,’ I said (referring to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British military commander in India and Burma in World War II). That did it. ‘Ah,’ they said. ‘Burma, is it?’ ”