Myanmar fails transition test with brutal crackdown

Students marching in a largely peaceful nationwide demonstration found their route to Yangon blocked by 3,000 police and barbed-wire barricades last week. The ensuing stand-off in central Myanmar’s Letpadan ended on Tuesday, when a column of baton-wielding riot police launched an attack, injuring dozens and arresting more than 100 students and monks. 

“We didn’t break the law but we were peacefully protesting for academic policy change,” Yee Mon, a Yangon university student among 12 arrested then released on Thursday, told the AP. Many of his fellows remain in jail.

The students are demonstrating for freedoms from government control over academia. 

Earlier, they seemed to have made progress when four-party talks between the government, parliament representatives, the National Network for Educational Reform (NNER) and students produced a new draft education bill. But after pledging to put it before parliament as soon as possible, the government used a series of tricks to go back on its word.  

First, government-run newspapers published the agreed-upon draft bill but falsely presented it as the work of the students and NNER only. Furthermore the newspapers printed a parallel Education Ministry bill which had already been put aside by agreement in the four-party meeting. 

Second, though the government asked university rectors to encourage open discussion of the bill among students, the reality was that government-supporting teachers had thugs intimidate students over the bill. 

Third, instead of talking to students exclusively, the parliament constitution drafting committee invited NGOs, political parties and other education advocates to debate the bill, in the hope that their various inputs would dilute or nullify the draft legislation. 

Fourth, on March 5 the government broke its vow not to take action against student protesters by cracking down in Yangon against demonstrators who were demanding the Letpadan blockade be lifted. The peaceful protesters were beaten by government-hired thugs and police before some were arrested and thrown into a waiting truck. The scene bore echoes of the 2003 massacre in Depayin, central Myanmar, when a government-sponsored mob ambushed the convoy of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and killed at least 70 of her supporters. No one was arrested for the killing. Instead, many of those who ran for their lives were arrested and jailed for creating a disturbance. It marked perhaps the first time in Myanmar’s history that the people who were beaten were imprisoned while the thugs doing the beating went free. The same thing happened again on March 5, with the beaten demonstrators carted off for trial and the hired thugs sporting red “Duty” armbands still at large. One photo of the incident has ignited much public anger: a tattooed red-armband thug with dyed-red hair smiles proudly with his arm clamped round the neck of a young girl. The photo has gone viral on social media and been splashed across newspapers and journals, triggering concern in every social sphere over the government’s use of thugs against young, educated college students. 

In Depayin, the military regime successfully used thugs against democratic forces and silenced its own citizens without a problem. The current administration thought it could use the same brutal trick to shut down a demonstration, but under semi-democratic rule the tactic has failed badly.

Information Minister Ye Htut was quick to deny any knowledge of the hired thugs, and the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said it does not support such brutality. In a bid to save face, the government issued an order against the use of thugs to break up demonstrations. 

The NNER and student leaders remain committed to the push for education reform and have been invited by parliament to attend a briefing on amendments to the draft education law on Monday. Support for their cause remains strong around the country, with students in Shan state, Kayah state, Irrawaddy division and Mandalay division all marching in solidarity.  

Education is not the only area where citizens are demanding more say in Myanmar’s future.

On March 4, female garment-factory workers marched in Yangon to demand better pay. They too were attacked by government-hired thugs before being arrested by the police. Many of the workers were badly beaten. They currently earn less than 40,000 kyats (Bt1,270/US$40) per month. The delay in setting a minimum wage comes amid government concern that higher labour costs might scare foreign investors away.   

Workers are demanding better pay, students are demanding better education, political parties are demanding constitutional change for 100 per cent civilian rule, and farmers are demanding the return of their confiscated land. The transition from military dictatorship to a democratic system contains many challenges and requires a lot of patience. Yet if the government remains patient and raises the tolerance level every time it faces a challenge, it will pass the test of democratisation in Myanmar.

 

Htun Aung Gyaw is a former chairman of the All Burma Students Democratic Front who received a Master’s in Asian Studies from Cornell University in New York. He now leads the Civil Society for Myanmar, a non-profit group in Tokyo ([email protected]).