The Burmese officer cadet at my dinner table
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, September 29 2007
The former Burma officer cadet at my dinner table this week did not blink an eye when I asked him how could the Burmese soldiers so regularly turn their guns on their own people.
Or indeed how could they crush the skulls of Buddhist monks with their rifle butts?
After all he had just announced to me that at the age of 12, when soldiers killed some 3,000 pro-democracy supporters in Rangoon, he had been out there in the streets firing nuts, bolts, and screws into their ranks.
But when he came of age the army was the career chosen for him by his father. Its the shortest way to an easy life in this impoverished country.
“We have seven years of training. Every day we are told that we are the protectors of Burma, but its enemies can come in all different forms.
“If you show any sort of disloyalty, any sympathy with the agitators you lose your life. You become nothing.
“There is no soldier out there who is going to disobey an order from Than Shwe (Burma’s president). Reports that some soldiers are disobeying orders are hard to believe. It’s just wishful thinking by the pro-democracy demonstrators.
“The only possibility is if there is a break in the army’s unity. It happened when Khin Nyunt* was ousted. But that opportunity has gone.”
Aung Kyaw Soe is one of scores of former Burmese soldiers across the border here in Thailand. They come for a variety of reasons, but usually it’s for an easy life, having used their contacts to start various ‘import-export’ businesses. Not many are here for idealistic reasons I am sorry to say.
Aung Kyaw Soe is no exception, though who can blame him fleeing Burma at the age of 24, and seeking escape from one of the most isolated countries in the world.
Aung Kyaw Soe, is the name he has given me. It is not real of course.
The son of a Burma Army Bho Hmu (Major) he is a Burma army deserter. Now aged 33 he signed up as a ‘Bo Laung’, officer cadet, in 1994, despite having witnessed the atrocities in Rangoon in 1988.
“The incentives were too good. On completion of training all soldiers are given free housing, a salary, and enough supplies of rice and cooking oil a month to start your own black market. And with those stars on your shoulder, believe it or not, you command respect in Rangoon society, the only society that counts.
“I just quit because I did not like it. The military training was too tough. I did not want to continue getting up every day at 4 am, and go through all that training on a diet of phae hin. (yellow bean curry)”.
When I ask him about sanctions against Burma he laughs out loud. “Oh you mean the threats from all those paper tigers. Now nobody cares about that at all. Why should they? I don’t think Than Shwe is planning a holiday in New York.
“The army has gone through several phases, first fighting the Chinese nationalists, (who invaded northern Burma with US General Stillwell in the Second World War) and also the Burmese communists, then dacoits and robbers ( the Burmese military term for the scores of rebel armies who supported the British against the Japanese in World War 11) then fifth columnists within the country. But for the last few years they have regarded the west as their enemy.
“Actually the first lessons in our training are to learn to denounce the imperialist Japanese and British who fought for control of our country. Now the enemies are George Bush and the British. You can see how the protesters march to the British Embassy. That really annoys the Generals. It suggests it was better under the British and the Burmese can trust them more.”
“It’s no secret that most Burmese want military intervention. Nothing else can top the regime. In fact I say yes. My country should be invaded and the troops will be mobbed in the streets. There is absolutely no other solution….. But nobody is going to do it are they?
Aung Kyaw Soe says managed to get through his military career without seeing a shot being fired in anger. As a supply officer cadet he helped moved food and munitions for units fighting the Karen National Liberation Army near the Thai border.
“If you see a snake or Karen, kill the Karen first”, he said quoting a racist expression used in Thailand, accept here referring to Indians. Clearly his military training had left some marks.”
This week he has been in contact with friends and relatives by phone. He has just come of the phone talking to a niece whose primary school was raided by soldiers wearing red scarves.
“They are the worst, “ says Aung Kyaw Soe. “Special Forces. They are recruited in the provinces mainly so what they do in Rangoon does not matter so much to them.”
I left the dinner conversation early to meet fellow journalists arriving to cover the already bloody Rangoon protests, besides my computer and phones were on the last few hours of pinging away with updates from the Rangoon protesters.
Today I am an armchair journalist and I am feeling guilty about it. But for the time being at least massive amounts of information are coming out of Rangoon from internet bloggers which the foreign correspondents there cannot see.
I was in Rangoon in 1998 for ‘The Observer’ during and after the Burmese military’s orgy of violence. I still remember the confident and contemptuous stare of one particular Burmese soldier challenging me to be his next victim in Sule Pagoda Road.
I averted his eyes. To stare back would be inviting trouble.
I have been shot at and mortared by the Burmese Army, while filming with the Karen ethnic majority for the BBC, and spent weeks in the camp of heroin warlord, Khun Sa, (then America’s Most Wanted Man) in the Shan States of Burma, as he happily traded with Burmese and Thai officers alike this time filming for the Observer Film Company.
And like many I have witnessed almost at first hand the atrocities carried out by the Burmese authorities against its ethnic minorities. …..So it’s difficult to count an-ex Burma army man among my friends.
It’s also not difficult to understand why they have banned me from Rangoon. I have been denounced by the junta at least twice.
(with anti-government monks 20 years ago)
In Burma’s border wars the Kachin, Karen, and Shan rebels don’t always play by the Queensbury Rules, but one can understand that when you take in just what the ‘Tatmadaw’ (The Burmese army) get up to.
But the confrontation between monks and troops in Rangoon is the one conflict I can honestly describe as one of ‘good against evil’.
But Aung Kyaw Soe is right about one thing. The Burmese are scared about the west even though their fears might be misplaced.
Over 25 years ago 1985 Lieutenant General Saw Maung put decided to double the size of the Burma army which was then ‘ a handful’ at 200,000 strong.
“It is simply impossible to defend a country the size of ours with only this handful of troops… therefore, what we have to do in the case of foreign invasion is to mobilise people in accordance with the “total people’s war” doctrine.
“In order to defend our country from aggressors, the entire population must be involved in the war effort as the support of people dictates the outcome of the war.”
The Burmese army now numbers 428,000 and has weapons from China, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Israel, Germany, Finland.
The Burmese Army also has U.S. stinger missiles, originally destined it is believed for the Mujahadin, and carbines, excellent for jungle fighting, acquired from the U.S. in the 50’s as part of a ‘Military Assistance Program’.
This was at a time when Burma’s notorious dictator General Ne Win was pulling all the strings.
The Burmese Army, rated the second best in southeast Asia to Vietnam, does not appear to have the support of its people though.
And if , a most unlikely event, Britain and the United States were ever to go to war, its former allies, the Karen, Kachin, and Shan, who fought with Orde Wingate’s Chindits, U.S General Stillwell, and the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) against the Japanese, are itching at the bit.
The older Karen still have a curious attachment to the British. I don’t know why. The British sold them down the river into the hands of the Burmese who have been persecuting them ever since.
And old Karen officer I knew, Major Aaron Po-Yin, used terms like ‘crikey’ and ‘golly-gosh’ and remembers his officers getting Christmas hampers from Fortnum & Masons.
Major Po-Yin, ex-Burma Navy, won the Distinguished Service Medal for saving two British SOE officers in a Japanese ambush. I had the pleasure to pick it up for him at the Ministry of Defence and give it to him 40 years after the war ended.
“So why did the British betray us,” he asked.
I could not answer for Britain then, and I am not going to now, if our sole support for the Burmese people and its oppressed minorities is limited to political rhetoric and implausible sanctions.
Andrew Drummond and Andrew Chant were monitoring the events in Rangoon this week for the British press, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBS New York, RTE, and BBC Regional programming.
By 2.55am, he had reached a prison factory where he kept “an office”. He picked up gaffer tape, eight sturdy picture frames, some civilian clothes and water.
