Amitav Ghosh - Incendiary Circumstances - A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times

For the insurgents, Aung San Suu Kyi offers the only remaining hope of returning to their country with dignity and reclaiming their lives. When Sonny heard that I had met Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon, he wanted to know exactly what she had said. I played him some of my tape, including a segment in which she answered a question about her commitment to nonviolence.

"I do not think violence will really get us what we want," she said. "Some of the younger people disagree. In 1988, a lot of them went across the border because they said the only way you can topple this government is by force of arms. And not just the younger people. Even very mature, seasoned people have said to me, 'You can't do it without arms. This government is the type that understands only violence.' But my argument is: All right, supposing that all those who wanted democracy decided that the only way was through force of arms and we all took up arms. Would we not be setting a precedent for more violence in the future? Would we not be endorsing the view that those who have the superior might of arms are those who will rule the country? That is something that I cannot support. But we have always said that we will never, never disown those who have decided to take up arms, because we understand how they feel. I tried to dissuade some of the young people who fled across the border, but who am I to force them to stay? If I could guarantee their liberty and their safety, if I could say to them, 'You will not be arrested, you will not be tortured,' I would. But since I could not, I did not even think I had the moral right to stop them leaving."

When the tape was finished, I asked Sonny what he would do if he was pushed out of Thailand as well. "What if the Thais decide to cut off your supplies or starve you out of Thailand?"

"It wouldn't be easy to starve us out," Sonny said. "We've been here a long time. We now have many connections with the people of this region; some Burmese students have married Thai villagers. We can survive in the jungle — we are used to it now. That is why our camps are self-sufficient. We could disappear into the jungle for a long time. We are not unprepared."

If it came to the worst, Sonny was saying, he and his men would disappear into the jungle to carry on their war from behind the lines. And it made sense: the poppy fields of the Golden Triangle, with their warring drug lords, were just a short walk away. Someone as resourceful as Sonny could disappear there indefinitely if he was pushed; the jungle was all too ready to claim him.

It was cold in the camp that night, with a bitter wind blowing through the slatted bamboo walls. I spent much of the night awake, trying to think of what it meant to live in a circumstance in which the jungle seemed to be the best of all available options.

I awoke next morning to find a pile of books by my head. Sonny had wrapped a few books in a towel as a makeshift pillow, and the bundle had come undone at night. The books were language primers, workbooks, and the like, except for one: a hardbound 1991 edition entitled The Transformation of War. The author, Martin van Creveld, I discovered later, is something of an oracle among doomsday theorists.

I flipped the book open, and I became riveted. I began to make notes in my diary. "Van Creveld is arguing that the state's historic monopoly of violence ended with the 'Thirty Years War of 1914–45'; that nuclear weapons have rendered war, as waged by states, nearly obsolete, because inconceivable; that the world will now be dominated by low-intensity conflict; that states in the conventional sense will give way to bands of warlords; that the distinction between government, army, and the people will begin to fall apart as never before, especially in the Third World; that groups such as private mercenary bands, commanded by warlords and even commercial agencies (like the old East India Company), will once again take over the function of war-making; that 'existing distinctions between war and crime will break down.'"

Outside the hut, Sonny and his men were busy in the crisp sunlight, tending their patches of cauliflower and mustard. Until then I had looked upon Sonny as an anachronistic remnant of a dwindling series of "dirty little Asian wars." I now saw that I was very likely wrong: what Sonny represented was not the past but a possible future.

Suddenly the question of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's future assumed an urgent, global dimension. Legitimate, consensual government is the one bulwark between us and the prospect of encroaching warlordism and ever-increasing conflict; in embodying that possibility, Aung San Suu Kyi represents much more than the aspirations of Burma's people.

Daughter of Destiny?

I returned to Burma during the last week of July. In the past couple of months there had been a number of disquieting developments. I wanted to see for myself what the consequences were, for both Aung San Suu Kyi and the country.

Last May a conference called by Suu Kyi to mark the anniversary of her party's victory in the 1990 election was disrupted when the government arrested more than 230 party delegates who planned to attend; many were arrested at their homes or on their way to Rangoon.

Suu Kyi, unable to convene all the delegates, held the conference anyway, as scheduled, between May 26 and May 28. Thousands gathered outside her gates, one of the largest crowds since her house arrest ended last year. On the last day she announced that her party would draft a new constitution — a democratic alternative to the one that was being slowly deliberated by the government. Like the party conference itself, the call for a new constitution was a provocative gesture, and for Aung San Suu Kyi an unusually confrontational one. For the first time since her release, Suu Kyi had wrested the initiative away from the government, pushing it onto the defensive. Her party was reinvigorated.

Two weeks later the government responded. It issued a decree that effectively banned Suu Kyi's gateside meetings: all speeches and any statements that were seen to undermine "the stability of the state" were prohibited. In case there was any doubt about its objective, the law also prohibited the drafting of a new constitution without the authorization of the state. The decree was issued on June 7, but it was not immediately put into effect. The government appears to have been unprepared for the vehemence of the international criticism that its actions provoked.

The criticism had been mounting since April, when, as part of an effort to harass and intimidate Suu Kyi's supporters, the authorities had arrested one of her close family friends, Leo Nichols, for operating an unauthorized fax machine. Nichols, an Anglo-Burmese businessman who had served as honorary consul for the Scandinavian countries, was sentenced to three years in prison on May 17. Five weeks later, he died while in police custody, and the government's account of his death was unsatisfactory. Protests widened. Denmark called for economic sanctions and asked the European Union to impose them; in the United States, a similar motion was debated in Congress.

The government's reaction was seen at the time to be oddly contradictory. There was even the suggestion that it might be ready to compromise. The likelihood is that the generals were largely indifferent to the international outcry; their concern was that the outcry might influence the leaders attending the July meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta. Burma was still not a member of the association — a legacy of its years of isolation — and membership was essential to establishing the country as a full trading partner in the region. Burma was seeking observer status, the first step in gaining membership. The talk among the Asian nations was now of "constructive engagement" — the soft diplomacy that only successful trade makes possible. On July 20, Burma got the recognition it sought. The regime, it seems, was set on buying its own legitimacy.