Washington For the first time, the issue of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has weighed heavily in a split among Burma's top military leaders.
In the latest power struggle, General Khin Nyunt, a relative moderate, was ousted as prime minister and arrested on corruption charges after the Burmese junta's supreme leader, General Than Shwe, and his hard-line cronies ignored the European Union's ultimatum to release Aung San Suu Kyi before the Asia-Europe Meeting early this month. Another possible casualty may be the junta's policies of selective engagement with the outside world, identified with Khin Nyunt, who also once backed conciliation with the opposition.
His ouster also shatters the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' dream of transforming the junta into a gentler government before Burma takes over the group's chairmanship in 2006. Khin Nyunt's so-called "seven-point road map to democracy" could be openly abandoned or only survive as a patent fraud.
The real division among the generals, however, came from a more traditional source of rivalry between intelligence and combat wings of the army, made more acute as the country's natural resources have become the prize in a free-for-all among army commanders. A recent clash between intelligence officers and regional commanders competing for control over the lucrative China-Burma border trade prompted the fall of the intelligence wing, as Than Shwe consolidated his base by siding with the more powerful combat commanders. Now Than Shwe holds absolute power, and it has already corrupted him absolutely.
The military rivalry at the root of events in Burma is an old curse. This latest outbreak repeats a pattern seen in the 1980s under the previous military dictator, Ne Win. His political missteps culminated in the crushing of popular uprisings in 1988, in which hundreds of people were killed, opening the door for the current regime. Though no one in Burma wants to repeat those bloody days, there is a sense that the same boom-and-bust power cycle might be accelerating a downward spiral toward a similar end.
The outright fall of Khin Nyunt, a former intelligence chief whose appointment as prime minister last year was already seen as a demotion, will have severe consequences within the region. His intelligence background facilitated security cooperation. His securing of cease-fire agreements with ethnic resistance groups allowed easy access for the exploitation of forests, mines and fisheries. His wide-ranging influence offered reassurance for governments concerned about threats like drug trafficking, AIDS and organized crime.
Now that this leverage has vanished, no one in Than Shwe's circle is pragmatic enough to entertain notions of delicate diplomacy and reciprocity. In this regard, Asean's policy of constructive engagement has not only completely failed in preventing Burma's retrogression, but has also provided perverse incentives to the hard-line generals to carry out a policy of "beggar thy neighbor" while entrenching their own rule.
Khin Nyunt was no democrat, but he was behind the junta's abandoned policy of reconciliation with Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy; Burma's rising die-hards portend greater evils.
Since Aung San Suu Kyi's rearrest in May 2003, after government-backed hoodlums attacked her convoy and killed and wounded scores of her supporters, her safety, at least, has seemed secure. But General Soe Win, who was implicated in that attack, has been promoted to prime minister - not a good omen for the fate of the democracy movement and its detained leaders. The world should demand that Aung San Suu Kyi come to no harm in the unpredictable aftermath of Khin Nyunt's fall.
Serious consequences are already roiling the armed forces, as well. Over time, the military as government has seriously eroded the military as institution. Favoritism, nepotism and loyalty-based promotions have degraded the command structure. The morale of the officer corps is at a low ebb, caught between autocratic leadership and rampant corruption from below. For all these sins, Khin Nyunt was an easy scapegoat.
Many Asian governments assert that the Burmese military is the only institution capable of holding the country together, but those governments cannot afford to be mere bystanders of a Burma collapsing from within. The United Nations secretary general should rally nations concerned with the promotion of democracy in support of an international road map to save Burma from dictatorship.