Asia Buzz: Burma Loosens Up

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The generals were all assembled: the medals on their chests gleaming in the tropical sun. Tens of thousands of soldiers paraded before them, rifles at the ready, saluting crisply with their clean white gloves. Tanks rumbled down the avenue. Jet fighters roared overhead. But something was missing at the Armed Forces Day celebration in Rangoon on Tuesday.

There were no bitter words of hate.

"We live on the same land and have grown up together," Senior General Than Shwe, leader of the military government, said in his speech to the nation. "We need to collectively work in building our nation with amity."

Pretty bland, you say. To those unfamiliar with the lexicon of Burmese politics, that is certainly so. But for those who scour the utterances of the generals in Rangoon for any sign of a shift in thinking, those words were unlike anything heard in a long time.

Unlike many military rulers, Burma's generals don't often feel a need to dress up their martial rule with fine and delicate phrases to appear more palatable to the outside world. The language employed by Gen. Than Shwe and his colleagues is often violent. Armed Forces Day has been an annual opportunity for the Senior General to call on citizens to "crush" and "annihilate traitors, axe-handles and destructionists."

Those verbal maulings were aimed at opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi has been confined by the generals to her home since September. It's not the first time; in 1989, they locked her up in her house for six years for campaigning to restore democracy to Burma, which has been ruled by the military since 1963.

Suu Kyi sends the generals into a foaming-at-the-mouth apoplexy with her calls for them to engage in a dialogue with her, her party and the country's oppressed ethnic minorities. Never, said the generals. But then news leaked in November last year that at least one military leader, Intelligence Chief Lieut. General Khin Nyunt had been meeting face-to-face with Suu Kyi. No one can say for certain what moved the men in uniform to make such an abrupt about-face. The talks have been described as delicate and aimed at building trust and confidence between the two warring sides.

Getting the generals to sit down and talk with Suu Kyi is such a major breakthrough that no one in her political party or the government has been willing to talk about the discussions for fear of upsetting whatever progress might be being made. And so no one is quite sure what is going on in Burma. Burma watchers, meanwhile, interpret the words of the generals, those verbal tea leaves, for any clues.

There is a long way to go before Burma's political stalemate can be broken. Talks don't guarantee reconciliation. But hearing the old warrior Gen. Than Shwe replace words like "annihilation," with ones like "amity," is a hopeful sign, indeed.