Myanmar - The Country

Watching tourism surge and hard currency flow into its former Third World neighbors such as Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, the generals of SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council) figured that their own ancient temples, smiling people and steaming jungles were ripe for the picking-so they bulldozed villages, press-ganged the citizenry into slave labor and started razing the rain forest. Oh, isn't that how you attract tourists?

The generals' bizarre version of tourism, human rights and overall heavy-handedness has made Burma (whoops, Myanmar) the most politically incorrect destination on earth. While its buddies along the Pacific Rim sponsor tourism and award lucrative contracts to companies to build up the infrastructure and create tourist attractions, Myanmar saves a few bucks by having its general population do it-at gunpoint.

A few tourists showed up for the heavily promoted Visit Myanmar Year 1996 (which actually ran until the end of 1997 so the numbers would look good), but had to duck out of the way of occasional student demonstrations, mobs of SLORC Youth skinheads and truckloads of pissed-off Buddhist monks firebombing Muslim mosques. Yes, there's been a flood of foreign investment here over the last couple of years, mostly by ASEAN countries tucked behind the bombastic banner of "constructive engagement." And, yes, new hotels are springing into the Rangoon (Yangon) skyline like mushrooms after a May shower. But the high-tech and electonics industries are a little more hesitant. You see, unauthorized possession of a fax machine, modem and even a walkie-talkie is punishable by several years imprisonment. Sort of limits the market.

Then there are the drug lords. Notorious Khun Sa, who once supplied the U.S. with more than half of its heroin, "surrendered" to SLORC in January 1996. His brutal punishment? A cushy villa in Yangon, ten personal aides, four cars, a military escort, a personal Taiwanese doctor, a hotel and real estate empire, twice-weekly golf outings with the generals and the concession to run Yangon's bus system. He supplements his income with a line of ladies' shoes that fetch 20 grand a pair. That's what we call doing time.

To keep the "Prince of Death" (as Khun Sa translates into) in retirement funds, the generals look the other way while he runs a chain of methamphetamine factories ringing the Thai and Laos borders that rivals the number of Iowa's Pizza Huts. Yaa baa, as the Thais call it, has become all the rage in Thailand, where everyone from school kids to truck drivers gobble the stuff down like breath mints. It has killed hundreds. To get more of the youngsters hooked, Mr. K's freedom-fighters-turned-jungle-chemists coat the little devils with chocolate. Yummy.

There's also the ugly boil on SLORC's smiling face; the insurgent Karen National Union (KNU) has been slugging it out in a jungle rumble with various Yangon regimes since 1948 for a defined homeland, making its efforts the longest running rebellion in Southeast Asia. SLORC, trying to rake the leaves in its back yard as it enters ASEAN, has pushed more than 100,000 Karen refugees into camps in Thailand over the last few years. An early 1997 dry season offensive-which all but wiped out the KNU-sent some 20,000 people streaming across the border alone, many recounting horrific tales of rape and torture at the hands of the libido-savaged Burmese regulars along with their doped-out DKBA stooges-former freedom fighters who sold out to SLORC for a crate of AKs and some syringes.

Between SLORC, the KNU and Aung San Suu Kyi-the Nobel Prize-winning activist who was officially released after six years of house arrest but may as well still be under it-Myanmar makes for a bad soap opera. But let's go back a bit.

In keeping with the trend among developing and newly independent states to throw off the stigma of their colonial past, Burma became Myanmar in 1989 in a Joe Mobutu-like attempt to instantly decolonize the country. (Burma has always been called "Myanma"-that's right, no "r"-in the Burmese language.) Somerset Maugham turned in his grave when Rangoon became Yangon and the Irrawaddy became Ayeyarwady.

SLORCies and their fans will point out that Myanmar has been a nation of bellicose rulers and brutal suppression since 2500 b.c., when the Yunnan enslaved the Pyus along the upper Ayeyarwady River. Throughout its various occupations by the Mons, the Arakanese, the British and the Japanese, there have been tales of ruthless excess and exotic splendor. Unlike the nepotistic concept of royal hierarchy in Western countries, it was considered normal for Burmese rulers to exterminate heirs, rivals or the offspring of rivals. Until the mid-1800s, Burmese rulers burned, beat and drowned not only any potential claimants to the throne but also their children and servants. Hey, so what's the big deal about enslaving a few thousand peasants to build a road?

Today, the despotism continues. It's called something right out of a Get Smart episode: SLORC. A foreboding name in a forbidding land.

Myanmar was cocooned from the world by General Ne Win, who seized power in 1962. His 26-year reign plunged Myanmar backward. He ruled until 1988, when pro-democracy demonstrators won and Ne Win stepped down. But the military refused to honor the results of an election it itself organized. More than 3,000 Burmese protestors were killed when SLORC wrested control of the government in a military crackdown. The 80-something Ne Win lives in the shadows and is a close friend of current intelligence chief Major General Khin Nyunt.

The 21-member military junta of General Than Shwe continues to violently suppress dissidents and uprisings, and has firmly consolidated its vise on the nation by coming to "peace terms" with 15 of the 16 active rebel factions in Myanmar. Only the KNU continues to snipe at Burmese troops in remote jungle hamlets in the southeast of the country, but to date can claim no town as its base.

The current boy's club government has started to lure a steady stream of politically incorrect, eager investors, but the bulk of the 42 million Myanmars are condemned to exist on an average per capita income of US$200. Even the normally idealistic causes of insurgent groups have been replaced by the need for profits from opium production.

In getting ready for Visit Myanmar Year 1996, and true to form, the government-to prepare for the jumbo jet-loads of camcording Honshu islanders-chain-ganged not only criminals and dissidents but regular folks to help rebuild monuments, palaces, temples and attractions. In Mandalay, the junta ordered each family to contribute at least three days of free labor. Mandalayans could pay US$6 a month to be exempted from this drudgery. The average wage is about $6 a week in Mandalay.

There are an estimated 26,000 insurgents in and around Myanmar fighting for various causes at any one time, though most of them have at least temporarily laid down their arms through various peace (and drug profit sharing) agreements with SLORC. But figuring out who's fighting who is like getting an urchin out of a gill net. The military regularly abducts villagers in rural areas to serve as porters in its war against the insurgents, and to build roads to get there. Porters also come in handy after razing and pillaging refugee camps inside Thailand; their wives make suitable disposable lovers.

The forbidden zones and the Golden Triangle may lure adventurers, but there is little to see or do in these mostly rural and deforested areas. As the government creates an uneasy but profitable peace with rebel groups, more and more areas will open up to tour bus-bottomed "adventurers." In many places, you will be expected to have an MTT guide, who's very disinterested in anything adventurous.