Working for the Clampdown

The BBC reports that violent suppression of protests in Burma has begun and according to official Burmese media "nine people were killed on Thursday as troops fired tear gas and bullets to clear large crowds of protesters off Rangoon's streets" though western diplomats think that's an underestimate. Yesterday, Kerry Howley, who's lived in Burma, observed that "while the world may be watching, I doubt most Burmese are."

The country’s communications infrastructure is incredibly limited. Seven people out of 1,000 own televisions, and they’re not getting BBC. They’re watching MRTV-3: all government propaganda, all the time. It’s difficult to get a license for a satellite or an internet connection. Cell phones cost thousands of dollars; even most expats don’t carry them. I worked in relatively cosmopolitan Yangon, but a friend who worked in upper Burma once told me the villagers he worked with had never heard of Aung San Suu Kyi. The land lines rarely work, and when they do, sane people do not discuss political matters over them. It’s probably safe to assume you know more about what’s going down on Sule Pagoda Road than much of Burma does.

In these kind of situations, it seems to me that the key variable tends to be the loyalty of the security services. It often turns out to be difficult to get rank and file soldiers to shoot at unarmed countrymen protesting in the streets against a corrupt regime. But when they're willing to follow orders, there's ultimately nothing the protesters can do to ensure success.

Comments

This often has to do with what part of the country the security folks are from. My understanding of Tiananmen Square is that the Chinese government tried to crush the protests with local troops, and the local troops basically refused. They then brought in troops from another part of the country, and the tanks rolled on.

This is a distant memory from college political science, however, so I could be wrong.

Posted by dylan | September 28, 2007 9:17 AM

I would suggest buying guns.

Peaceful protests have never, in the entire history of the world, secured rights for anyone. They might have been the positive face that the powers that be use to prevent more violent acts later, but they are never the actual reason that reforms are made. It's always the people doing to bombing and assassinations that get things done. In my entire life, I have never seen anyone accomplish anything by way of convincing other people that they are right. Not in our government, not in any government.

Posted by Soullite | September 28, 2007 9:34 AM

Re Soulite's comment "I would suggest buying guns."
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Er.. books aren't a bad investment,either.

It cracks me up to visit a local gunshow here in the Philly suburbs --held 4 times a year at the Convention Center just across the street from Valley Forge National Park.

Occasionly --depending upon the Class III dealers attending -- it looks like something out of upper Pakistan. Not just semi-auto AK-47s but fully automatic machine guns. Pistols with Silencers. HEAVY machine guns -- M60s, even a Browning 50 caliber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:M2_machine_gun.jpg

Such items are heavily regulated -- you can buy them but they're a rich men's toys (e.g $5000 for a gun), a background check with fingerprinting is required and you have to contact the government and let them know whenever you are moving the Class III weapon out of your house to go to the target range. Assuming you can find a place that lets you shoot such guns. A real terrorist would laugh at the whole setup.

But the pen is mightier than the sword and the First Amendment is more powerful than the Second. The interesting material is in the back of the show among the BOOK vendors. Things like reprints of the US Army's "Improvised Munitions Handbook" -- detailed instructions for making high explosives,detonators, shaped charges and booby traps from common household chemicals and materials. Or ,as they call them in Iraq, IEDs.

Plus books on spy tradecraft (electronic bugging, lockpicking, making false ids, detecting and evading surveillance,etc ).

And unlike online orders from Paladin Press, you can buy anonymously with cash and don't have to give your name/credit card number to what is probably a government sting operation building a database. Nor do you have Google logging your searchs for "Mother of Satan formula".

Strangely enough, propaganda urging resistance to the government was very popular during the Clinton administration -- when NRA's Wayne LaPierre was talking about the "jackbooted federal thugs" and Timothy McVeigh was blowing up a federal building to protest use of Army units at Waco.

But in an example of cognitive dissonance, this same culture has been largely silent while George Bush has pushed far more dangerous and oppressive measures.

But the idea of the NRA as a resistance movement was always kinda hilarious. Resistance requires covert measures which require silence -- and those guys aren't exactly closemouthed. Two rounds of beers at the local bar and a government spy would soon have the names and addresses of the local cell. Three rounds of beers and the government spy would be cell leader.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 10:19 AM

" I would suggest buying guns.

Peaceful protests have never, in the entire history of the world, secured rights for anyone. They might have been the positive face that the powers that be use to prevent more violent acts later, but they are never the actual reason that reforms are made. It's always the people doing to bombing and assassinations that get things done. In my entire life, I have never seen anyone accomplish anything by way of convincing other people that they are right. Not in our government, not in any government.

Posted by Soullite | September 28, 2007 9:34 AM"

What about Eastern Europe? Peaceful protest has a bad track record, but it's not impossible. It probably is impossible, though, in Burma today.

Posted by Reality Man | September 28, 2007 1:57 PM

I'm personally pretty sympathetic to the argument that peaceful protest is generally less likely to produce desired political outcomes than insurrection, but claiming that it "never, in the entire history of the world, secured rights for anyone" is balderdash, unless the entire country of India is some sort of hoax.

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 28, 2007 2:00 PM

(But as a postscript, I'd certainly agree that peaceful protest seems pretty unlikely to do anything but get a lot of protesters killed in Burma -- the junta has long-since demonstrated its willingness and capability to kill unlimited numbers of civilians to stay in power, and no external agent currently has both the motivation and ability to act as any sort of counterbalance. The moral, viz India, is that homegrown tyrants are a lot harder to shake off than colonial ones.)

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 28, 2007 2:03 PM

The CIA sees protests as just one of the hammers in the ..er.. toolkit. There are a range of steps on the continuum of coercion:

a)black propaganda attacking "corruption"
b) economic sanctions/blockade to promote economic hardship
c) Use of economic hardship to recruit Public protests which incite a crackdown
d) Use of crackdown to promote subversion within student movements (students aren't tied down to a 9 to 5 job and hence have freedom of movement, hence are usefully as intelligence agents and couriers. Plus, Parents tend to disapprove if security forces bash students around. Plus parents may discount political propaganda coming from strangers but listen if it comes from their kids)
e) Subversion within labor movements (because unions are the goto guys if you want economic damage via strikes and lowgrade industrial sabotage. If some union guys had children who got abused during security crackdown on student movement, so much the better.)
f) sabotage
g) assassination and terrorism (snipers , bombs)
h) guerrilla warfare
i) coup or
j) Open invasion by American military forces being welcomed with flowers by the "freedom fighters"

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 2:21 PM

"but claiming that it "never, in the entire history of the world, secured rights for anyone" is balderdash, unless the entire country of India is some sort of hoax."

Or South Africa or the American South, there are so many counterexamples to Soullite's proposition.

However, there are many cases where peaceful protest was insufficient and a nonstarter. Iraq under Saddam Hussein, for one. I mean, George Bush the First told the Shia and Kurds to rise up against Saddam and they did, violently, and were crushed.

China and India could do something about Burma if they wanted to, especially if it involved military intervention. (anyone who says otherwise is full of it.) But they don't want, which really isn't surprising. America doesn't want to do anything about Pakistan, to take one example. Plus, China is sort of our business partner.

Would certain quasi-peaceniks be in favor of military intervention in Burma? Probably not, and so the people of Burma suffer. But people's consciences are clear, b/c it's a foreign nation, and plus, what can you do?

According to the BBC: "There have also been rumours that Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to the notorious Insein prison, although these remain unconfirmed."

Last Saturday, the Junta made a mistake and let protesting monks visit Aung San Suu Kyi, who emerged for the first time in 4 years.

"Detained Myanmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi stepped out of her home in tears yesterday to greet Buddhist monks marching past the compound where she is confined by the military junta, witnesses said...."

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=e429f278b2e25110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&s=News

Breaks your heart. Always better to be a peacenik than a liberal chickenhawk? Not always.

Posted by Peter K. | September 28, 2007 2:23 PM

Re Peter K's comment "Or South Africa or the American South, there are so many counterexamples to Soullite's proposition."
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One must distinguish between resistance movements that are entirely homegrown versus resistance movements that receive a lot of COVERT aid ( diplomatic, legal, financial, arms,etc) from an external power.

Whether that external benefactor is benign or malign is left as an exercise for the reader.

In history, for example, some English kings appealed for support to the common people during their power struggles with the aristocracy -- only to become tyrants once they defeated the aristocracy.

And in the course of "freeing the slaves" Abraham Lincoln somehow managed to enslave the rest of us.
Creating a system in which 300 million people are totally ruled by 550 corrupt puppets with no real constraints -- Given that Lincoln turned the Ninth and Tenth Amendments into dead letters.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 2:36 PM

Would certain quasi-peaceniks be in favor of military intervention in Burma? Probably not, and so the people of Burma suffer. But people's consciences are clear, b/c it's a foreign nation, and plus, what can you do?

[...]

Breaks your heart. Always better to be a peacenik than a liberal chickenhawk? Not always.

Howzabout you put your cards on the table, Peter. Are you calling for US military intervention in Burma? What kind of intervention do you envision? And what are you doing to make it a reality: calling your elected officials, circulating petitions, what? Or are you content to say "I really hope we invade Burma, but there's nothing I can do about it either way"? That's pretty cowardly, not to mention lazy.

Of course, if you're not actively supporting the immediate invasion of Burma and overthrow of its government by the US military, then you are, by the reasoning you've shared with us over and over and over and over and over again, actively supporting the hideously repressive Burmese junta. Which is, I must say, thoroughly repugnant. So which is it? Which side are you on?

Or maybe we should go with Option C: Your comment wasn't really about Burma at all, just one more opportunity for you to piss on the antiwar movement for what you believe to be its "support" of Saddam Hussein. I wouldn't say that breaks my heart, but it does get quite a reaction from certain other internal organs.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | September 28, 2007 3:13 PM

Uncle Kvetch, and what an apt name that is,

for all the "peace movement" can do about Burma is kvetch. That is it and it's quite a pity. And call people "cowards". Nice.

No doubt some of the fringier parts of the "peace movement" believe the CIA is somehow behind the democracy movment, b/c you know, the CIA was behind the "Cedar Revolution", or was it the neocons(?), and the Orange Revolution, etc.

I would propose a joint China/Indian/US/UN military intervention, but that will never happen b/c of entrenched interests, especially China's interest in Burma's resources. If it were possible, no doubt many peaceniks would agitate against it, b/c they aren't for peace anyhow, but pro-war/pro-dictator, in the case of Saddam Hussein or, say the Burmese Junta.

Posted by Peter K. | September 28, 2007 3:39 PM

So in other words, Peter, what you actually believe and say and do here in reality is far, far less important than what you think the "peaceniks" would do in some hypothetical situation. "No doubt" "some" people think this, "no doubt many peaceniks would" do that.

It must be very gratifying, going bravely into battle against the patchouli-stinking, hacky-sack-playing hippies in your head.

I would propose a joint China/Indian/US/UN military intervention, but that will never happen b/c of entrenched interests, especially China's interest in Burma's resources.

So while those awful peaceniks do nothing but kvetch ineffectually about Burma (which makes them pro-junta), you courageously...do nothing. But your nothing is morally superior to their nothing because--well, because hippies stink, or something, I'm really not sure at this point.

Sometimes I wish I could just build my whole political outlook around believing and saying the opposite of some caricature of the kind of people I don't like. It sure would simplify things.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | September 28, 2007 3:52 PM

Er, the Chinese government will never intervene (militarily or otherwise) against the Burmese junta not because of their economic interests in Burma (which are basically line noise compared to their exports to the US and Europe), but because the Chinese government has its own home-grown anti-government movements that it greatly wishes to discourage.

If Buddhist-led protests against an authoritarian government in Burma received support from China, China's own Buddhists might start getting ideas. (Nevermind the Tibetans and the Uighurs.)

In passing, the pairing of Don's evidence-free assertion that peacefully protesting Buddhist monks in Burma are being orchestrated by the CIA with Peter K's equally vapid hypothesis that not supporting the immediate carpet-bombing of Rangoon indicates sympathy and support for the Burmese junta makes this officially the best thread ever. (By which I mean that it's obviously long past time to start applying for citizenship in a country with functional primary education.)

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 28, 2007 4:00 PM

Man, lets all misread history. The Lincoln comment is asinine. I don't even know what it is you are confused about, but you are certainly confused about something. As for Soullite's comment, he is missing the point. Peaceful protests can be quite effective if..
1. The ruling powers in the country are divided or some portion of them are either concerned about their own self image or their international image. Think of the American Civil Rights movement or the Indian Independance movement. Really the Civil Rights movement was built on making Americans feel embarrassed about repression in the midst of the Cold War.
2.The military can't get its security forces to put down the protest. Remember the attempted Russian coup? They called the soldiers onto the street and they hung out with the protesters. The problem with burma seems to be that #1 won't work because the generals don't much care what anyone else thinks and they seem to have a stranglehold on power in the country and #2 doesn't seem to be working either, since they seem to have pretty solid control of the military.

Posted by Gabe | September 28, 2007 4:33 PM

Re Doc's claim "Don's evidence-free assertion that peacefully protesting Buddhist monks in Burma are being orchestrated by the CIA "
-----------
Actually, I didn't say that -- because I have no evidence yet. Certainly seems a possibility --because China has strong reasons to manipulate things in Burma and we have strong reasons to put a broomstick into China's bicycle spokes.

WHAT I did note is that to speak of protests in isolation is short-sighted -- they are one tactic in a continuum of options.

On the other hand, Peter K's scoffing that CIA wasn't not involved in the Ukraine's Orange Revolution is not very bright.

I think that CIA probably played a subordinate role -- mainly because there was no huge, catastrophic clusterfuck and people weren't walking around smelling strong of dogshit stuck to their shoes.

But the US government was certainly pumping shitloads of money into the Ukraine resistance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_revolution#Alleged_involvement_of_outside_forces and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 4:48 PM

1) How was it that Allen Weinstein described the US government proprietary National Endowment for Democracy? Ah, yes:
""A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA"
Ref: http://inthenameofdemocracy.org/en/node/132

2) So what was the National Endowment for Democracy doing in Burma last year? Spending a shitload of money teaching people how to organize political protests. See
http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-asia06.html#burma

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 4:58 PM

Don, I agree the CIA has meddled but not very effectively and it's often given too much empasis or importance. Other countries are meddling too, like Syria assassinating politicians in Lebanon.

Kvetch:
"But your nothing is morally superior to their nothing because--well, because hippies stink, or something, I'm really not sure at this point."

My nothing is superior in fact. Because *some* peaceniks are objectively pro-dictator, whether it's Saddam Hussein or Milosevic or the Burmese Junta. The US and the UN have no right to interfer with Burma's "sovereignty" according to some. (according to a subset the US has no right, because it invaded Cuba in 1889 and behaved badly.) That's my point.

Of course Bush like to point to Burma and it's lack of freedom, because it changes the subject from Iraq. Conversely, some dirty hippies - as you call them - resent the discussion of Burma b/c it's not America's fault and it changes the topic of conversation from Iraq.

Posted by Peter K. | September 28, 2007 5:18 PM

The US and the UN have no right to interfer with Burma's "sovereignty" according to some.

Cite, please?

Kidding, of course! I'm a kidder.

Conversely, some dirty hippies - as you call them - resent the discussion of Burma b/c it's not America's fault and it changes the topic of conversation from Iraq.

And you just keep proving my point. No evidence, just flat-out assertions of what "some" other people believe. And that's all you have. This single ungrounded assertion is, as you say, your "point," and for whatever reason, you just can't stop making it, as if it contributed something to the conversation.

You're not going to actually link to someone expressing "resentment" that Burma is distracting from Iraq--you just feel it. I am humbled by your clairvoyant powers, Peter. So help me out here: I'm thinking pasta for dinner tonight, but obviously you would know better than I--what do I really want?

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | September 28, 2007 5:37 PM

As My link earlier noted, the National Endowment for Democracy is chartered by -- and receives most of its funding from -- the US government.

I suspect that the NED web page I linked to above will shortly disappear -- because it shows that if there was a massacre in Burma, the US Government was the one who pushed the monks out into the heavy traffic.

Of course, you won't hear that mentioned in the US news media.

"I have complete files" -- Terminator2

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 6:03 PM

When you see all the news videos of protests in Burma, etc you might want to know WHO is the ultimate source of that info.

The UK's Reuters --but NOT the US news media -- lets the cat out of the bag:
---------

"As troops fired warning shots at crowds in Yangon on Wednesday, "citizen journalists" in the masses seething through the city centre were sending their thoughts, pictures and video to international broadcasters such as CNN and the BBC.

More important, the news is beamed back in by satellite television and radio by exile news groups such as the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), now one of the main ways Myanmar's 56 million people learn about events inside their own country.

DVB has its headquarters in Oslo and receives funding from several European Union countries.

The United States helps fund other dissident news-gathering organizations through its National Endowment for Democracy, one source of the generals' assertions that the protests are the result of outside agitation."

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070926/tc_nm/myanmar_media_dc_1

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 6:36 PM

Correction to the post: The Boston Globe has also put out an article re the US Government's National Endowment for Democracy's involvement in the Burma protest movement:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/09/09/myanmar_junta_links_west_to_protesters/

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 6:41 PM

I stand corrected: Don Williams is not making a baseless assertion that the CIA is directing civilian dissent in Burma. He is making a baseless insinuation. We deeply regret the error.

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 28, 2007 10:10 PM