Will there be

NATIONAL RECONCILIATION
in Burma?
No one in the right mind could deny Burma owed colossal amount of
gratitude to Bogyoke Aung San for his sacrifices. We all could
hardly overcome the unfathomable remorse from his untimely
demise. Again, no one in the right mind could deny the fact that
he was one of the main architects who founded Burma Army that has
reached the current formidable stature in the region.

But the poignant point is that his only daughter Aung San Su Kyi,
time and again, is put under house arrest for several years by
the army that her father helped founded. If we just hone in our
minds on Bogyoke Aung San and raise a question: “how would he
feel to witness that the army he had helped raised is putting her
one and only daughter under long house arrest”? Is it not too
cruel or insolent or is it not amount to slapping the face of the
one who we owed debts of gratitude much?

Besides, articles in the Burmese newspapers run by the junta, of

course, they were written by individual independent writers, not
junta’s cronies, and, one of the main themes of the articles is
that: “the crow of the hen will not bring the dawn” or in Burmese
“Kje’ Ma tun lou. mou: ma lin: boo” depicting Aung San Su Kyi
being woman could not help steer the country. It is arguable that
would the crow of the rooster sure to bring dawn?

There are several Hens in our neighboring countries as well as in

Europe, and in the United States taking the role of bringing the
dawns to their respective countries through their crows. In India
Madam Sonia Gandhi has taken up the role of the matriarch once
held by Indira Gandhi. Soniaji had brought back the ruling
Congress Party to regain the current stature; Bangladesh had been
ruled by two Ladies alternately; Sri Lanka was once under Mother-
Daughter governments; Madame Bhutto was elected as the Prime
Minister of male-dominant Pakistan until the Pakistan military
toppled her unfairly; New Zealand has female Prime Minister;
Germany has female Chancellor; the chance of seeing Madame
Segolene Royal as the president of France that would have been
the first ever woman president of France was narrowly missed; Ms.
Nancy Pelosi has become the first female Speaker of the US
Congress; the U.S. State Department has been under three lady
Secretaries of State; Britain has a lady as the foreign minister
and United Kingdom was once under Iron Lady Mrs. Thatcher for
more than a decade; France had Madame Michelle as the Minister of
Defense; Norway had Ms. Kristin Krohn Devold, as the Defense
Minister; Madame Tansu Ciller was once the Prime Minister of
Turkey to name a few Hens that have brought dawn with their crows
and some might bring dawn if they are allowed to crow.

If Aung San Su Kyi could not bring dawn this would be a personal
loss and people could remove her through ballot box if democracy
is restored as promised, but, holding her under detention for so
long has become a national as well as international cause
unnecessarily.

In the male dominant Latin America, Argentina has first female

minister of defense, Ms. Nilda Garre who announced recently that
“the rules of secrecy cannot be transformed into an obstacle to
truth and justice” that concerned the former military officers
could no longer use the cloak of state secrecy laws as an excuse
not to testify about illegal abductions, torture and
disappearances under junta rule; Chile’s President Madame
Michelle Bachelet, she herself was former minister of defense,
has selected Madame Vivianne Blanlot as her Defense Minister.
Vivianne was booed loudly when she went as the government envoy
to the military funeral for ex-dictator Pinochet; she did not
even winced a muscle but declared “I am the one who is in
charge”, the next day she stripped Pinochet’s grandson of his
army capacity for defending Pinochet’s iron-fisted rule at his
funeral eulogy; Uruguay’s defense minister Ms. Azucena Berruti
sacked her army chief last year for unauthorized meetings with
political foes of the president; Ecuador had Ms. Guadalupe
Larriva as the minister of defense and she was one of the seven
women in a cabinet of 17; Colombia had Ms. Martha Lucia Ramirez
as the minister of defense but resigned after feuding with the
generals; these were the Hens in the Machismo Latin America where
they no longer consider the Hens are the softies. These countries
have proven themselves that their countries are no longer sexist.

There was once Daw Aung San Su Kyi announced that she and the
junta, the then SLORC, had reached some understanding and “as the
other party has not revealed she would also follow suit” but she
urged the people to have trust in her according to the news
report. But that was foiled after her British husband visited
soon after her announcement, and, after his return from Rangoon
he declared at the Don Muang airport, Bangkok that “there is no
understanding between the junta and my wife”; that was the end of
that episode. Now the influential husband is dead, so the process
of discussion or negotiation or what-so-ever could probably be
restarted without any foreign intrigues?

Daw Aung San Su Kyi was once barred from visiting places in the
country. Her trips to Siriam, Bassein and Mandalay were all
forcefully barred. But later on she was allowed to make a tour de
force of the entire country with full permission or official
connivance from the junta?

Something went wrong at some point, quite unknown up to this

point, when her motorcade was attacked at De Pai Yinn and since
then she has been incarcerated until now. Only after that
incident the public have the full view or knowledge how deep the
two sides had reached a cordial relationship and understanding
when the photographs of the State Dinner given to Aung San Su Kyi
attended by top members of the junta and the NLD EC; State
sponsored tour of the structural development at certain areas
exclusively for Aung San Su Kyi and her top Party Executives,
etc. were published in the State-run newspapers.

The two sides had more than once walked on the friendship path
and it is a general belief of the masses that it could be done
once more that could lead to national unity.

A prominent person from Rangoon pointed: “we all are breathing

not as of birthright but because we are allowed to breath by the
junta”. If that is the case, the junta is the principal
institution that is fully responsible to rekindle the national
unity through national reconciliation.

No matter what, it is obvious that the Senior General is the

supremo who has the absolute authority [The’ u: hsan bain], and
no magnanimity could be initiated from any one but him. He could
forge national reconciliation if he wishes, as many believe.

The most important issue to tackle at this juncture is how to

preserve the Union? By hook or by crook, the defragmentation of
the Union must be prevented, and, military alone would not serve
the purpose. The country needs political solution. Without the
genuine support of the political leaders the efforts of the junta
would not bear fruits; so also, without the support of the Armed
Forces no political institution could forge any political
progress.

Many have said “there would be an enormous explosion or implosion

against military rule unless the energy of the people could be
channeled into economic productivity”. Let us prevent that
eminent fury, and let us hope that soon the junta would offer
olive branch to the political institutions to channel the energy
of the masses into economic productivity.

Sadly enough, thinking about Aung San Su Kyi reminds a story as

told by Premier Zhou Enlai of the Peoples’ Republic of China
quite sometimes ago that was revealed by Khun Sirin Phathanothai
in her book “The Dragon’s Pearl”: ‘A man was on a long journey
and after a time he ran out of food. He struggled on, but there
was nothing to eat, and he was becoming desperate. Finally he met
a family on the road, and he asked them for some bread. The old
lady in the family gave him three mantou, which was all she had.
The man was still hungry, though, and barely paused to express
any thanks. Then he passed another house by the road and went in
and asked for food. The people there gave him half of a bun. Now
he was full and felt satisfied for the first time in a long
while. That half burn saved his life, he said, thanking the
family profusely’. Khun Sirin was another Hen who was one of the
conduits in forging the friendship bridge between the Peoples’
Republic of China and Thailand since she was a minor.

Let us, for the sake of our beloved country, re-examine our
history. We would find Bogyoke Aung San as “the old lady in the
family who gave us three mantou, which was all he had”.

Maung Thar Kyaw