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Bread and Butter Issues behind Myanmar Protests

by Stephen Gowans

Global Research, September 26, 2007
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Before discussion on Myanmar becomes another demonizing ritual led by the White House, and actively subscribed to by the respectable left, it would be prudent to consider recent mass protests in the country in the context of surrounding events and independent of the frame set the US government.

In his address to the UN General Assembly, US President George Bush denounced Myanmar as a “brutal regime” (along with Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Syria, north Korea and Zimbabwe), an echo of the 2006 National Security Directive, which called the same countries “outposts of tyranny”.

While media accounts – in step with the US state -- have fostered the impression that the mass marches in Myanmar are “pro-democracy” protests against political tyranny, they have, on the contrary, been provoked by bread and butter issues. As the New York Times explained in the concluding paragraphs of a September 24 report, the protests began “August 19 in response to sharp, unannounced fuel price increases of up to 500 percent, immediately raising the prices of goods and transportation.”

The protests were initially led by students, and only recently by monks, after the police beat some monks at a small demonstration.

The monks have denounced the government for “impoverishing and pauperizing” the people -- language devoid of the references to freedom and democracy much favored by the US state and firmly rooted in day-to-day economic concerns.

Washington’s real beef with Myanmar isn’t that it is a “brutal regime” or “outpost of tyranny.” Such US allies as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and Israel are brutal regimes, but they’re showered with US aid and given diplomatic protection. The real problem with Myanmar is that its markets, land, resources and labor aren’t completely open to exploitation by US corporations and investors.

Myanmar practices protectionism. The government owns enterprises, rather than letting private capital (especially US capital) totally run the show. Like Cuba, north Korea and other US designated “outposts of tyranny”, it is not the kind of place the investment bankers, CEOs and corporate lawyers who dominate the US state can cozy up to -- or make a buck in.

The US Department of Commerce complains that Myanmar has restrictive trade policies and sets the prices of staples below market value, including gasoline. Ironically, it appears Myanmar’s efforts to bring gasoline prices up to market value – something the US government would applaud – sparked the protests.

“The state totally dominates some sectors, including mining and power, and state-owned firms have an important role in transport, trade and manufacturing,” according to the Economist’s Intelligence Unit.

What’s worst from Washington’s point of view is that the country restricts foreign investment. Worst still, it fails to protect private property.

Those who are ready to jump on the demonize-Myanmar-bandwagon should understand whose agenda they’re advancing -- and what its goals really are.

Stephen Gowans is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Stephen Gowans

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar security forces opened fire on Buddhist monks and other pro-democracy demonstrators Wednesday for the first time in a month of anti-government protests, killing at least one man and wounding others in chaotic confrontations across Yangon.

Dramatic images of the protests, many transmitted from the secretive Southeast Asian nation formerly called Burma by dissidents using cell phones and the Internet, riveted world attention on the escalating face-off between the military regime and its opponents.

Clouds of tear gas and smoke from fires hung over streets, and defiant protesters and even bystanders pelted police with bottles and rocks in some places. Onlookers helped monks escape arrest by bundling them into taxis and other vehicles and shouting "Go, go, go, run!"

The government said one man was killed when police opened fire during the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations, but dissidents outside Myanmar reported receiving news of up to eight deaths.

Some reports said the dead included monks, who are widely revered in Myanmar, and the emergence of such martyr figures could stoke public anger against the regime and escalate the violence.

Early today, security forces raided two prominent Buddhist monasteries, beating up and hauling away more than 70 monks. Family members said Myint Thein, the spokesman for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, was arrested.

As the stiffest challenge to the generals in two decades, the crisis that began Aug. 19 with protests over a fuel-price hike has drawn increasing international pressure on the isolated regime, especially from its chief economic and diplomatic ally, China.

The United States and the European Union issued a joint statement decrying the assault on peaceful demonstrators and calling on the junta to open talks with democracy activists, including Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate.

"What's going on in Burma is outrageous," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

The U.N. Security Council met in private to be briefed on developments, then issued a brief statement expressing concern about the violent response to demonstrations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was sending a special envoy to the region, urged the junta "to exercise utmost restraint toward the peaceful demonstrations taking place, as such action can only undermine the prospects for peace, prosperity and stability in Myanmar."

The junta issued an edict late Tuesday banning gatherings of more than five people, but the order was ignored by democracy activists and the public alike Wednesday.

The number of protesters seemed a bit less than on Tuesday, but thousands massed at the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, including monks in cinnamon robes, students, members of Suu Kyi's democracy movement and activists waving flags emblazoned with the fighting peacock - a symbol of Myanmar's democracy movement. Large crowds of bystanders also gathered to watch.

Police fired tear gas and made some arrests trying unsuccessfully to scatter the demonstrators. Protesters marched off toward the Sule Pagoda in the heart of Yangon, but were later blocked by military trucks and security officers with riot shields, clubs and guns. Groups of marchers then fanned out into other streets, chased by security forces.

Officers fired warning shots and tear gas trying to disperse the main group and began dragging monks into army trucks - the first mass arrests since protests against the military dictatorship erupted Aug. 19.

Reporters saw some monks beaten, and an exile dissident group said about 300 monks and other protesters had been arrested in small clashes across Myanmar's biggest city.

Myanmar's government said security forces fired when a crowd that included what it called "so-called monks" refused to disperse at the Sule Pagoda and tried to grab weapons from officers. It said police used "minimum force."

The junta statement, read on state radio and television Wednesday night, said a 30-year-old man was killed by a police bullet. It said two men, ages 25 and 27, and a 47-year-old woman also were hurt when police fired, but did not specify their injuries.

Exiled Myanmar journalists and democracy activists released reports of higher death tolls, but the accounts could not be independently confirmed.

Khim Maung Win, deputy editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition-run shortwave radio service based in Norway, said five monks and three civilians were reported killed and at least four seriously injured.

Zin Linn, information minister for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Myanmar's self-styled government-in-exile, said at least five monks were killed.

U.N. divided over Myanmar 2:48
Some U.N. delegates disagree about the organization's proposed involvement in Myanmar. CNN's Richard Roth reports.
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