Junta Leaders Look Grim After Suu Kyi’s Release

A New Light of Myanmar photo showing Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein, left, junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe, center, and his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, right, at the airport in Naypyidaw on Nov. 15. (Photo: MNA)

November 16, 2010
By WAI MOE
The Irrawady News

Are Burma's top generals having second thoughts about releasing pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday?

That's the impression that many Burmese are getting from the latest image of junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, to appear in the state-run press.

The picture—the first to be published since Suu Kyi was freed on Saturday—shows the two men seeing off Prime Minister Thein Sein at Naypyidaw airport on Monday, as Thein Sein departed to attend a pair of regional conferences in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

All three men look tense, in contrast to photos from just a few weeks ago, when the generals appeared more relaxed and confident, according to local observers.

“When Than Shwe welcomed the prime minster back from the Asean Summit in Hanoi on Oct. 31, he looked quite comfortable, and Maung Aye even smiled,” said one Burmese observer in Rangoon who spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the time, the generals were just one week away from holding an election that they seemed quite confident of winning. However, the subsequent round of international condemnation of the polls, which allegedly involved widespread vote-rigging, has probably made them less self-assured.

But it is Suu Kyi's release, and the jubilant reaction that it has unleashed among ordinary Burmese and in the international community, that has probably done the most to increase their uneasiness.

Tens of thousands of cheering people turned out on Saturday evening to see Suu Kyi and listen to her first words in public since she was placed under house arrest in 2003. The crowds were even larger the next day, when she went to the Rangoon headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD).

According to Burmese military intelligence sources, however, the regime was not unprepared for the sudden upsurge in activity among pro-democracy forces and their supporters. The sources said that authorities in Naypyidaw and Rangoon have been ordered to monitor Suu Kyi’s activities since she was released.

In Rangoon, Maj-Gen Tin Ngwe, the chief of Bureau of Special Operations-5, Maj-Gen Kyaw Swe, the chief of Military Affairs Security, and Brig-Gen Tun Than, the commander of Rangoon Regional Military Command, are reportedly in charge of keeping an eye on Suu Kyi and the opposition.

However, Rangoon mayor Aung Thein Lin of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and police chief Brig-Gen Khin Yi have also reportedly been assigned to keep an eye on the opposition’s activities in the wake of Suu Kyi's release.

The sources added, however, that doing Suu Kyi's surveillance detail has presented a bit of a dilemma for the security officers in charge. In all of her public appearances, Suu Kyi has been surrounded by massive crowds of supporters, presenting a spectacle that could only make the top generals wonder if it was a mistake to let her go free.

“All the photos in front of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house and at the NLD headquarters showed thousands of people, so it was quite difficult to send them to Naypyidaw,” said an intelligence official in Rangoon.

Whatever their misgivings, Suu Kyi made an effort on Tuesday to assure the generals that she was not their enemy.

“I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism,” she told the BBC in an interview.

Although Suu Kyi's release has received considerable attention in the international and Burmese exiled media and on the websites of private journals in Rangoon, the state-run media has been almost completely silent, apart from one brief report on Sunday.

Private journals in Rangoon have complained that some reports about Suu Kyi for their print editions have already been banned by the regime's draconian censorship board, resulting in delays in publication.