Neither Than Shwe nor San Suu Kyi
Since mid August Myanmar is being rocked by popular protest.
The triggering factor of the mobilisations has been the decision by the military junta to implement the directives of the World Bank and the IMF, i.e. to double fuel prices followed by different goods of basic needs.
Having started spontaneously in the capital, these demonstrations have spread and become politicised. The step from demanding reduction of the price hike to demanding the end the hated military dictatorship has not been a wide one.
The main opposition force, the National League for Democracy (NLD) of which Nobel laureate San Suu Kyi has been the icon for years, after a first moment of embarrassment, has been trying to channel the movement and to use it as pressure tool to force the military junta into “dialogue” in order to give life to a “national salvation government”. In accordance with this negotiating line (instrumentally depicted as “non violent”) the powerful Buddhist clergy has entered the scene with the objective of averting a full-fledged popular insurrection.
The military regime (which poses as the guarantor of the unity of the country) did not wait long to respond. Already in 1988 it had suffocated an insurrection with a bloodbath and ever since systematically suppressed the Maoist guerrilla and the movements of the oppressed nationalities. Also now it has been unleashing brutal repression, jailing union and student militants – first of all those belonging to the numerous national minorities and eventually reaching out also against the followers of San Suu Kyi, the notables of the NLD and its allies.
The international media, obeying the North American strategic central of disinformation, launched a massive campaign of support not so much to the popular revolt but of the NLD & Co. The aim is clear: isolate and weaken the perfidious military junta in order to pave the way for the pro-imperialist opposition to seize power. In this prospective Bush and its European henchmen proposed immediate sanctions against Myanmar. It is no secret that San Suu Kyi’s coalition wields powerful support by the U.S. both from the Neocons as well as from the Democrats. It is not by accident that the pro-imperialist forces in 1995 formed a government in exile residing in the U.S. which is led by Kyi’s cousin.
If the export of democracy is the warhorse of the U.S. to smash all hostile governments and drag them eventually into their own sphere of influence, Kyi and her NLD are their Trojan horse.
The high risk that the revolt could help forces servile to the U.S. into power cannot, however, justify any hostility towards the popular movement and its legitimate democratic aspirations. Neither the risk that Myanmar could become a springboard of the U.S. military against China and to a lesser degree against India must lead to indifference towards the revolt.
Both China and India have vested interests in Myanmar. For Beijing it serves as a strategic access to the Indian Ocean as well as a watchdog for the maritime petrol route passing. For India it guards the corridor towards Indochina and the Indonesian archipelago. While Beijing is supporting the military junta by all means, New Delhi fears its possible collapse which could lead to an explosion along ethnic lines having an impact on its Northeastern territories (Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh) where national Islamic and anti-imperialist liberation movements are operating. China and India not only fear a pro-imperialist regime but even more a genuine revolution from below. Also China and India do not care for the interest of the masses of Myanmar but only for their geo-strategic games.
We are on the side of the people of Myanmar and first of all with the revolutionary democratic organisations, unions, oppressed nationalities within which Communist and Socialist militants play a decisive role.
Our special support goes to those popular forces which refuse both a “democratic” drug trafficker regime servile to the U.S. as well as a condominium composed of the army, the clergy and the NLD.
We hope that the people will continue to fight until the victory of the democratic revolution which leads to the seizure of power by the people, ends the social oppression of the poor and the national oppression of the minorities.
Neither servant of the U.S. nor of China!
With the popular revolt until the democratic revolution!
Anti-imperialist Camp
October 3, 2007
