Khin Nyunt has more than freedom to be happy about By Mark Farmaner (BCUK)

The agenda followed by Thein Sein appears so eerily similar to initiatives by Khin Nyunt, the ousted intelligence chief and prime minister, that they could be using the same blueprint. The difference now is that Than Shwe isn’t there to block its implementation.

Khin Nyunt wanted an end to Burma’s pariah status. He wanted Burma to become a more modern and powerful country, taking its rightful place in the region and the world. 

To do this, he understood that there would have to be some kind of accommodation with Aung San Suu Kyi. He understood that the horrific human rights abuses committed in ethnic states was damaging to Burma’s reputation, and that the conflict needed to be ended. 

That is not to say he was a true reformer, far from it. As U.S. diplomatic cable from August 2005, released by Wikileaks, revealed, “The hypothesis being that the disgraced prime minister was a moderate or a reformer who lost out to the hard-liners in a power struggle ... General Khin Nyunt was a hard-liner, albeit a more polished and approachable one. He was a pragmatist who cultivated foreign countries and a purported dialogue with the opposition simply as a means to mollify the international community and perpetuate the regime’s absolute control.”

This is the man who ran Burma’s torture chambers. He knew about horrific abuses taking place such as the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Burmese Army, but denied it. He defended the dictatorship internationally, and was effective in doing so.

Thein Sein has a similar track record of direct links to human rights abuses and defending the dictatorship on the international stage. He was twice named by the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Burma for ordering his troops to commit human rights abuses while he was a regional commander in Shan State. He mastered skills in delaying and duping the international community while representing the regime on a committee to tackle the use of child soldiers, and later became the international face of the dictatorship, as Khin Nyunt had done, in the role of prime minister.

The similarities between the political approaches of Khin Nyunt and Thein Sein were evident from the moment Thein Sein became president. Thein Sein’s headline-grabbing inaugural speech to Parliament had echoes of the language used by Khin Nyunt. There was a more open acknowledgement of problems that existed and promises that action would be taken to address them.

Khin Nyunt expended political capital negotiating with Aung San Suu Kyi to bring her and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), into the National Convention. Indeed, it is thought an agreement was almost in place before he was arrested and placed under house arrest.

Thein Sein has also done the same, reaching agreement for the NLD to enter Parliament. 

Khin Nyunt also negotiated cease-fire agreements with armed ethnic political parties, as Thein Sein has belatedly started to do after first breaking three cease-fires. In another similarity, negotiations addressing the political issues at the root cause of the conflict have also been put off until a later date. In the case of the round of cease-fire agreements made 20 years ago, that later date never arrived.

In 2003, Khun Nyunt announced the seven-stage roadmap which would lead to the drafting of a new constitution and elections. This was widely seen at the time as designed to head off proposed international sanctions following the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi following the Depayin Massacre. Thein Sein chaired the National Convention drafting the principles of that Constitution, and led the pro-military party into the elections.

Khin Nyunt also knew the value of engaging with the international community. Like Thein Sein, and in stark contrast to Than Shwe who often claimed to be “too busy,” he is much more willing to meet diplomats and visiting ministers.

This was a tactic that Khin Nyunt found highly effective. Many diplomats and U.N. officials based in Burma fell under his spell, just as many appear to have fallen under the spell of Thein Sein now.

There are undoubtedly similarities in approach between Thein Sein and Khin Nyunt. The big question: is the end goal the same? Khin Nyunt’s end goal wasn’t democracy and human rights. It was about taking off the rough edges off the dictatorship in order to get sanctions lifted and international legitimacy. 

Thein Sein has gone further than Khun Nyunt was able to go. However, despite some very welcome developments, it is noticeable that so far no repressive laws have been repealed, and no power relinquished at all. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, President Thein Sein pointedly refused to make a commitment to repeal censorship laws instead saying; ‘The media needs to take responsibility and proper actions. Media freedom will be based on the accountability they have.”

If Thein Sein wants to show he is a real reformer, he needs to go beyond “Plan Khin Nyunt” and implement deeper reforms, such as repealing repressive laws and bringing in new laws which guarantee the rule of law and a democratic society.

So far, however, it just looks like Khin Nyunt’s plan, which along with his new freedom, gives Khin Nyunt more than one reason to be happy.

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