Asean's
Big mistake..
.. was to admit Burma into its fold. Ruling generals are totally incapable of running their country, pulling Asean's image down with them. By Seah Chiang Nee
upgraded June 17, 2003

During the 42 years as a journalist in Asia, I've encountered many generals running countries, whose only qualifications was the number of stars on their shoulders.

The current bunch in Burma is no different from those I have reported in South Korea, Philippines, (the then South) Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. The only difference is the others belonged to another era.

Not many were even good military leaders; some were bot-bellied (How can obese soldiers fight?), most were corrupt and almost every one of them knew little about running a country well.

That would require feeding, clothing, educating and keeping the masses healthy. If you had a problem, just give an order and it would be resolved; in other words, send the troops in, that's all they knew.

Many of them were poorly educated in their own languages (let alone in English), couldn't even write an understandable decree chopping off someone's head.

More harmful is their lack of knowledge or understanding of the outside world. Leaders in countries like Burma, North Korea, Iran, etc. rarely travel to see the world or how others live. They would just visit the handful handful of countries prepared to be on friendly terms with them.

For the isolated rulers of Burma and North Korea, it was just visiting Russia, China. They know little of the outside world, learn little from it.

But they knew how to exercise power because they were commanders of tank units near the capital or the air force (often supplied by America).

During the Vietnam war in the 60s and 70s, military coups happened regularly like an endless game of musical chairs.

Many of the generals were poorly educated who couldn't even run a social club let alone a country.

My favourite was General Prapas Charusathiara of Thailand. In the pecking order, he was behind Thanom Kittikachorn - but he was actually the most powerful man in the kingdom.

He was a fat man who spoke no other language other than crude, swearing Thai.

In my first month as a correspondent of The Asian, a regional newspaper in the Thai capital, I was surprised when I was kept out of a press conference given by Gen Prapas.

It didn't bother me, I said I could find out later what he said. But, the officer insisted, no foreigners.

Eventually I managed to get a verbatim translation of these infrequent Prapas interviews in English from the US Embassy, which in those days were the real government in Thailand. The US not only had bases there, but it also bankrolled the military dictatorship.

In one meeting, Gen Prapas asked the Thai journalists (most of them men) whether they had gone to a XXX massage parlour. "Next time you go, try out No. 37, real hot stuff," he said (amidst laughter).

In another he said that Thais didn't realise how lucky they were living in "this land of smiles" and not in Japan or in Singapore.

"I feel sorry for the Japanese." They had to be squeezed so tightly in packed trains that every day many people would lose their umbrellas, shoes and even false teeth, he said.

And in Singapore, if you spat on the street, you'd be fined. "Here in Thailand, nobody needs to lose their shoes travelling in buses and you can spit everywhere you go without being fined," he said.

It was more or less the same with Indonesia's President Suharto, who very rarely gave an interview to any foreign newsman. At least he was more refined.

How can a leader of a modern nation get by not being able to communicate with the outside world? There was abuse of power, there was large-scale corruption.

While the leaders of Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand have long left behind incapability and illiteracy, Burma's generals obviously have not.

They really don't know how to govern a modern state, let alone bring prosperity to their people.

Firstly they have not the faintest idea how to pull Burma out of its economic morass.

Secondly, they don't know how to handle an opposition leader who is as popular as Aung San Suu Kyi. All they know is for their own regime survival, the lady is a threat - and must be eliminated.

But using force, they know. That's why they used brute force against her. They have placed her under "protective custody" and refused to let United Nations representatives visit her.

She was reported hurt during a melee by the security men.

(For readers who forgot, these generals had organised a general election and after Aung San Suu Kyi's party had won, they refused to recognise the result and placed her and many of her colleagues under house arrest.)

For Asean, Burma has become a nightmare.

By tying their image to this bunch of ignorant generals when it admitted Burma, Asean is paying a price unnecessarily steep.

It can't go around explaining it's Burma's own internal problem any more, any more than it can if Cambodia was admitted when Pol Pot was in power with his "Killing Fields."

That explains it's unprecedented move in issuing a call in a meeting for the Rangoon regime to free Aung San Suu Kyi. It needs to do more.

Not only has the Burma's membership not any advantage for it, it has made Asean look like a backward lot, straight out of the mid-20th century.
By Seah Chiang Nee