Burma Moves Toward the West
JONAS, GILBERT
Public ire is aroused by Communist propaganda blunders Burma Moves Toward the West By Gilbert Jonas THIS PAST JULY, the Burmese Government announced its readiness to accept American economic...
...As many Burmese noted publicly, it proved that Asians could crush fellow Asians as cruelly as Europeans had exploited Asians...
...An editorial in the Nation set the tone for what has been a frontpage story almost every week since...
...Embassy, Aleksandr Urevitch Kaznacheev accused the Soviet Government and its Embassy in Burma of using "terror, subversion and police state methods to achieve its aims...
...He later attempted to commit suicide and failed...
...economic aid was regarded as potentially "provocative," and in 1953 Burma decided to decline further American assistance...
...It demonstrated that the Russians are capable of enormous blunders which the fairy-tale fiction of The Ugly American vintage ascribes exclusively to American diplomats...
...For Mr...
...This does not necessarily mean the Burmese will openly align themselves with the West...
...In a scorching written statement issued from the temporary asylum of the U.S...
...On June 29 the Burmese Government permitted the defector to leave Burma under American auspices after the Foreign Minister stated that he "left the Soviet Embassy of his own free will...
...When the escape was discovered, the errant comrade was publicly dragged back to the Russian Embassy by Soviet police...
...Much of Burma's future depends on the results of the factional strife between the two wings of Burma's major political party and by the efforts of the recently-inaugurated Army-controlled government under General Ne Win...
...As a result of the controversy, Burmese public opinion began shifting significantly against the Soviet Union...
...It does mean that they are less vulnerable to the Communist love calls that seem to have entranced so many Asian neutralists during the past decade...
...The following day, banner front-page headlines carried the story to virtually every Burmese who reads a paper...
...Burma is a nation of enormous importance to the fate of Southeast Asia...
...Another demonstration was staged at Rangoon airport...
...Shocked Rangoon readers learned at the end of the dispatch that the report had emanated from Tass, the official Soviet news agency...
...Otherwise, let him get a very, very good lawyer...
...The Nation replied with angry dignity: "There is no such person as the 'Delhi Times' correspondent in Rangoon, and Tass is a miserable liar...
...Three months ago such Burmese-American cooperation would have been unthinkable...
...Various nationality groups have also GILBERT JONAS has recently returned jrom an extensive tour of Burma...
...After a brief period of shock, the Burmese overwhelmingly condemned the Chinese action...
...Inside Burma the Government has been fighting armed Communist bands almost from the day Britain granted independence in 1948...
...Gradually the Army has whittled down the Communist forces to a few thousand men, but the problem remains...
...The Burmese have always regarded loans as a totally different breed of animal from outright grants...
...Public ire is aroused by Communist propaganda blunders Burma Moves Toward the West By Gilbert Jonas THIS PAST JULY, the Burmese Government announced its readiness to accept American economic grants...
...Newspapers which advocate freedom and democracy in opposition to Communism are Tass' special enemies...
...as usual, no provocation could be ascertained...
...The incident began with a frontpage news story in the respected pro-Western daily newspaper, the Nation, perhaps the best-edited English-language daily in Southeast Asia...
...Perhaps the most enduring blow to Communist prestige was Red China's brutal repression of the Tibetan revolt, which deeply stirred the Burmese, who are racially and religiously close to the Tibetans...
...Editors of the other accused papers followed suit...
...Fuel was added to the outcry when the Soviet military attache in Rangoon attempted to seek political asylum in Burma...
...The Burmese cite the protection given the Russian journalist by his Embassy as proof that the Soviet Government itself was behind the attempt to defame the newspapers...
...announced a new aid agreement...
...Thanks in large measure to the heavy-handed blunders of the Russians (and the ruth-lessness of the Chinese against the Tibetans), Communist stock in Burma has plunged drastically...
...Depredations by Chinese Communist troops on Burmese soil are common...
...The Chinese monolith, which shares about 1,000 miles of common border with Burma, is another serious threat...
...Kovtunenko's benefit, we will point out that in Burma, unlike in Russia, truth is a complete defense...
...In such attacks truth is never a primary consideration...
...If therefore he can substantiate what he has made public, he has nothing to fear...
...Grants, on the other hand, are regarded as a compromise with independence and theoretically imply "political strings...
...Military alignment with the West was, of course, ruled out from the start...
...The Government declared, in ordering this registration, that Communists were donning the saffron robes of the Buddhist holy men for purposes of subversion...
...Chinese Communist propaganda, in the form of books, pamphlets, newspapers and broadcasts, is flooding the country...
...When either . . . happens, Tass singles out what it considers to be its enemies for furious attacks...
...Subsequently, in mid-May, he was escorted under Russian military guard to Rangoon airport, where he was summarily shipped back to the Soviet Union for disciplinary purposes...
...The Burmese Journalists Association, enraged by the Tass attacks on the three Rangoon newspapers, found a channel for their anger in the affair of the unfortunate military attache...
...On April 24, the Nation published a dispatch noting that an Indian journalist—the Delhi Times correspondent in Rangoon—had accused the West of trying to force or bribe Burmese newspapers to abandon neutralism in favor of a Western alignment...
...In a few short months...
...The reaction was unusually strong for such an incident: most observers explained its intensity as a continuation of the Tass incident...
...Guerrilla warfare in the countryside has made internal security Burma's major problem for a decade...
...In 1957, the Burmese agreed to resume acceptance of American loans in dollars and local currency for economic and social development, and last April, the largest sum under the new program was allotted to Burma...
...The former are supposedly consistent with independence...
...In Hungary where the Soviet policies failed and in Iraq where they paid off, enemies of Soviet Communism were vilified as reactionaries in the pay of the Western powers...
...Even the acceptance of U.S...
...But a new storm was unleashed in late April that may have cost the Soviet Union—and the entire Communist world—an irrevocable setback...
...The Tass correspondent is still hiding at the Soviet Embassy...
...Prime Minister Ne Win has acted more decisively and with more visible results than the U Nu Government was able or willing to do during the entire preceding decade...
...Refusing a demand for a public apology, the correspondent, Evgeny Kovtunenko, fled to the Soviet Embassy for sanctuary...
...Her two-million-ton rice surplus this year is viewed with a covetous eye by the hungry millions of Red China...
...For example, on May 31 a Chinese army patrol crossed the border at Namkham and fired on 10 Kachin peasants, wounding five...
...They stormed the Soviet Embassy, protesting the deportation of the colonel by pelting the building with rotten fruit and eggs...
...Behind this significant—and to many, surprising—reversal of policy are all the elements of a dime-store novel of international intrigue...
...As if the plot were not thick enough, on June 26 the American Embassy announced the defection of a 27-year-old Soviet information officer in Rangoon...
...The final outcome will not, however, be decided by U.S...
...For a decade since its independence, Burma has walked an international tightrope, skirting alignments between the big power blocs...
...Army Engineers to carry-out the surveys and engineering for the highway...
...The editor of the Nation immediately announced that he would sue the Tass correspondent in Rangoon for criminal libel...
...The United States simultaneously revealed its offer of $37 million in assistance over the next four years...
...Other respected Burmese papers—the Guardian and the Reporter—were similarly accused...
...The complete fabrication of the Soviet charges became immediately apparent to almost every newspaper in Burma, pro-West or neutralist...
...With Communist China poised menacingly on its vast northern frontier, the leaders of this rice-rich, but underdeveloped, Southeast Asian nation had decided that any act of provocation toward the Communist world was a luxury their country could not afford...
...The infiltration of Chinese agents is a grave threat—so grave that the Burmese Government last April ordered the registration of all Buddhist monks and nuns to prevent further infiltration of the cloth by the Communists...
...Burma will not only accept an American gift of $37 million to build a major highway from Rangoon to Central Burma and to construct dormitories and classrooms at the University of Rangoon: more significantly, it will also permit U.S...
...Specifically, the report charged that U Law Yone, editor-in-chief of the Nation, had accepted a $34,000 bribe from the American Embassy in Rangoon to carry out this policy...
...With the cards already stacked against them, one would have expected the Russians and Chinese to proceed cautiously until the Tibetan affair had been quietly forgotten...
...or Soviet assistance, though the availability of either can help to tip the scales...
...Soviet Embassy police retaliated by manhandling several journalists and confiscating a photographer's camera...
...On July 6, after careful negotiation, Burma and the U.S...
...challenged the Government's authority with arms...
...Recently, the Burmese courts handed down a fourth warrant for his arrest, and each warrant makes major news...
...The storm broke with all the fury of a tropical hurricane...
...Under an incessant barrage of publicity, the incident roused strong local sympathy for the Soviet officer...
...In recent months, the remnants of these groups are believed to have joined forces with the Communists...
...After denying the specific charges made by Tass, the editorial stated: "In this country, no one questions the integrity of the Nation without being made answerable to it...
...He frankly admitted to spying on the Burmese people and a few days later provided the Burmese military authorities with a list of Soviet and Burmese spies coordinated and supervised by the Embassy in Rangoon...
...Tass has its sinister side," declared an editorial in the Guardian, "whenever Soviet policies triumph or are placed in jeopardy...
Vol. 42 • September 1959 • No. 34
