New Calm in Burma

...When that day comes, it will take inspired statesmanship to avoid a recurrence of the now repressed schizoid tendencies in Burmese political life...

...The possibilities of conflict subsided with their fears...

...As the English-language newspaper Nation recently put it, with U Nu Burma has had "the world's best Prime Minister and worst administration...

...To tell the truth," the Prime Minister himself said at a recent news conference, "the administrative machinery is like a broken down old jeep without a steering wheel, no accelerator, no gas tank and not even any tires on the wheels...

...The dangers of "violence, bloodshed or civil war reducing us to the condition of Korea" presented themselves to him "as clearly as on a cinema screen...

...Whereas Burma exported 3.5 million tons of rice in 1939, it exported only 2 million in 1959 and that figure will be but barely topped this year...

...Firm leadership from the Government—to improve the perennially dismal lot of the paddy farmers as well as farming and marketing techniques—is essential...

...The Prime Minister's account was too lurid in the beginning and too much like a fairy tale at the end...

...Painting the picture with characteristically broad strokes, he said that the country was in "a frightening state of affairs" when his Government replaced the benevolently authoritarian caretaker regime of General Ne Win this April...

...There has been some vague talk about using foreign aid to start some new projects, but no signs as yet of the sort of careful planning that would be necessary to attract foreign funds...

...Had he allowed his more ravenous followers to exploit their victory at the expense of the opposition and the Army, there might well have been serious trouble...

...In the past, his impatience with the details of administering a government and his readiness to leave them to less qualified underlings—once he had set the policies—were his great limitations as a leader...

...Their two leaders, U Ba Swe and U Kyaw Nyein, had lost their seats in Parliament and those who had survived were in no position to be very vocal...

...With this advantage, U Nu could well afford to be magnanimous...

...Because rice represents about 80 per cent of Burma's exports, the country's ability to increase foreign exchange reserves and imports—the keys to eventual broadening of the economy—depends upon an increase in rice production great enough to cover the growing needs of the country and permit an expansion of exports...

...When one of the newsmen observed that, since he had been the driver of the jeep for 10 of its 12 years, he might be considered responsible for its condition, the Prime Minister nearly lost his temper...

...Regaining prewar volumes is a matter of symbolic value only...

...There is calm, peace and lack of tension in the political sphere, and no one can deny it," the Prime Minister recently reported in a state of the union address to a Parliament heavily lopsided in his favor...

...U Nu's twin aims, political tranquillity and efficient administration, can often come into conflict—and when they do, administration seems invariably to be forgotten, not necessarily to be recalled once the difficulty has been met...

...They had taken a beating at the polls, largely because of their identification with the caretaker Government, which, despite the remarkable progress it fostered and the kudos it won abroad, was widely resented in Burma...

...In harping on the related needs to relax political tensions and promote normal democratic practices, as he did in his long harangue to the Parliament, LI Nu was not only sermonizing...

...As he has proved time and again, he is unmatched in his almost clairvoyant understanding of the temper of Burmese politics...

...Many commonplaces about Burma have lost their force...

...Brooding on these dangers...

...That is what he did, he said, and as a result he was able to achieve the present placid condition of the country...

...But the best protections against the dangers that remain built into Burmese politics are close, steady administration and the genuine promotion of the sort of practices that parliamentary democracies are supposed to have...

...The odds are still in his favor, but, as the experience of the past few years has shown, favorable odds are not enough...

...Burma has suffered greatly at the hands of its politicians, not all of whose mistakes can be attributed simply to inexperience...

...Once the rebels came out of the hills, the left would set up a terrific clamor for dismantling the armed forces...

...But U Nu deliberately refrained from firing or penalizing even those civil servants and Army officers who had misused their positions to work against him during the election campaign...

...He is a courageous and attractive figure who possesses a keen sense of the nuances of political power...

...Much remains to be done before the prewar level of rice exports can be re-established...

...Some people think that this prospect may tempt the Communists to accept amnesty terms...

...This is now generally regretted on all sides and the leaders of the two major parties have solemnly promised to make the Parliament effective...

...How can you expect such a car to travel at 160 mph...

...Though heralded as a "budget for democracy," the program was not notably different from recent budgets...

...U Nu recalled, he realized that if the country was to be saved, it was up to him to teach tolerance, self-restraint and self-improvement to his Pyidaungsu (Union) party followers and to his Government...

...A distinguished commission of jurists is now at work preparing suggestions for revamping the civil service...

...The main goal of the program was to prime agricultural production, which just this year regained its pre-World War II level...

...The production of rice, the staple crop, is still lagging at 93 per cent of what it was 20 years ago...

...U Nu's efforts to soothe bad feelings will not succeed for long if he governs poorly, however...

...This cannot happen by itself...

...Perhaps, in this respect, the AFPFL split may prove to have had an important long-range effect...

...Even if the insurrections were to end tensions might well increase...

...No one can deny that he has played his role well...

...U Nu's twin aims, political tranquillity and efficient administration, often come into conflict' New Calm in Burma By Joseph Lelyveld Rangoon In the five months since Prime Minister U Nu returned to power there has been a considerable relaxation of the tensions and uncertainties that have marked Burmese politics from the time of the split in the ruling Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) in 1958...

...It is still a richly endowed country, but it is no longer sufficient, if indeed it ever was, to say that "nobody starves in Burma...

...In presenting the budget for 1960-61—the first installment of a new four year plan, the rest being expected soon—the Government was cautious and conservative...

...The inefficiency and ineptitude of most Government departments—to mention only their sins of omission—are notorious: it remains to be seen what the commission, which will not report until next year, will be able to do about these...

...Both the Army and its followers—who have now taken the somewhat sullied name of the AFPFL—were ready, if not happy, to abide by the results of the election...

...It entirely avoided new industrial projects, choosing rather to try to convert earlier failures into going concerns...

...But the point was pbvious...

...Until now, the Parliament has been the place where the ministers went to make speeches and their followers went to jeer the opposition...

...That will not be altogether easy to accomplish, but if it can be done, it may help to break the force of political disputes before they spill over and threaten the Government's very existence, as they have done in the past...

...April and domestic tranquillity cannot be guaranteed yet...

...If the new AFPFL can recover sufficiently to become a real opposition and if the Pyidaungsu party can continue to restrain itself, Burma may have the makings of an effective parliamentary system...

...Many possibilities of dissension still exist and cannot be discounted...

...The opposition, at least, had little choice...

...The fact is that economic expansion at a steady rate will be necessary to keep that true, let alone to achieve the Pyidawtha ("happy land") welfare state that the Burmese and some foreigners have talked so much about...

...The quiet that has marked Burmese political life in the past five months can hardly be said to have settled in permanently...

...the reason is that domestic requirements due to the population increase have grown greatly since the war...

...In the wake of more than two years of intense partisan bitterness, he has tried to play down differences without either belittling his rivals or making a false show of placing himself above politics...

...The insurrections are weak but not dead...

...In fact, thanks to a successful border raid on a Thai armory last May, the Karen rebels have been able to spread havoc in the old style in limited areas during the past few months...

...But stripped of these fictional touches, his report was substantially correct...

...The country was not near collapse in Joseph Lelyveld, a Fulbright scholar, is studying Burma's political scene...

...These are the tasks U Nu has marked out for himself...

...Those who view U Nu as a weak leader, endowed with little more than a talent for homiletics, underestimate him as badly as do those who talk about him as if he were a disembodied spiritual force...