Burma's Disastrous Way to Socialism
ABRAMS, ARNOLD
CORRUPTION AND MALAISE Burma's Disastrous Way to Socialism BY ARNOLD ABRAMS Rangoon The sunsets here often lend a spectacular glow to the lush landscape of the central plain, and create fiery...
...I would like to say this has been for the best, but I cannot...
...Nothing in our lives, absolutely nothing, has remained unaffected by the government's policies," notes a former factory owner who is now a disgruntled, unproductive employe in the place he once ran...
...The decline is most apparent here in the capital city, a port and commercial center for what used to be the world's greatest rice-exporting nation...
...All of this has created a widening gulf between the government and the majority of the civilian population, resulting in violent strikes and student rebellions that have had to be quelled with military force...
...Few people here were willing to take the risk of getting on their black list...
...This country's jails are filled with political prisoners...
...We are all unhappy," says a villager on the outskirts of Pagan, the ancient seat of Burmese civilization that is today little more than a scenic river town some 300 miles north of Rangoon...
...authorities fear...
...In a recent Pagan election for local council, for example, representatives of the government's Socialist Program party??Burma's only legitimate political party??won handily...
...The state-run people's shops have controlled prices but empty shelves...
...We have become a nation of chisclers and lawbreakers," says one distressed Rangoon resident...
...Everyone deals with TC 23, making it a thriving self-contained economy...
...he asks...
...The cause of these problems is the inflexible, inefficient regime of President Ne Win, a military dictator in civilian clothing...
...These days few ships call and only a trickle of rice flows out...
...If I didn't, some sick person would go untreated...
...Similarly, Burma's once-pleasant and dependable trains have been stripped of interior fittings, and lengthy stretches of signal cable have been stolen...
...They are plagued by ohronic shortages of essential goods and, more important, suffer from a spiritual malaise...
...When a bus breaks down in Rangoon these days, the driver is forbidden to lift the hood to investigate...
...countryside, caught in the crunch of chronic shortages and spiraling inflation, also are among the swelling ranks of the alienated...
...Those with money make a killing on the black market...
...For an illegal black market that obeys only the law of supply and demand now dominates the economy...
...Increasing trouble seems likely for the small circle of men who have ruled Burma by bayonet since seizing power in 1962...
...the military men installed as managers have contributed heavily to the collapse of the expropriated enterprises...
...Since track signals are not functioning, trains approaching a junction must uncouple so the engines can move ahead to check oncoming traffic...
...In several recent instances, locomotives on such missions have run smack into each other...
...Then he points to a bottle with a unicef stamp on its label...
...They were checking the balloting against voters' lists, and they were able to find out how people voted...
...Things are bad, and the government is not popular.'' Such sentiments are hard to document...
...Though the prices are often outrageous, the goods (smuggled from neighboring countries or siphoned from government enterprises) are plentiful...
...We discuss these matters among ourselves a great deal-that is, among those who can be trusted," he says...
...Finally, he speaks of the rising tide of discontent among his fellow citizens in the Burmese countryside...
...What can we do against that...
...We would like to discuss your reasons with you...
...He is wary of being seen with an inquisitive foreigner, yet he wants to make his sorrows known...
...Such dealings are as much a part of our lives as breathing...
...When they were outlined to us, the government's economic policies sounded good...
...Beyond the generous workings of nature, however, there is little to rhapsodize about in this once-thriving and now-impoverished country of 30 million people...
...Even when they stock desired goods, employes frequently save them for favored customers who, as a popular phrase puts it, "forget to take the change...
...Moreover, Ne Win's policies have fostered precisely what they were supposed to eliminate: capitalism, corruption and exploitation...
...and how Army officers use their rank and influence to obtain supposedly unavailable consumer items...
...The Pagan citizens who did take that risk suffered unsettling consequences: a late night visit by a committee of local party officers...
...But," the villager says, "the fact that the party knows about them is enough...
...It's been for the worst.' Significantly, such sentiments are not limited to a small group of sophisticated dissidents in Rangoon...
...We understand you voted against the party," was the standard greeting...
...Balloting supposedly was secret, but the party put watchers at the polls...
...No further action has been taken against those voters...
...He tells, too, how farmers deliberately withhold rice from government purchasers because they get better prices from Trade Corporation 23...
...Smuggled from refugee supplies in Bangladesh," he notes...
...But they do not work, and they certainly have not eliminated the gap between rich and poor...
...Much of this country's black market activity, however, is less public-spirited...
...There, out in the open, shelves filled with clothing, pharmaceuticals, shoes, jewelry, electrical appliances, etc., are on display...
...The cost of living in Burma has climbed 250 per cent since 1972, but most people's earnings have remained unchanged...
...Without the black market, I would not be able to treat people," says one Rangoon physician, referring to the lack of medicine and other necessary supplies distributed by the government...
...Then, continuing, he talks of the scarcity of clothing and rising prices...
...The Burmese are not starving like the street dwellers of Calcutta or Dacca, but their average annual family income of about $400 is among the world's lowest...
...Not much of an excuse is needed to lock somebody up.' What of the future...
...In Rangoon, TC 23 is centered in a shopping area less than two blocks from police headquarters...
...The vote was meaningless," says the villager...
...They are necessary for survival, and government decrees against them are irrelevant...
...Farmers and shopkeepers in the Arnold Abrams, a frequent contributor, is editor of Asia Magazine...
...The most flagrant anti-establishment symbol is the black market, jeeringly known as Trade Corporation 23 because all commerce theoretically is controlled by 22 government trade corporations...
...His Burmese Way to Socialism program, involving the nationalization of 90 per cent of commerce and industry over the last 13 years, has almost ruined this country...
...They've got guns and good organization...
...Standing in the shadow of a massive, centuries-old stupa, one of several thousand such symbols of past Burmese greatness in Pagan, the man looks about uneasily...
...All we have is unhappiness...
...Rangoon is a crowded place with crumbling sidewalks, dilapidated buildings and long lines of sullen inhabitants who must wait for hours to obtain virtually everything...
...the rest of us simply have to scrounge from day to day...
...Government authorities, fearful of inviting chaos by cracking down on the illegal market, turn a blind eye...
...The man shakes his head, then nods in the direction of a passing Army truck filled with troops, part of a 120,-000-man force that is one of the strongest in Southeast Asia...
...But we have passed the point where we see ourselves that way...
...Party officials cited the election results as a sign of public approval, but other factors may have been involved...
...But should I feel like a criminal because I buy it and use it...
...It is no longer a matter of legality or even morality...
...CORRUPTION AND MALAISE Burma's Disastrous Way to Socialism BY ARNOLD ABRAMS Rangoon The sunsets here often lend a spectacular glow to the lush landscape of the central plain, and create fiery halos on the mineral-rich mountains topped with forests of fine teak...
...with good reason??that he will pilfer engine parts for resale...
Vol. 59 • March 1976 • No. 7
