Elder of Burmese Opposition Grapples With Election Dissonance

"Elder of Burmese Opposition Grapples With Election Dissonance"
By New York Times, Published: September 29, 2009 (Photo: Myat Moe Maung/The Irrawaddy)

YANGON, Myanmar — U Win Tin, once Myanmar’s longest- serving political prisoner, was tormented, tortured and beaten by his captors in the notorious Insein Prison for nearly two decades. Now, at 80, he faces a new kind of torment: watching colleagues from his political party decide whether to play ball with the junta.

Released in September 2008 after more than 19 years in prison, Mr. Win Tin remains remarkably spry, upbeat, and politically engaged. A co-founder of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, he is a vocal opponent of taking part in national elections set for next year. The vote, along with the implementation of a new constitution, would nominally return Myanmar to civilian government after four and a half decades of military rule.

But while the constitution, passed in a disputed referendum held amid the widespread devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, allows elected representation, it accords special powers to the military in what the junta calls it “disciplined democracy.” Many critics call it a sham.
“The election can mean nothing as long as it activates the 2008 constitution, which is very undemocratic,” Mr. Win Tin said in a recent interview.

However, his party is split over whether to boycott the election. Some members say participating would mean losing moral claim to the party’s landslide victory in the 1990 general election, which was ignored by the junta. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent much of the period since under house arrest and was sentenced to a new term of 18 months in May, has not made her views on the issue public.

Still, the constitution offers some protections. In August, the International Crisis Group, the Brussels-based nongovernmental organization that seeks to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts, issued a report recommending that opposition groups participate in the election. It said that, although the new constitution “entrenches military power,” the changes at least establish “shared political spaces — the legislatures and perhaps the cabinet — where co-operation could be fostered.”

And internationally, some policies toward Myanmar are shifting. Last week, the Obama administration announced that it would engage the junta directly, while keeping sanctions in place. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the unconditional release of political prisoners, including Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, and “credible, democratic reform.”

“If the direct engagement of the U.S. will result in the release of all political prisoners and in a revision of the 2008 Constitution, then dialogue could begin between us and the junta, and we would consider running in the election,” Mr. Win Tin said.

Mr. Win Tin — warm, razor-sharp and grittily determined — said the junta might have released him, shortly before his jail sentence was complete, in order to split the party. He admitted that “we are having some arguments about whether we are going to participate in the elections or not,” but insisted that there was “no conflict within the party now.”

Before being jailed for three years in 1989 after he became secretary of the then newly formed National League for Democracy, Mr. Win Tin had worked as a journalist. In 1991, he was given 10 more years for his involvement in popular uprisings in 1988 that were crushed by the military. In 1996, he was given seven more years for sending the United Nations a petition about abuses in Myanmar prisons. Much of the time, he was in solitary confinement.

“I could not bow down to them,” he said. “No, I could not do it. I wrote poems to keep myself from going crazy. I did mathematics with chalk on the floor.”

He added: “From time to time, they ask you to sign a statement that you are not going to do politics and that you will abide by the law and so on and so forth. I refused.”

When all his upper teeth were bashed out, he was 61. The guards refused to let him get dentures for eight years, leaving him to gum his food.
Early this month, Mr. Win Tin was briefly detained after he wrote an op-ed that appeared in The Washington Post, criticizing the ruling military junta and its plans for the election next year.

“I think they are trying to intimidate me, to stop me from appearing in the foreign media,” he said.

During the interview, on his cousin’s leafy porch in suburban Yangon, government spies openly watched and took photographs from outside the gate.

Never married, Mr. Win Tin talks fondly of his adopted daughter, who lives in Sydney, Australia, after gaining political asylum 15 years ago. He has not seen her since.

Accustomed to a spare prison diet, he has one meal early in the day and a bit of fruit in the evening. “I don’t want to be a burden on anyone,” he said.

Since his release, Mr. Win Tin has tried to reinvigorate the leadership of the National League for Democracy by stepping up the frequency of meetings and lobbying overseas governments. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi remains popular, despite the long years of detention, but the party has been crippled by the arrests of hundreds of the younger members, Mr. Win Tin said.

“We have some young men, but they are followed and sent to jail all the time,” he said. “Sometimes, they go to the pagoda just for praying. They are followed and charged with something and sentenced.” Many, he said, are tortured.

All but one of Mr. Win Tin’s eight colleagues on the party’s central executive committee are older than him. The committee president and chairman, U Aung Shwe, is 92, and so infirm that he has not visited party headquarters for months. The party secretary, U Lwin, 87, is bedridden and paralyzed. The youngster in the group, is U Khin Maung Swe, 64.

Despite the challenges his party faces, Mr. Win Tin remains upbeat.

“We expect democracy can happen anytime,” he said, recalling the country’s postcolonial democracy period between 1948 and 1962. “But sometimes, you have to sacrifice everything for a long, long time. It might extend for more than your life span.”