Comrades and Countrymen,

You have known by now with what aims the Burmese Army has come into existence and of what stuff it is made. Its one and only aim is to fight for Burmese freedom and it is to that aim that practically the whole of Burmese Youth have dedicated their lives. You have also seen that it is a united front put up by all the indigenous races that call themselves Burmese. Thus it is that the Burmese Army which is composed of the Burmese, Shans, Kachins and Karens has been looked upon by all as not only the hope of the country but also as its very life and soul. For it is this Burmese Army which has, in the name of the People's Freedom Army, declared war on the Fascist Japanese and is actively engaged in fighting them on the Burmese front. Bitterly have they fought for the liberation of their soil from Fascist clutches and as bitterly with they continue the fight till that menace is completely eradicated. And it is our purpose here no less our duty to tell the people in as clear and simple words as possible the reason for the step we have taken. We wish every single Burmese to understand that in taking this historic step, the Burmese army is neither guided by sheer irresponsibility of youth, as their enemy has been inclined to attribute, nor is it a meaningless, opportunist movement some of the people have tried to make out. Members of the Burmese Army will certainly not let their blood and sweat flow so freely nor let their wives and children suffer mortal agonies at the hands of the Japanese Military Police nor let the Burmese villages go up in flames without having a firm conviction in the righteousness of their action.

We were not unawares of what terror and ravages Japanese Fascism has wrought in China. At the same time, we as realists believed that without the help of a foreign power, in those days, we could not successfully struggle against the British and achieve our independence. It happened that in view of the international situation prevailing then, Japan was and could be only foreign ally we could look up to.

Five years after seizing power, Ne Win had experienced many frustrations and disappointments. He readily admitted that the economy was dysfunctional, that the government had no adequate development plans, that its statistical base was woefully inadequate, that rice production was falling, and the men upon whom he was relying to build a socialist economy did not know what they were doing. But still he pressed on and did not change course. His underlying motive for the revolution that he had created could not be achieved by turning back. Burma had to be pulled up by its bootstraps and self-government restored. Moreover, Burma existed in the midst of a hostile world. The Americans were deep into their Southeast Asian quagmire, with the battle in Laos and Vietnam threatening Cambodia. Thailand, sanctuary to Ne Win's political and insurgent opponents, was locked into the American embrace. Myanmar apparently had amicable relations with its other neighbours, Pakistan, India and China, but the world was an uncertain place and no one could predict the future. As during the previous two years, so through the next few, Rangoon was occasionally a venue for quiet diplomacy to attempt to resolve the wars in Indochina. Ne Win stayed as far from such diplomacy as possible and claimed he was not in the habit of consulting with United Nations (UN) Secretary General U Thant, or anyone else, over the war in Vietnam or other matters. Preserving his neutrality in the Cold War came above all else.

Nevertheless, this did not mean that he did not take his responsibility and opportunities as a statesman on the world stage seriously. When U Thant visited Yangon in February and March 1967, he arranged, via the Soviet Undersecretary at the United Nations, Alexi Nesterenko, to have a secret meeting with North Vietnamese representatives in Yangon. North Vietnam, of course, was not a member of the world body. As Thant recalled in his memoirs:

Bo Ne Win was in the forefront of the Burma Independence Army (BIA) when it crossed the border from Thailand back into his homeland in January 1942. He had left a scant half year before.1 Ne Win's party, including two Japanese majors and three other members of the Thirty Comrades, were the first to cross the Thaungyin River (Sop Moei in Thai) which forms the Thai–Burma border at that point. They did this by raft, with Ne Win being ceremoniously lifted on to Burmese soil by the Japanese officers. The two Japanese then returned to Bangkok, leaving the Burmese to proceed on their own, after changing from Thai to Burmese clothing. Across the river, they passed through Kayin and Thai villages. Their presence evoked some suspicion and curiosity about who this motley group was and what they were doing.

Eventually, they took a boat down the Thanlwin (Salween) River, but this was not until after Ne Win's attempted disguise as a forest officer searching for an elephant was doubted by a village headman who threatened to disarm the group until he was told the truth about their mission. One night they stayed at the monastery of a pro-Thakin monk, U Zawkita, but were rejected by another monk when seeking refuge at his monastery in order to avoid a police patrol. The party then divided, with his three colleagues leaving for Pyinmana, Pyay and Bago, while Ne Win headed to Yangon. Each was to find and encourage members of the resistance to the British they hoped to raise from among their nationalist associates from the Dobama Asiayonand the Students Unions (Maung Maung 1969, pp. 101–3). They moved stealthily into yet British held territory and, evading arrest, and made their way towards the Ayeyawady Delta, east of Yangon. The Japanese army was then approaching the Sittaung River where the defending British would suffer a major disaster in February when the only bridge across was blown before many of the retreating Indian and British troops had crossed, thus further weakening their defence of Yangon.

Ne Win entered Yangon on 2 February, more than a month before the Japanese army.

By 1972, opposition to Ne Win's revolution appeared enfeebled, but still a nuisance and a potential threat. No one could predict the future but, as ever, yesterday's enemies might be tomorrow's assets. As Ne Win had by 1972 been fighting on all sides for thirty years — against imperialists, fascists, communists, separatists, racists, religionists, capitalists, chauvinists, and the merely misguided — he could cope with nuisances, though they and other irritations apparently undermined his health and equilibrium. The tensions of the previous five years appeared to have been weathered. Though the Chinese were still providing support for the Burma Communist Party (BCP), the party itself generated little enthusiasm amongst the majority of the population, and the rebellion was kept going only with the assistance of ethnic separatists and Chinese-dominated border minorities. Still, small urban cells persisted amongst the students and intellectuals. The attempt by U Nu and his Parliamentary Democracy Party (PDP), the old right of Myanmar, had failed to rally the people to its banner and the Americans and the British, while they may have considered the possibility of supporting Nu's movement briefly, had realized the futility of that option. Better not to stir the cauldron of Myanmar politics for fear of losing the country's neutrality in the Cold War.

Nu's link with Karen and other separatist forces had damaged his credibility with the majority of the population, and the Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), though still a potent insurgent force, was in no position to threaten Ne Win's regime. India was reassured of Burma's neutrality in its conflicts with Pakistan and China, and when pressed to decide, had proven that its neutrality was tempered by realism, as in the recognition of its new, and troublesome protégé, Bangladesh. Ne Win's radical brand of neutralism, though paying a heavy price in terms of delayed economic development, was ensuring peace for the overwhelming majority of the population. That peace and stability was welcomed by many then as a respite from the chaos of the previous decades. Most who were adults in the early 1970s had lived through the turmoil of the Second War World, the resistance, and the Civil War.

Despite his more than six decades in the public eye, relatively little is known about General Ne Win's youth and the formative years before he launched the military and political career whence his legend stems. There is much speculation about various aspects of his early days, as is to be expected of one who lived a long and controversial life. He provided little assistance to would-be biographers and kept the private information revealed about his life limited. Consequently, rumours and allegations abound but hard facts are rare. Even his date of birth remains wrapped in mystery, as there are several in circulation.

According to Dr Maung Maung, his only official biographer and a close associate from the 1940s until his own death in 1994, General Ne Win, named Shu Maung at birth, was born on 24 May 1911, a Wednesday, at Paungdale in Paukkaung Township and Pyay District of what is now Bago Region (Maung Maung 1969, p. 26). Who's Who in Burma 1961 places his birth date ten days earlier, on 14 May 1911, a Sunday, as does Ne Win's entry in the list of candidate members of the Central Committee of the Burma Socialist Programme Party at the 1971 Party Congress. The former date was generally favoured in most English-language international media accounts of his life. However, his younger brother, U Thein Nyunt, himself born in 1927, states that his sibling was born on 6 July 1910, on the 15th day of the month of Waso, 1272, in the Burmese calendar, also a Wednesday, just after six o'clock in the evening. His children concur with their uncle on the date, 6 July. U Thant also records that baby Shu Maung was born in 1910, not 1911. It is universally agreed that he arrived in a little village then called Aung Thwe Ma Sha, now known as Kyaung Su, a short walk from Paungdale. Kyaung Su is a small settlement which has since moved further from Paungdale, but the original site still has a small Buddhist pagoda and a now dry well, as well as a new railway station for Paungdale.

When Myanmar received its independence from Great Britain at 4:20 in the morning of 4 January 1948, Ne Win, as commander of the Northern region, was responsible for defending the country's borders with India, China, French Indochina, and Thailand. India was convulsed with the consequences of the partition from Pakistan and China was in the final throes of the civil war between Mao Tse-tung's Red Army and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT). Laos, as a French colony was relatively peaceful and Thailand was just two months back under the military rule of Marshall Pibul Songram. None of these at that time appeared to pose a threat to the territorial integrity or the sovereignty of Myanmar but with Chinese Communist victory apparently imminent, and Thailand having only recently given up administrative control of the cis-Salween (Thanlwin) Shan State of Kengtung which had been given by Japan, the future appeared ominous.

Moreover, both putative Chinese governments maintained claims to territory bequeathed by Britain to Burma to a line deep into Ne Win's command, roughly from Myitkyina west to the Indian border. In January 1948, it was fortunate that no neighbouring government either wished, or was in a position, to challenge Burma's borders. The northern command had neither the troops nor the equipment to move up to the borders and defend them. During the sixty-two years that Britain had controlled this vast territory, little had been done to develop the roads and railways of the region. Being a rough mountainous country with few obvious economic assets, most of the border areas remained largely undisturbed except for the many Western and Karen missionaries who were converting the peoples of the area who were non-Buddhists, particularly the Kachin, to one or another variety of Christianity. Like the Bamar, however, the Shan remained overwhelming followers of Theravada Buddhism.

Despite what is known of his life, in many ways, Ne Win remains an enigma. There is too much unknown to form a rounded and satisfactory understanding of the man. He was a man of his time, and that time is now gone. The issues which inflamed nationalist politicians in Myanmar and other colonies in the 1920s and 1930s are all but forgotten, except by historians. The changing alliances and the violence of war and revolution in the 1940s throughout Europe and Asia are now the romance of movies and historical documentaries. The global Cold War and the anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist rhetoric of Third World leaders of the 1950s and 1960s are now marketed as Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh T-shirts. The collapse of socialism and Communism is now taught as inevitable by the sons and daughters of the neoclassical economists who developed monetarism and privatization in the 1970s and 1980s. Men and women born in this century will find it hard to understand how once white skin was a necessary badge for admission to the centres of global power and wealth, or that men brought the world to the cusp of nuclear war over ideological shibboleths of Communism and Democratic Capitalism. Even if we knew more about Ne Win, it is doubtful we would know how to understand the world as he and his generation of Myanmar nationalists did.

However, some aspects of his character, purposes and intent do show through his words and actions. Of course, over a lifetime of more than nine decades, his opinions changed as he learned new things, experienced new sensations, and observed the world around him alter, seemingly imperceptively, but cumulatively, significantly. However, like most people, Ne Win was probably not as adaptable to change as he thought he was or perhaps he should have been, particularly towards the end of his political career. He was born in a township in the middle of a province of British India and died in a nation whose government was considered a pariah by the Western governments which had seen him for twenty-six years as a champion of anti-Communism and the nation he governed, the quiet hub around which the international politics of South, Southeast and East Asia's conflicts were waged.

As Ne Win entered his 41st year, he might well have felt that he had done his share of creating and defending Myanmar as an independent state. During the previous decade, he had been part of six organizations and re-organizations of Myanmar's first army since 1885. He had climbed up and been lowered down the chain of command of armies led by Japanese, Burmese, British, and again Burmese officers. Always playing a leading role, whatever his rank, he rose to the pinnacle of military power and had political power within his grasp, but had refused to keep it. Seen by many as the “virtual dictator” of those parts of the country where the government's writ ran,1 rather than grab for power, he eased back and for the next eight years reverted to a man many people remember from his life in Yangon during and after his stint at Yangon University, a rather shiftless, easygoing playboy, intent on rather selfish and hedonistic pursuits, with little ambition and less energy for the details of government.

During the next eight years, he married, for the third time, the woman with whom he is most remembered in Myanmar and who bore him three children who were closest to him. To the extent that Ne Win had a normal domestic life, it was during this period. He travelled the world for business and pleasure, playing golf in Scotland, lunching with prime ministers and heads of state, taking what were in effect extensive holidays abroad, as well as visiting foreign military bases and holding high-level strategic and political discussions with governments of every political stripe, capitalist republics, Communist one-party regimes, and the mixed bag that came to be known as the Third World, of which Myanmar was a part. He clearly mellowed during these years and the intensity which had driven him in the 1940s, and especially during the height of the civil war, was gone, for a man taking a more measured view of matters, even a degree of detachment.

Events once more moved Ne Win's life in a different direction a decade after Myanmar gained its independence. In 1958, he assumed the Prime Ministership, the pinnacle of political power which he had refused to grasp when it was first within his reach. How much he had a hand in engineering the events that led to his elevation remains in dispute, but the evidence, to the best it can be understood, is that he was at least a willing participant in the politics which led to what U Nu subsequently realized as his own irrational and petulant behaviour which allowed the army to oust him from power. As Ne Win was the head of the army, he might have taken measures to ensure a different result. In any event, he did not stop the process which led to his first assumption of the reins of government.

Burmese politics were changed irreparably when the ruling Anti- Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) split into two factions at the end of April to the beginning of May 1958. The split had consequences not only for the country's political parties and its army, but also for the Buddhist monkhood, which was also fractured by the rupture (Mendelson 1975, p. 244). By 9 June, the split was absolute, but, in retrospect, it seemed to be inevitable after, if not before, the 1956 elections. The Socialists, led by Kyaw Nyein and Ba Swe, left the government at Prime Minister Nu's insistence, and he and his faction, now a minority in the Pyithu Hluttaw, could only continue in office with the support of minor parties, particular the largely pro-Communist National United Front (NUF) (the ur-manuscript on this is Sein Win 1959).

It is both too soon and too late to write a political biography of General Ne Win. Too soon for several reasons: one is that his name still stirs political passions, though not as strongly as two or three decades ago. Another reason is that a number of diplomatic records necessary for a full account are not yet available. Under the thirty-year rule that applies in many archives, most of Ne Win's final decade in power is still under a blanket and this book is weaker for that. Moreover, the Myanmar archives and the archives of other countries crucial for a complete account are partially or totally unavailable. If I had more time, more money, and an even more tolerant publisher, the book would be substantially longer than it is now.

A political biography of General Ne Win is also too late in that many people who might have been interviewed and provided first-hand accounts of events and circumstances are no longer here. The Grim Reaper reached them before I did. Especially, the subject of the volume, General Ne Win, whom I never met, has been gone for more than a decade as I write. He does not have the chance to rebut and refute what I have written about him. However, given his lack of interest in what others said about him, and his unwillingness to encourage a cult of personality around himself, other than in the reflected glory of General Aung San, it is unlikely that he would do so even if he were alive.

A question that readers might ask is why have I bothered to write this book? I do not need to do so as I am under no obligation to a university to drive it up the league tables or a funding council to demonstrate that I deserve my noodles and potatoes.1 There are, however, reasons which grew out of my academic career.I lived in Myanmar in 1978 and in 1982 for periods of six months each, and visited the country almost every year between 1975 and 1987, the year before Ne Win stepped down from formal office. Though I was unable to travel widely before 1989, and never reached the furthest regions of the country until this century, I did experience a little of what life in socialist Myanmar was like.

General Ne Win's assumption of power on 2 March 1962, while not unexpected, was nonetheless a surprise to many. It was executed in secrecy, and apparently even the deputy commander of the armed forces, Brigadier General Aung Gyi, was not informed until the next morning, though he must have been expecting it as early as November 1961, when he raised the prospect with colleagues. Others in the army, including Brigadier General Tin Pe, had been urging Ne Win to halt what they saw as a drift towards the dissolution of the Union of Burma. U Nu's cooperation with the Shan and Kayah traditional leaders in the Federal Seminar, and growing discontent in other minority areas caused by Nu's constitutional amendment making Buddhism the state religion, were creating political forces which many in the army felt the increasingly fractious Union Party government could not resist. Kachin Christians, led by former students fired by zeal for “Kachin national culture”, resented the installation of Buddhism as the state religion and the Shan Sawbwa, in the name of Shan “national determination”, were beginning to organize armed opposition to the government. The possibility of the Union Party splitting, as the AFPFL had done in 1958, became ever more likely, especially after Nu, the only person holding the party together, announced he would not run for office again after the next elections due two years hence (Silverstein 1977, p. 66). Planning for the corp commenced on 24 February, and twenty-eight officers were instructed as to what to do when the order for the coup was given. However, the date remained unknown until Ne Win gave the order (Mya Han and Thein Hlaing 2001, pp. 164–65).

Nu who was held incommunicado at Mingaladon from the middle of the night, initially believed that his detention was engineered by junior officers and soon Ne Win would come to his rescue (Nu 1975, pp. 141– 44). He, like many others, had false expectations, believing the past would be a guide to the future.

Ne Win commenced his sixteenth year in power, and his fourth as President, in a calmer mood than was apparent during the previous years. He spent ten days around the Burmese New Year, thingyan, in Maymyo in 1978 with some of his children, playing golf, rather than going abroad as often in the past. However, he had a mishap of some nature and had to be flown by helicopter to Mandalay on 24 April. Nonetheless, three days later he was receiving departing ambassadors as usual. One of the achievements of the socialist revolution, the People's Health Plan, had commenced on 1 April. For all the problems of the economy, some of the social reforms that were dreamt of at the time of the 1962 coup were at least being realized, if only on paper. However, the cost was significant in other terms and it was believed by the British ambassador that Myanmar was then holding 1,500 political prisoners, many having been arrested in the workers and students demonstrations in 1974. Others would have been insurgents and other rebels caught in military campaigns against the Communist and ethnically designated separatists. However, as the economy improved, the international situation evolved in ways posing no immediate threat to the country, Ne Win's confidence grew and, within two years, there would be a significant liberalization within the boundaries of the oneparty state.

Background to the Conflict

Even casual observers of the Myanmar political scene will be aware that one of the most difficult and enduring problems that continues to challenge the country's political transition is the need to find a resolution to the manifold conflicts that have taken place in the so-called “ethnic” states. One of the longest of these conflicts has been in the Kachin State, in the north of the country. The Kachin Independence Army was founded in 1961 and entered into armed conflict with the central military regime following General Ne Win's takeover of power in 1962. Although there were some attempts to broker ceasefires during the following decades, the fighting continued more or less without cessation until 1994, when an agreement to retain arms but refrain from violence was eventually signed. In June 2011, this ceasefire in turn collapsed after being in place for seventeen years and the conflict has since then remained stubbornly impervious to resolution. It is proving as difficult as ever it was in the past to find a way forward through negotiation, and the national peace process, centred upon the conclusion of a nationwide ceasefire with all principal ethnic armed groups as promoted by the national government, is floundering once more.

It is a convention in almost any policy document or analysis of the Kachin conflict to begin with a longer history of the Kachin regi on, often invoking, too, a pseudo-anthropological interpretation of kinship and lineage as perennial markers of “Kachin” identity and a means of explaining the nature of this enduring resistance. Typically, too, such analysis will describe the Kachin experience under colonial rule as a decisive factor in explaining the continuation of problems down to the present. This includes the political separation of the Frontier Areas from the rest, the military privileging of ethnic recruits into the colonial army and then the failure and ongoing symbolism of the Panglong Agreement of 1947. The agreement was signed by General Aung San and a number of elite representatives of “ethnic minority” communities with the intention of facilitating the speedy withdrawal of British imperial power on the basis of a future commitment by the Burmese nationalist government to introducing a federal system. This over-arching historical narrative, which is used to explain the emergence and rationale of the Kachin conflict down to the present, is so well-rehearsed that it has become almost impossible to resist.

After a decade in power, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono retired from the Indonesian presidency in October 2014. Arguably, his rule was the most stable period of governance in Indonesian democratic politics — counting both the sixteen years following Soeharto's fall and the seven-year parliamentary democracy in the 1950s. Accommodating a wide array of ideological, religious and social interests, Yudhoyono has been a master political integrationist. The slogan of his party (“nationalist-religious”) symbolized Yudhoyono's determination, and ability, to bridge the key divide in Indonesian society, that is, that between nationalists, who believe that religion needs to take a backseat to larger societal issues, and devout Muslims, who favour a stronger role for Islam in political life. While balancing these two groups, Yudhoyono also neutralized a host of other conflict spots. Handing out patronage posts to all major parties that sought them, and refraining from conflict with forces critical of him or democracy overall, Yudhoyono ensured that almost everyone accepted, or at least tolerated, his rule. The result of this decade-long political equilibrium looked impressive: Indonesia recorded economic growth rates last seen under Soeharto, communal violence was kept at very low levels, and one major separatist conflict — Aceh — was resolved.

Yet Yudhoyono's quiet rule was followed by the most divisive elections since the end of Soeharto's New Order regime in 1998. The struggle for Yudhoyono's succession saw renewed tensions between the nationalist and Islamic camps, and supporters of a return to some form of autocratic governance faced off with defenders of the democratic status quo. Both candidates in the 2014 presidential elections, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Prabowo Subianto, styled themselves as populists who promised — in very different ways — to address public dissatisfaction with Yudhoyono's steady but uninspiring government. Clearly, then, Yudhoyono's presidency had not ended the country's long-standing tensions and conflicts — it had simply bottled them up. The 2014 elections returned Indonesia to a more “normal” state of politics — one in which the heterogeneity of views and interests played out in the open instead of being absorbed into Yudhoyono's quest for societal harmony. This article describes the repolarization of Indonesian politics by evaluating the “battle of the populists” in the 2014 elections, the state of the economy as a main driver of the populist surge, and the new, more aggressive foreign policy rhetoric under the Jokowi administration.

Introduction

The 2013 national elections could be seen as a transformative event for Cambodian politics. Given its massive grassroots organizations, strong symbiotic relations with domestic tycoons and its control of state resources and institutions — particularly the security apparatus, the judiciary, and the National Election Committee (NEC) — the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was expected to win a landslide victory over the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). This expectation was up-ended as large numbers of Cambodian people voted against the CPP, forcing the party to do some soul searching. This article addresses four points.

The first examines factors that led many people to expect CPP victory. The second focuses on reasons underlying the protest votes against the CPP and the CNRP's popularity. The third documents the popular protests organized by the CNRP and the CPP's responses that culminated in a political compromise; and the fourth addresses CPP's reform efforts since the election. It then concludes by outlining expected trends for the coming years.

The Expectations

The CPP went into the 2013 election cycle with strong prospects. First, the economy was strong, growing at a rate of over 7 per cent propelled by the agriculture, textile and tourism sectors. The CPP controlled all government institutions from the national to local levels including the National Election Committee. It also had a monopoly over the media; major television and radio stations are either affiliated with or owned by the CPP. As the Cambodian state has been synonymous with the CPP, the party was able to manipulate public goods transforming them into partisan resources. The CPP has strong organizational capacity with networks that link the state and business tycoons to local communities, creating a massive patronage-based vote-driving machine. The core of this structure is the party working groups comprising central party officials, senior government officials, and sub-national government officials with funding from these government officials and businesses. These working groups contributed resources for the construction of schools, roads, bridges, and offered a variety of small gifts including cash, monosodium glutamate (MSG), clothing and reading glasses. Nationwide opinion polls conducted by the National Republican Institute found 79 per cent of Cambodians believed that their country was headed in the right direction. Top reasons for people's confidence included the country's infrastructural improvement. Cambodia watchers generally believed that the CPP would win a comfortable majority even in the absence of electoral manipulation.