Than Shwe’s Dream is Really a Nightmare

“During the time of the Tatmadaw government [the Burmese junta], special efforts were made towards achieving rice sufficiency for a projected population of 100 million, anticipating the next generations in addition to the current population of 56 million.”

This absurd statement was uttered not by some comedian or other but by the head of Burma’s junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

Than Shwe made the claim in a speech to the military power’s new bloods, final-year students of the elite military college, the Defense Service Academy, during a graduation ceremony in Pyin Oo Lwin [also known as May Myo] on December 14. His full speech was published in the junta media on December 15.     

Tyrannies historically produce similar public speeches. When Than Shwe indulges in them they’re called “dream speeches.” His dream, however, is not set in the 21st Century, but in the 17th or 18th. A close look at his speech shows that he is out of touch with the reality of Burma’s development.

He is fed information by his closest aides, Aung Thaung, Minister of Industry-1, and Soe Tha, Minister of National Planning, according to sources close to the Tatmadaw. Both ministers obviously claimed that Burma’s GDP is skyrocketing into double figures.

However, one influential think-tank, the Economist Intelligence Unit says the Burmese junta’s management of the economy remains poor, and major policy changes will continue to contribute to economic instability.

Agriculture suffers from poor productivity, and manufacturing is constrained by shortages of capital, lack of access to imported products and a lack of competitiveness in imports from Thailand and China, says the EIU in its 2007 report on Burma.

The EIU warns the junta to wake up from its dream and to face reality. It says that far from growing at double figures, Burma’s GDP will increase at around 3 to 4 percent in the next two years, slower than any other country in the region.

A UN country report in October 2007, meanwhile, recorded that 90 percent of Burmese people survive on less than US $300 annually, the lowest per capita income of all Asean countries. The report also deplored the "deteriorating humanitarian situation" in Burma and suggested that UN agencies could help the country address "poverty and suffering and their underlying causes."

The regime’s reply to the report was to expel the most senior UN official in Burma, Charles Petrie. He left Burma on December 4.

One of Than Shwe’s most recent public appearances was at the opening ceremony of Burma’s first cyber city, Yadanabon, located in Pyi Oo Lwin Township. The cyber city on their doorstep hasn’t brought much progress, though, to the residents of Pyi Oo Lwin, who say they still have to put up with power cuts and shortages.

But let’s return to Than Shwe’s dream. In his speech to the DSA graduates, he declared: “Efforts for domestic sufficiency in foodstuffs are also accompanied by endeavors toward the building of an industrial nation for national prosperity. To this end, education and heath sectors are being upgraded to produce highly qualified human resources. The upgrading of human resources will bring ever greater momentum to national development year after year.” 

In the late 1990s, Than Shwe gave a similarly gung ho speech to government officials when laying out a 30-year plan. In a statement of staggering hubris, he declared that Burma’s rate of development over the next 30 years would overtake that of the US, the European countries and Japan.

Ten years have passed since then, and Burma lags behind even Laos and Cambodia.

It’s unclear when Than Shwe will finally wake up from his dream. But it is certain that when he does surface, he is bound to realize that his dream is in effect a nightmare for Burma and himself. It’s a nightmare that condemns Burma to unrelenting poverty.