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Conversing With the Voice of Democracy

An Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi
By Bernard Krisher

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma (also called Myanmar). The NLD swept national elections in 1990 which were never honored by the military junta which continues to run the country. Bernard Krisher interviewed Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon in February. Parts of this interview have run in other publications, but this is the first time the complete text has been published.

The interview with Aung San Suu Kyi was held on Saturday, February 12 in her ramshackle office on the second floor of the dilapidated building that houses the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in Rangoon. Earlier in the afternoon some 300 party members crowded into the ground floor hall, sitting on mats-largely women and children wearing pins with her photo, as well as some elderly men and party leaders. The party's youth group presented a satirical play ridiculing the military government before Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the audience. During other speeches and some awards presented to party leaders from different regions who had traveled to Rangoon to attend the meeting, she sat among them on the floor on a mat, not on the dais. Military intelligence outside the building tried to stop my wife and me as we exited from a taxi to walk toward the building, but we ignored them, and they did not touch us physically. A half dozen military intelligence took our photos as we strode into the building to attend the party's Union Day anniversary ceremony, and again when we left. Some diplomats from the American, British, Japanese, French, and Australian embassies also attended. After the meeting I asked Aung San Suu Kyi if she would grant me an interview. She agreed to be interviewed for 20 minutes if I could stay on for the performance, as she had a series of appointments lined up. The interview lasted 30 minutes. The text follows:

Bernard Krisher: What was the main message that you conveyed today, and what additional things would you like to say to your people?

Aung San Suu Kyi: In commemorating Union Day of Burma I talked about the fact that unity cannot be built without mutual trust and understanding and that there is no hope for peace or prosperity unless there is unity. So you have to start with unity of a nation; that is the main message of Union Day itself.

BK: How would you gauge the level of your support today inside Burma?

ASSK: I would not like to think of it in terms of my support as such. I think we should think of it in terms of how strong the forces of democracy are. I think I could say with great confidence that ninety percent of the people of Burma want democracy. Of course, of those who want democracy, those who really dare to go out and fight for it politically are in the minority because there is so much oppression by the military government, and there is tremendous fear. But we have a very strong group of people at the core as you could see today at the meeting. Since about the autumn of 1998 when we founded the Committee of the People's Parliament, it has been very difficult for us to hold any of our commemorative ceremonies. Usually these ceremonies are an opportunity for us to deliver political messages and to demonstrate our unity, but from the beginning in September 1998 and throughout 1999 the authorities tried to intercept every one of our ceremonies. For example, last year you would not have been allowed in. They had road blocks in front of our headquarters, and they prevented all foreigners from coming. And they prevented certain representatives from other political parties from coming. Diplomats were also prevented from coming. Even members of our party had to produce their national registration cards and were asked to prove they were members of our party. Huge roadblocks kept our people away. This went on through all of last year. But still our people kept coming, and I think perhaps partly as a result of such perseverance among our members, the authorities have decided that there is not much to be gained by continuing this kind of policy. Last month when we had our Independence Day ceremonies they allowed in diplomats and foreigners, and they didn't use road blocks.

BK: How do you keep up your spirit in the face of all this frustration and harassment? What keeps you going?

ASSK: I think what keeps most of our people going is a sense of humor apart from the cause of our commitment. A lot of our people take their troubles with a sense of humor, but of course basically it's a sense of commitment because it's not normal to have to laugh, to live with the kind of laughter that comes out of our people. Having to live in fear, that's not a normal state of being, and this is what we're trying to get out of. We're not trying to destroy or annihilate the military regime; they are always threatening to annihilate us but that is not the purpose of our movement. The purpose of our movement is to create a society that offers security to all our people, including the military.

BK: Some people argue that not all countries are ready for democracy. What is your argument to support that the Burmese people are ready to live under a democracy?

ASSK: If you want to put it that way then you can say that in a sense a democracy is never perfect; even in the United States of America democracy is not perfect. We could also argue that the Japanese were not ready for democracy in 1945, but they were given democracy and they have worked and lived with democracy. Sometimes-and this may be an arguable point-I think in some ways the people of Burma are more ready for democracy now, a lot more ready now, than the people of Japan were ready for democracy in 1945, because in Japan there was never a struggle or movement for democracy. Democracy was simply handed to them on a plate as part of the arrangements after the war. It was not something they struggled for. Now with regard to Burma, apart from the fact that Burma spent quite some time under British colonial administration which did structure some forms of democracy-some democratic institutions such as the rule of law did come into being and they did start general elections and political parties-after independence we became independent as a democratic nation, as a parliamentary democracy. So we have had experience of democracy in practice and apart from that, even if we leave aside the long years under Burma's Socialist Program Party, when the desire of the people for a more open society, for a return to democratic institutions was never crushed, we have now been struggling for democracy actively for the last 12 years. So if people say we are not ready for democracy, then how about the Japanese? If they were ready for democracy in 1945, we are many times more ready for democracy now.

BK: What is your feeling toward Japanese policy toward Burma?

ASSK: We find that there are a lot of people in Japan who are very sympathetic to us and to our cause, if they get to know about it. There are very very supportive groups of Japanese people and organizations. But there is not enough information about what is going on in Burma.

BK: What about the Japanese government?

ASSK: The government is quite often influenced by business considerations. It's just not that. I'm inclined to think there is a tradition among Japanese governments, whichever government they may be, to try to establish good relations with whoever is in power in whichever nation. It seems to me that this is part of the tradition of Japanese governments. And perhaps that, as much as and perhaps even much more than the influence of the Japanese business lobby, would incline the Japanese government towards trying to establish good relations with the military regime.

BK: This is the pattern the Japanese governments have followed with regard to South Korea, and so it may seem awkward now that they are warmed up to Kim Dae Jung, toward whom they reacted coolly after he was kidnapped from Japan, taking no action to hold the South Korean regime at that time accountable for it.

ASSK: Yes, and incidentally we are very grateful to Kim Dae Jung. We find people do not always act the same once they are in office as they do while when they are in the opposition. But president Kim Dae Jung has been very permanent in his support of democracy in Burma, and we appreciate that very much. He is one of the very very few people in this world who have not changed because they have come to office.

BK: You will not either, I believe.

ASSK: I hope not. One does not like to . . . I think if you stay in politics long enough you do develop a sense of humility because you see many strange things going on.

BK: Getting back to Japan, what would you like to tell the Japanese people and their government? What mistakes do you think they are they making by pushing investments and supporting the military regime?

ASSK: What I think is really at stake here is the future of the relationship between Burma and Japan. Japan should not think of Burma in terms of the military regime but in terms of the people of Burma. If the Japanese government were to think of the interests of the people of Burma then they would be in a greater position to establish true friendship between the two countries.

BK: Do you think the investments in Burma might be jeopardized if democracy came to Burma? Would a new democratic regime continue to honor such investment agreements?

ASSK: We are not against business at all. This is the mistake a lot of people make. They think the National League for Democracy and the democratic forces in general are anti-business. We are not anti-business. We are for a free market economy. It's part of our party platform. But now we do not have a genuine market economy. It isn't a free market economy at all. It is very much biased in favor of those who are connected to the regime. So why we object to investments now is not because we are against investments per se, but because we don't think this is the right time for investing. By investing now, business is supporting the military regime. The real benefits of investments now go to the military regime and their connections. They go to just a small, very privileged elite. And the people get very little. The trickle-down effect is such a tiny trickle that it disappears by the time it gets down to the lower level.

BK: How can people who wish to give humanitarian aid really help the needy Burmese people without going through the military regime?

ASSK: The first question to ask is how effective is this humanitarian aid? What do they mean exactly by humanitarian aid? What kind of aid is that? And how many people is it supposed to help? In general, whatever humanitarian aid NGOs may be able to give is a drop in the ocean compared to what is really needed in Burma. What we really need in Burma is substantive change-the kind of change that will enable people to help themselves. It is like this well-known dictum that it's better to teach people to learn to fish than give them fish to eat. So we want to teach people to help themselves. We want to create a society where people are free to help themselves. But the kind of humanitarian aid that is given now-some claim it is given in such a way as to strengthen the civil society. But there are many questions marks about it. If you have to cooperate, or let's put it a little more strongly, if you are forced to collaborate with the military regime in order to be able to carry out any kind of program in Burma, how much are you really contributing to the emergence of a strong civil society? So these are the questions we ask when people talk about humanitarian aid.

BK: Should people then just give up in trying to find a means of helping the needy?

ASSK: No. What they should do is to help change the totalitarian system. And they can do it in many different ways. One is to make the leadership in Japan understand that the Japanese government can help the poor people of Burma best by promoting the democratization process rather than by collaborating with the military regime. By collaborating with the military regime they may be able to give little dribs and drabs of humanitarian assistance but that is not going to help our people substantially at all. So if the international community were united in trying to bring about the changes that are called for in the United Nations resolution on Burma, that would help. Compare us to Cambodia. Quite recently I was talking to a businessman who is part of a Southeast Asian consortium. He said the prospects of business in Cambodia were so much different than in Burma because, [even] with all its problems and defects, Cambodia is now heading toward a far more open type of society than Burma is. Burma is still a far more totalitarian authoritarian state whereas Cambodia allows a number of private enterprises, NGOs and humanitarian organizations to operate fairly independently, which is not the case here. A member of an NGO in Burma can get into trouble simply for coming to see me.

BK: We were photographed coming in here and I fear they may take this tape or film away when we leave, or at the airport.

ASSK: You must be firm. You always have to be firm with bullies, and basically all authoritarian regimes are bullies.

BK: What are the most serious economic and social problems in Burma?

ASSK: The economy is in a mess. If we have to replicate the report of the World Bank, then there are a number of major problems which have brought the economy into such a state. One of the first things to come to mind is the fact that this regime seems not to understand the idea of macro-economics. There is no macro-economics view at all on the part of the military regime, and there are the obvious [examples] like the extremely unrealistic exchange rate. Officially the rate is 5.80 kyat to the dollar. But actually one dollar is worth about 330 kyat. The dollar fell in recent months . At one time it was up to 380 which is more than 60 times the official rate. This is an extremely unrealistic exchange rate. And then there were all those unproductive industries which are legacies of the socialist regime, and there is the inability of the civilian administration and its civil servants to operate freely. Everywhere the military is dipping its finger in and not being efficient.

BK: Are there any civilians in the economic sector?

ASSK: There are but that does not mean the military regime necessarily listens to them. That is one of the problems. We had a fairly well-trained civil service but the military authorities do not listen to the advice of the civil service, the professionals-even the Foreign Office. They are replacing all the foreign service officials with military and ex-military staff.

BK: Given what has been happening in the rest of Asia-the fall of Marcos and Suharto, for example, combined with the added factor of the Internet, which spreads information that can't be suppressed by the most authoritarian regimes-how long do you think this regime will last?

ASSK: I don't think it's that far away, let's put it that way. I'm not an astrologer. I can't see into the future. But I do not think the day is so far off when our people can enjoy the justice, freedom, and peace that peoples all over the world long for, mainly because this is what the majority of the people want to have. They are tired of living in fear, they are tired of living in a state of insecurity, and they are tired of the economic mess. There are some, of course, who are doing very well. You probably know there is [always] a small elite who are very prosperous even when the rest of their country is wallowing in poverty. It is the same in Burma. There are those who are doing well under this regime, but the great majority are suffering: people who can't afford to live decently. And earlier you asked what are the major social and economic problems. I just got to the economic problems. Now the social problems: The worst thing is the educational system. We always said that we would measure the success of the country in terms of health and education of the people. We are not interested in high-rise buildings and hotels and monuments and parks. The way to measure how well people are doing is by looking at the state of their health and the state of education. Both are in a terrible state. You must have heard that most of the universities are closed. They have opened some faculties. And then the educational system even at the school level is so terrible because the teachers are so badly paid. There is no proper equipment in the schools. They will put up a showroom of computers while there are children who cannot even afford textbooks, and there are no adequate textbooks for all the schools in Burma. So the state of education is terrible. As for health, if you are able to walk into any hospital in Rangoon you will be surprised-no equipment, no medicines. People going into a hospital have to buy their own medicine. They have to take their own equipment, and there are even cases where they have to supply things like surgical gloves, bandages, surgical spirits-even the most basic equipment has to be supplied by the patient. So all the hospitals offer are expertise-the expertise of the staff. And because their staff are ill paid, even that is hard to come by.

BK: Would assistance of equipment and pharmaceuticals help?

ASSK: No. We have heard of good medicine being donated to the hospitals, and these medicines end up in private shops because the whole hospital system is corrupt since the hospital staff are poor. They also have to somehow manage their finances. If you were to wander into a hospital in Rangoon, once the authorities have caught on there is a foreigner on the premises, I think you would have to leave the hospital pretty soon, and I also doubt any of the staff would dare talk to you.

BK: How will the lack of university education affect the next generation once Burma opens up? Will there be capable people around to help run the country?

ASSK: We will have to retrain a lot of people, but we say the most important thing for Burma is to democratize quickly. We were talking earlier about humanitarian aid. Well, what is a new school building somewhere compared to the fact that there is going to be a full generation of uneducated people? So you have to get your priorities right. It is not so important that you should be able to build a new school somewhere when that new school will probably not have any efficient teaching staff because the teachers are going to be ill paid and there is a whole generation going to be half-educated. The aim that should be brought about is democratic change. This should be the primary aim for all those who desire the well-being of the people of Burma. If you ask any Japanese parent: do you want your child to sit on a mat on the floor in an little thatched cottage and be taught properly or would you have him sit in a new brick building with nobody to teach, I think they would all say automatically: in a thatched cottage as long as they are going to be taught properly. So we have to get our priorities right: what are we going to do with the generations that are uneducated or ill-educated? We have to retrain all of them. The sooner we have changed, the better, because the easier it will be for us to rehabilitate the whole country.

BK: Do you think ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) membership is having a positive or negative impact on Burma?

ASSK: ASEAN is not having any positive impact on Burma. Two years ago, before they admitted Burma as a permanent member, they made the point that once Burma was a member of ASEAN it would be more reasonable, and they would be in a better position to influence Burma and guide it along the right lines. We argued that we did not think this was the case. What we thought was that once Burma had been made a full member of ASEAN, which is what [the government] wanted, then they wouldn't try any more to be good boys-they would be more oppressive, and they would just go ahead and do what they wanted, and they wouldn't really listen to any advice from the members of ASEAN, and I think that this turned out to be absolutely true. They have turned out to be most oppressive between 1998 and now. The oppression increased noticeably after they became a member of ASEAN.

BK: But the Philippines has come out to criticize Burma.

ASSK: But is this military regime listening? Of course the ASEAN nations also do not speak out with a united voice. They ought to join together but they have problems in their own backyard as well.

BK: On a personal level, do you regret you did not attend your husband's funeral?

ASSK: I don't answer personal questions.

BK: How do you spend your day?

ASSK: Mainly working, what you call full-time work. This is my office (NLD headquarters). I have a study at home where I do a lot of my paperwork.

BK: How do you communicate with the outside world?

ASSK: We have to find our ways or means. My telephone is cut most of the time. I have never been allowed an international direct dial telephone. IDD telephones have to be applied for. They wouldn't answer my application. They didn't actually refuse my application. They just simply didn't respond.

BK: How do you react to some of the recent dissident events abroad? The occupation by pro-democracy forces of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok and the hospital take over?

ASSK: These two incidents are connected, but in the first one we thought the Thai government behaved very well, and we commended their restraint and the way it was solved peacefully. But the second incident was not so happy. We heard there were people-they called themselves the members of God's Army-who were executed in cold blood. As the NLD and as the committee representing Parliament, we have asked that there should be an inquiry into this, because you don't execute people in cold blood.