13 - Failure and Farewell (March 1988 to December 2002)

Summary

You are the community now. Be a lamp for yourselves. Be your own refuge. Seek for no other. All things must pass. Strive on diligently. Don't give up.

Attributed to the Buddha

The final fourteen years of Ne Win's life were marked by initial crisis, eventual withdrawal into meditative peace, and final farce. The crisis had been ignited the previous year when Ne Win had admitted that the regime he had led for twenty-five years had reached a dead end and that reforms of a significant, but still ill-defined nature, were essential. He was perhaps hesitant to introduce radical economic and political reforms because of uncertainty about the consequences and regret at the loss of the socialist ideal which his leader, Aung San, had established. The decision to demonetize the kyat for the second time in two years, after pledging not to do so, had removed the last vestiges of faith in the government's promises, at least among those who were directly affected, a large swathe of the population.

For the politically aware public, the humiliation their nation received by being officially declared a “Least Developed Country” by the United Nations, together with other international mendicants, removed the final shred of faith in the Burmese Way to Socialism. In the resulting mood of despondency and despair, with factories closed or on short time due to shortages of spare parts and raw materials, and the shelves in shops bare, it took little to set off public outrage. Moreover, there were those who saw opportunities in the crisis to remove Ne Win and his regime, both on his political left and right. Even many of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) faithful were disillusioned, as were some of the security forces, despite their continued loyalty to the government and the chain of command. This was made clear to Ne Win in a report submitted to him by U Tin Aung Hein, a highly respected figure in the government and the party. In the report, he detailed how the party had, over time, become ossified and ineffectual, despite the revolutionary intentions of its inspiration. For the younger generation, those born after 1962, who knew little of the history that Ne Win often recounted, past battles counted for little; it was present difficulties which mattered.