Letter from Burma (No. 45) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Sunday, October 13, 1996

CORRUPTION WHITTLES AWAY AT STATE SERVICES

"Pay as You Go"

On my release from house arrest last year, people gathered outside the gates of my home to greet me and to demonstrate their support for the movement for democracy. It was the monsoon season and the crowds would stand and wait in the dripping rain until I went out to speak to them. This continued day after day for more than a month; then I negotiated with our supporters an arrangement which was more convenient for all concerned: We would meet regularly at four o'clock on Saturdays and Sundays. Thus were born the public rallies that have been taking place outside my house every weekend.

A few months after the weekend rallies had become established as a regular political feature, I invited the audience to write to me about matters they would like me to discuss. The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Letters on a wide range of subjects, political, economic, social and religious, were put into the mailbox we hung outside the gate for that purpose. A recurring theme in these letters, which continue to come in, is the widespread corruption among civil servants, in particular in the sectors of health and education.

In Burma, health care is ostensibly provided free of charge by the state. But in recent years, the contributions expected from the community have risen to such an extent that it is no longer possible to think of health care as "free." By "contributions" I do not mean just monetary donations made by the public toward health care projects, although such donations are not inconsiderable. I am referring to the fact that government health care facilities now provide merely services while patients have to provide almost everything else: medicines, cotton wool, surgical spirits, bandages and even equipment necessary for surgery.

Patients not only have to make their own arrangements for getting the necessary medical supplies, they also have to bribe the hospital staff in order to receive satisfactory service.

It is not just doctors and nurses who have to be sweetened with gifts; hospital orderlies also have to be paid if one's time as an invalid is to be passably comfortable. Apparently it is a common practice for orderlies to neglect their cleaning duties unless they are duly compensated. And they are also said to give patients who have to be wheeled from one part of the hospital to another a rough ride until a requisite sum of money has changed hands. Then there are the door keepers and other administrative staff whose hands have to be greased to smooth the path of family members who need to go in and out at all hours to delivery necessary supplies.

While nothing can excuse callousness in those who should be giving succor to the ill and dying, it cannot be ignored that the deterioration in state health care is largely the result of maladministration. High motivation cannot be expected of grossly underpaid staff working with poorly maintained equipment and dilapidated, unhygienic surroundings.

In recent years, the emergence of a private sector has made health care at expensive clinics and nursing homes available to those who are well off. There are indications that among those who cannot afford private health care, that is to say, the large majority of the population, there is an increasing tendency to rely on folk or traditional medicine rather than place themselves at the mercy of the state health care system.

Even more than letters about the unsavory conditions in our hospitals, I receive letters about the disgraceful state of our education system. Education, like health care, is ostensibly free in Burma but again, as with health care, the contribution exacted from the community is getting higher by the day.

Inadequate school funds are supplemented by "donations" collected for various purposes: sports day, new buildings, school furniture, teacher-parent association funds, religious festivals. Underpaid teachers supplement their incomes by giving tuition outside school hours. The fees range from 1,000 kyats to 10,000 kyats for each pupil, depending on the grade in which they are studying and the number of subjects in which they are coached. The poor quality of teaching in the school forces all parents who can afford the fees to send their children to such tuition classes.

Examinations provide teachers as well as employees of the education department with opportunities for lucrative business. Examination questions, advance information on grades achieved and the marking up of low grades can all be obtained for price.

There was a time when civil servants in our country were seen as an elite corps: well educated, well-trained and well-paid, capable of giving good service to the community. Now they are generally regarded with fear and revulsion, or with pity. State employees who have not become part of the syndrome of daily corruption, either from a matter of principle or from lack of opportunity, are unable to maintain a standard of living appropriate to their functions. They are the nouveau poor of Burma.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 44) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, October 7, 1996

MOMENTS OF CALM PROVIDE TIME FOR REFLECTION

"Strange siege"

As I have remarked often enough, life is certainly not dull for dissidents in Burma. But sometimes a little bit of dullness does not come amiss. In fact it provides a measure of welcome relief, time in which to stand and stare for at least a few minutes a day.

The National League for Democracy decided to hold an All Burma Party Congress on the eighth anniversary of the day when it was founded, the 27th of September. Now one might have thought that such an event, which is part of the normal routine of any political party, would not have caused the authorities to do more than perhaps cock an inquisitive eyebrow and set the military intelligence running around busily gathering information. One would not have imagined that they would be rocked to the very soles of their military boots. Well, one would have been wrong.

On the evening of the 26th, we received information that once again, as at the time of our proposed conference for NLD Members of Parliament in May, the authorities were rounding up those who were to attend the Congress. Around half past 9 at night, army trucks started going past my house and later, a police car or two went along the already cleared street with sirens blaring. It was all rather tedious and we went to sleep. Waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning, the unusual silence told me that our road had been blocked off. It was not altogether a surprise.

At 8 o'clock, U Tin U, one of our deputy chairmen, was let through and he told us what had been going on outside. Our helpers, who had been scheduled to arrive at 4 o'clock to start cooking the meal that we would be offering to monks as a prelude to our Congress, had been prevented from entering the street. After some negotiation, two of our NLD women members were allowed in to take charge of the huge pots of curry that had already been half prepared the night before. Soon after, our chairman U Aung Shwe and our other deputy chairman U Kyi Maung also arrived.

I learned that a number of NLD members who had come for the Congress were at the road junction not far from my house where barricades had been placed to prevent people from entering the street. At about 10 o'clock we decided to walk over to them and to tell them to go to the NLD headquarters. Walking along a street deserted except for security troops was not a new experience for me. It happened again and again during my campaign trips around Burma in 1989 and 1990. And last April, too, on Burmese New Year's Day, we had walked down our street when it was emptied of everybody except security personnel and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association armed with surreptitious batons, with which they had been instructed to beat any members of the NLD who penetrated the barricades.

This time also the USDA were present, a couple of busloads of them milling around in the public garden at the top of the road for a purpose that we found hard to discern. When we reached the road junction, our party members who had been made to go to the other side of the street came over to ask us what we wanted them to do. We told them to go to our headquarters, and were just about to go back home ourselves when an army officer came to ask us to disperse. It was a typical over-reaction, unnecessary and quite senseless, as the crowd around us was made up largely of security personnel, uniformed as well as in plain clothes.

That afternoon, after the religious ceremony to commemorate the founding of the NLD had been completed, U Aung Shwe and I went out to see how things were at the party headquarters. We found that the road where the building was situated had also been closed off. That very evening, the landlord was illegally forced to annul the lease and to remove the NLD signboard from the building. The authorities had obviously decided to take all possible steps to prevent us from carrying out the legitimate work of a normal political party.

Now, nearly a week after the 27th, the road to my house continues to be blocked off. But U Aung Shwe, U Kyi Maung and U Tin U come over every day and we carry on with our work. "It is always still at the center of the storm," U Tin U remarked. And certainly there has been great calm in my house even as the authorities have been arresting hundreds of our supporters, making wild accusations against us and trying to force the landlords of our party offices to remove NLD signboards.

There is the proverbial silver lining to these storm clouds of increased official repression. The state of semisiege provides me with an opportunity to take a rest from the gruelling timetable that I normally follow. I do not have to rush through my meals, and I have even been able to spare an hour a day for walking round and round the garden: a wonderfully relaxing and invigorating form of exercise in which I have not been able to indulge for years. This strange interlude should serve to make me fighting fit for whatever challenges we may have to face in the future.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 43) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, September 30, 1996

CORRUPTION LURKS BENEATH SERENE SURFACE

"Uncivil Service (1)"

Visitors to Burma seldom have much notion of the complexities of everyday life in our country. On the surface, things appear smooth and serene, and it is only those who are familiar with states ruled by inefficient dictatorial regimes who are able to see what is really going on.

Take a taxi through the streets of Rangoon and observe the cars going by: Almost all of these vehicles are running on black market petrol. The price of petrol sold at government pumping stations is 25 kyats a gallon (15 U.S. cents for 3.8 liters). However, as no car is entitled to more than four gallons a week (some are entitled to less) of this official issue, people are forced to resort to additional sources of supply. This black market petrol has gone up in price within the last month from 180 kyats to 350 kyats a gallon and most of it is leaked out from government departments.

There is more to running a car than finding a good source for petrol. Car licenses have to be renewed annually. Owners have to ask the Department of Road Transport Administration for a date on which their vehicles can be inspected and passed as roadworthy. If you do not want to go through the rigmarole of making an appointment in advance, you pay a certain sum of money to have car checked immediately. Then you go on to bribe the person assigned to check your vehicle. Otherwise, you will be sent back to change the lights, or to repaint the chassis, or to replace some part of the engine. People have been sent away as many as four or five times to undertake repairs "necessary" to make the vehicle roadworthy until they saw the light and produced several hundred kyats. It is no use complaining or getting angry, the employees in the Department of Road Transport Administration have to make ends meet.

Making ends meet is the overriding preoccupation of civil servants in Burma. Their pay is ridiculously low. A director-general, the highest ranking civil servant, earns an official monthly salary of 2,500 kyats, the equivalent of about 15 U.S. dollars. This is not even enough to feed a family of four, modestly, for a week. Consequently civil servants have to find ways and means of earning extra income.

There are those who would say that Burmese people are resourceful by nature. It is more likely the case that all peoples who have to live under a system where following the straight and narrow path too often leads to impecuniosity learn to be resourceful. And in such situations, "resourceful" is often a euphemism for "dishonest" or "corrupt." If you happen to work in the electricity department in Burma you quickly learn that you can supplement your income by making deals with householders who do not wish to pay their electricity bills in full. And you soon find out that you can squeeze a regular, tidy sum from entrepreneurs of businesses, such as ice making, for whom an electricity cut would be catastrophic. A lineman can make a supplementary income amounting to thousands of kyats a month if he happens to be fortunate enough to be in charge of an area where a number of vulnerable enterprises are situated.

If you work in the telecommunications department too, you put your "resourcefulness" to quick use. When a telephone fails to work the owner has to appeal for repairs. And the most effective appeals are those a solid pecuniary nature. As in the electricity department, the pay-up-or-be-cut tactic can assure a regular source of supplementary income. The long waiting list for telephones also provides employees in the telecommunications department with opportunities for exercising their ingenuity. They can "cooperate" in the transfer of already connected telephones to different owners, or they can expedite the connection of a new telephone. All, of course, for a certain consideration, which could amount to a five-figure sum.

The Inland Revenue Department, as might be expected, is a section of the civil service where employees can earn "on the side" sums many times larger than their regular salaries. The best customers of this department are businessmen who have no inhibitions about evading taxes. But that does not mean honest businessmen who wish to declare their incomes correctly are safe from the resourcefulness (or capacity, if you wish) of the personnel of the department. Their taxable income is arbitrarily assessed at a rate far higher than the correct one until they decide that honesty is not, after all, the best policy in dealing with such matters and agree to cooperate with the officials concerned.

The corruption of the civil services is not just an urban phenomenon. Farmers have to sell a quota of their harvest to the government at stipulated prices well below the market rate. The state employees who weigh the grain at rice depots manage to put aside a substantial amount of rice for themselves. This rice they sell at the market price to those farmers who have had bad harvest, so they can produce the necessary government quota for which, of course, the poor farmers are only paid the state price. It is no wonder that civil servants are generally viewed as public predators rather than public benefactors.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 42) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, September 23, 1996

BURMA'S GOV'T LEAPS OVER LEGAL PROCESS

"Misrule of Law"

As I understand it, a kangaroo court is so called because it is a burlesque performance where the process of the law takes heart-stopping leaps and bounds. Out of curiosity, I looked up the entry on kangaroos in the Encyclopedia Britannica to see how far these marsupial mammals can clear in a leap. Apparently the record is 13.5 meters. This far superior to the Olympics long jump record. It is no surprise then that the erratic course of justice in a kangaroo court is outside the bounds of normal human conduct.

I have written about the challenges that political dissidents in Burma have to face. Everybody committed to taking an active part in the endeavor to return the country to democracy has to be prepared to go to prison at any time. It usually happens in the middle of the night, appropriately, as there can be fewer deeds more akin to darkness than that of depriving innocent people of a normal, healthy life. The ones most vulnerable to arrest are members of the NLD.

Many of them are already seasoned jail veterans who, at casual moments, exchange prison yarns and instruct the as yet uninitiated on such matters as the kind of treatment they can expect at the interrogation sessions and what they should take with them when the banging on the door comes: change of clothing, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, medicines, a blanket or two, et cetera, all in a plastic bag. Nothing so respectable as a knapsack or suitcase is permitted. And do not be fooled if the people who turn up at the door, usually without a warrant, say that they will only be keeping you for a few days. That could well translate into a 20-year sentence.

When U Win Htein, a key member of my office staff, was arrested one night last May, he had a bag already packed. He had previously spent six years in Insein Jail: He was one of the people taken away from my house in 1989 on the day I was detained and he was released only in February 1995. When U Win Htein asked those who had come to take him away whether they had an arrest warrant, they replied that it was not necessary as charges had already been moved against him and his sentence had been decided. So much for the concept of the law that deems a person innocent until proven guilty.

Section 340 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that "any person accused of an offense before a criminal court, or against who proceedings are instituted under this code, in any such court, may of right be defended by a pleader." This basic right to counsel is systematically denied to political prisoners in Burma. They are not even allowed to make contact with their families.

The authorities generally refuse to give any information on detainees who have not yet been tried. The NLD and the families of political prisoners have to make strenuous inquiries to find out where they are, with what "crime" they would be charged and when and where the trials would take place. Usually the trials of political prisoners are conducted in a special courthouse within the jail precincts.

Last month, a number of political prisoners were tried in Insein Jail. When the NLD heard that U Win Htein and some others were going to be produced at court on a certain day, a lawyer was sent to defend them. The Special Branch officer at the jail questioned by the lawyer said he did not know anything about a trial. But the trial took place while the lawyer was waiting at the gate and continued after he left in the afternoon. The next week, a number of lawyers again went to Insein Jail, accompanied by the families of the prisoners, on the day they had heard the trial was to continue. This time they managed to get into the prison courthouse. However, they were only allowed to cross-examine four of the 24 witnesses for the prosecution.

The next morning, the lawyers and the families of the prisoners arrived in Insein Jail at 9 o'clock, as they had heard sentence would be passed that day. The area around the jail entrance was full of security personnel and all the shops along the road were shut. The lawyers were refused entry. They were told sentence would only be passed at the end of the month and were asked to leave. However, as the magistrate concerned with the case had been seen at the Insein Township Magistrate's Court the lawyers were convinced the trial was scheduled to proceed within a matter of hours and continued to wait outside the jail.

The magistrate eventually arrived and entered the prison precincts at around 2 o'clock and came out again after about 40 minutes. The lawyers followed him to the Insein Township Court to ask what kind of sentence had been passed. The magistrate, very nervous and surrounded by security personnel, would only say that an application should be made to copy the records of the court proceedings. Some days later the government media announced that U Win Htein and others had been given seven-year prison sentences each.

The sight of kangaroos bounding away across an open prairie can sometimes be rather beautiful. The spectacle of the process of law bounding away from accepted norms of justice is very ugly at all times.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 41) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, September 16, 1996

DEFINING POLITICAL DEFIANCE, DEMOCRACY

"Some Problems of Definition"

There is an expression much bandied about these days which, in its Burmanized form, sounds very much like "jeans shirt." This has nothing to do with the denim mania that has come to Burma, together with foreign bars and cigarettes, walking shoes, expensive batiks, Pajeros and all the other paraphernalia so dear to the hearts of the small, privileged elite who have profited wonderfully from the selective open market economy. The expression actually refers to "Gene Sharp," the author of some works on "political defiance." These writings seem to be exercising the authorities in Burma considerably. Last month, 19 political prisoners were tried in Mandalay and they were all sentenced to seven years imprisonment, each on a charge of high treason. The possession of copies of books by Gene Sharp seemed to have been taken as part of the evidence against the defendants. (Not that "defendant" is an appropriate word to use in connection with political detainees in Burma as they have no real right of defense at all.)

At a government press conference this month, more references were made to political defiance. When a correspondent asked whether these political defiance courses initiated by Gene Sharp trained people to commit political assassinations and other accts of violence, a spokesman for SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) said they did not know, as they had not attended any of those courses. It is very puzzling that courses about the contents of which the authorities are totally ignorant should be seen as in any way connected with treason. It was also alleged at the press conference that I had talked about political defiance with an American visitor. When a correspondent asked me whether this was so, I said that it was not so, as I could not at all recall any conversation about Gene Sharp or his books or the courses in political defiance he is said to have conducted. Later, it occurred to me that both my interviewer and I had merely been thinking of political defiance in terms of SLORC-speak. In fact, political defiance is no more synonymous with Gene Sharp than with denim shirts. It can be defined simply as the natural response of anybody who disagrees with the opinions of the government in power. In that sense, the great majority of people in Burma are perpetually engaged in political defiance in their hearts, if not in their actions.

Another interesting question posed by a correspondent at the SLORC press conference was why the authorities objected to the opposition carrying out its work. The answer was that it was dangerous. A government that has promised a transfer to "multiparty democracy" views the work of the opposition as DANGEROUS? A self-proclaimed conservationist might as well chop down trees indiscriminately and massacre rare, and not so rare, species with wild abandon.

There are two problems of definition in the above paragraph. This repeated reference to "multiparty democracy" since the SLORC took over power: Surely the expression is tautology? And "one-party democracy" would be oxymoronic. Democracy basically means choice, and political choice means the existence of more than one effective political party or force. "Democracy" by itself should be sufficient to indicate a pluralistic political approach.

Then there is the question of the word "opposition." The NLD (National League for Democracy) is often referred to as "the opposition." But it was the NLD that won the only democratic elections held in more than 30 years and won them with an overwhelming majority such as was not achieved by any other political party in those countries that made the transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. The word "opposition," when applied to a party which won the unequivocal mandate of the people, takes on a peculiar ring. But leaving that aside, how does one define the work of an opposition in any country which claims to be heading toward (multiparty) democracy?

A group guided by the political legacy of a prominent communist leader who engaged in armed rebellion against the government for several decades after Burma regained her independence, and who later laid down arms and recanted, came to see me some months ago. They read out the political guidelines laid down by their late leader which, among other things, condemned the idea of any work aimed at removing a government in power. I explained to them that this was unacceptable to anybody who truly believed in democracy. In a genuine democracy, it is the legitimate function of opposition parties to work at removing the government through the democratic process. Any political ideology that disallows parties from carrying out opposition activities and presenting themselves to the country as viable alternatives to the existing government cannot be said to have anything to do with democracy. To view opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundations of democracy.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 40) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, September 9, 1996

FAITH EASES THE MIND IN TIMES OF POLITICAL TURMOIL

Vassa, the rainy season retreat, has begun. It is a time for offering robes to monks and for making special efforts toward gaining a better understanding of Buddhist values. In Burma, we look upon members of the /sangha/ (the Buddhist religious order) as teachers who will lead us along the noble eightfold path. Good teachers do not merely give scholarly sermons, they show us how we should conduct our daily lives in accordance with right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Not long before my house arrest in 1989, I was granted an audience with the venerable U Pandita, an exceptional teacher in the best tradition of great spiritual mentors whose words act constantly as an aid to a better existence. Hsayadaw (holy teacher) U Pandita spoke of the importance of sammavaca or right speech. Not only should one speak only the truth, one's speech should lead to harmony among beings, it should be kind and pleasant and it should be kind and pleasant and it should be beneficial. One should follow the example of the Lord Buddha who only spoke words that were trustful and beneficial, even if at times such speech was not always pleasing to the listener.

The Hsayadaw also urged me to cultivate sati, mindfulness. Of the five spiritual faculties, saddha (faith), viriya (energy), sati, samadhi (concentration) and panna (wisdom), it is only sati that can never be in excess. Excessive faith without sufficient wisdom leads to blind faith, while excessive wisdom without sufficient energy leads to undesirable cunning. Too much energy concentration leads to indolence. But as for sati, one can never have too much of it, it is "never in excess, but always in deficiency." The truth and value of this Buddhist concept that Hsayadaw U Pandita took such pains to impress on me became evident during my years of house arrest.

Like many of my Buddhist colleagues, I decided to put my time under detention to good use by practicing meditation. It was not an easy process. I did not have a teacher and my early attempts were more than a little frustrating. There were days when I found my failure to discipline my mind in accordance with prescribed meditation practices so infuriating I felt I was doing myself more harm than good. I think I would have given up but for the advice of a famous Buddhist teacher, that whether or not one wanted to practice meditation, one should do so for ones' own good. So I gritted my teeth and kept at it, often rather glumly. Then my husband gave me a copy if Gsatadaw Y Oabduta's book, "In this Very Life, The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha." By studying this book carefully, I learnt how to overcome difficulties of meditation and to realize its benefits. I learnt how practicing meditation led to increased mindfulness in everyday life and again and again. I recalled the Hsayadaw's words on the importance of sati with appreciation and gratitude.

In my political work, I have been helped and strengthened by the teachings of members of the sangha. During my very first campaign trip across Burma, I received invaluable advice from monks in different parts of the country. In Prome, a Hsayadaw told me to keep in mind the hermit Sumedha, who sacrificed the possibility of early liberation for himself along and underwent many lives of striving that he might save others from suffering. So must you be prepared to strive for as long as might be necessary to achieve good and justice, exhorted the venerable Hsayadaw.

In a monastery at Pakokku, the advice that an abbot gave to my father when he went to that town more than 40 years age was repeated to me: "Do not be frightened every time there is an attempt to frighten you, but do not be entirely without fear. Do not become elated every time you are praised, but do not be entirely lacking in elation." In other words, while maintaining courage and humility, one should not abandon caution and healthy self-respect.

When I visited Natmauk, my father's home town, I went to the monastery where he studied as a boy. There the abbot gave a sermon on the four causes of decline and decay: failure to recover that which had been lost, omission to repair that which had been damaged; disregard of the need for reasonable economy; and the elevation to leadership of those without morality or learning. The abbot went on to explain how these traditional Buddhist views should be interpreted to help us build a just and prosperous society in the modern age.

Of the words of wisdom I gathered during that journey across central Burma, those of a 91-year-old Hsayadaw of Sagaing are particularly memorable. He sketched out for me tersely how it would be to work for democracy in Burma. "You will be attacked and reviled for engaging in honest politics," pronounced the Hsayadaw, "But you must persevere. Lay down an investment in dukka (suffering) and you will gain sukha (bliss)."

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.

Letter from Burma (No. 39) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News

Monday, September 2, 1996

PRISON MAY BREAK THE BODY, BUT NOT THE SPIRIT

"Death in custody (3)"

Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka was arrested in 1989 and sentenced by a martial law court to 20 years' imprisonment in October of that year. The SLORC had accused him of seeking to cause an insurrection within the armed forces. At the time he entered Insein Jail, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka was already suffering from a chronic disease that was laying his muscles to waste. His movements were stiff and jerky, and everyday matters, such as bathing, dressing or eating, involved for him a series of difficult maneuvers which could barely be completed without assistance. For a man with his health problems, life in solitary confinement was a continuous struggle to cope. And Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka struggled manfully. But his already much-eroded physical system was unable to withstand the inhuman conditions of Insein Jail for long. In June 1991, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka, navy officer and humorist, poet and political activist, died in custody at the age of 65.

Even during his darkest days in prison, Hsaya Maung Thaw Ka's muse did not desert him. In secret he composed poems about the gross injustices committed under military dictatorship with a biting anger entirely removed from his delicate rendering of old English sonnets. "Twenty years, they say ... in accordance with that (legal) section of all things that is unclean and despicable," he wrote with contempt of the sentence which, for him, turned out to be one of death.

October and November of 1990 were months when the SLORC carried out a major crackdown against the movement for democracy. It was in these months that numbers of National League for Democracy members of Parliament were brought into Insein Jail. Among these men, elected by the people of Burma to form a democratic government but condemned by the military regime to imprisonment, was U Tin Maung Win of Khayan. He had been a prominent student leader in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1962, when students protested against the high-handed actions of the military government that had newly come into power, he was the chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Student's Rights. The next year, as the leader of the Rangoon University Students' Union, he was placed under arrest.

U Tin Maung was kept in prison for seven years. But neither that experience, nor the even more deadening one of life for a quarter of a century under the Burmese Way to Socialism, succeeded in killing his political convictions. In 1988, U Tin Maung Win took part in the movement for democracy in concert with other student leaders of the past. In the elections of 1990, he contested as the NLD's candidate in his native Khayan against his own brother who represented the NUP, the main adversary of the democratic parties. Five months after his victory in the elections he was arrested.

U Tin Maung Win spent a month at Ye-Kyi-ain, an infamous military intelligence interrogation center, before he was sent to Insein Jail. When he was charged with high treason in January 1991, he was not able to be present at his trial because he was too ill. By Jan. 18, U Tin Maung Win was dead. The authorities claimed that he had died of leukemia but before he was incarcerated just four months previously there had been no sign that he was suffering from such a grave disease. It is the contention of those who saw his body before burial that he died as a result of ill treatment in prison.

Last year, U Kyi Saung, secretary of the NLD branch in Myaungmya, a town the Irrawaddy division, was arrested. He had attended a Karen New Year ceremony in a Karen village and there, he had read out the message of goodwill that the NLD had brought out for the New Year. This peaceful, innocuous act of courtesy was reported by the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the "social welfare" organization formed under the aegis of the government, the Myaungmya Township Law and Order Restoration Council and to the local military intelligence unit. The TLORC thereby arrested U Kyi Saung under Section 5 of the 1950 Emergency Act, which has come to be known as the "Can't Stand Your Looks" section as it is used indiscriminately against those whom the authorities cannot abide. An elderly man, U Kyi Saung's health deteriorated rapidly and he died in May 1996 before his trial was completed.

I have written only about well-known members of the NLD who died in custody but they are not the only victims of authoritarian injustice. Prisoners of conscience who lost their lives during the 1990s represent a broad range of the Burmese political spectrum and even include a Buddhist monk. Of those sacrificed to the misrule of law, the oldest was 70-year-old Boh Set Yaung, a member of the Patriotic Old Comrades' League, and the youngest was a 19-year-old member of the NLD. The exact number of deaths in custody cannot be ascertained but it is not small and it is rising all the time. The price of liberty has never been cheap and in Burma it is particularly high.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.