A Tyrant's Death Is Not the Solution

Last week, a Singaporean medical team successfully saved its honorable patient from Burma. Despite a tight media control, there were some sketchy reports about where Snr-Gen Than Shwe was and what was going on. Then, a buzz about his death! Elation spread among the Burmese diaspora and inside Burma. Perhaps some people beat the triangular brass gong, known as kjei zi, and shared meritorious deeds to free his wicked soul. Then, the breaking news brought grave disappointment to many: “He is still alive and back in Naypyidaw!”

Is Than Shwe’s death the answer to the problems in Burma? Remember his predecessor, General Ne Win, who terrorized the country for 26 years. People had waited for three decades and hoped that his death would change the minds and hearts of his successors. The late dictator died quietly and escaped justice altogether, but he left intact a savage, tyrannical model for his successors.

We all know that death is absolutely inevitable. We could calculate how, and pray for when, tyrants will die, but their death alone will not end a nation's political problems. It is the inherited, institutionalized militarism and the systematic repression that have to be eliminated to insure future freedom after a tyrant has expired. Thus, instead of expecting (or wishing for) the death of Burma’s dictators, we must work hard to obliterate the infrastructure of tyranny in the country by any means necessary.

Repost,(On Irrawaddy.org on January 10, 2007)