Electricity Shortages, Students and Unrest

By WAI MOE

Earlier this week, the head of Burma’s military junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, celebrated the consecration of a new Buddhist pagoda in his administrative capital of Naypyidaw. Although he clearly intended to send the message that his iron-fisted influence over the country is here to stay, recent small protests by students serve as a reminder that challenges to his rule remain.

On the evening of March 6, high school students on about 50 motorcycles held a small protest in Moulmein, the third-largest city in Burma, ahead of university entrance examinations on March 11.

The high school students didn’t shout slogans about politics or democracy; they just demanded better access to electricity for citizens. The protest spread to Twante, a town near Rangoon.

Burma has one of the world’s worst systems of energy distribution. Outside of Naypyidaw, most of the country is in the dark more often than not. Even residents of Rangoon, the country’s main commercial center, receive only meager rations of electricity; 24-hour access hasn’t been seen for more than a decade.

“Although Rangoon is a dark city at night, every corner of Naypyidaw has light,” said a government staffer in the new capital.

High-ranking generals and the state-run media often claim that the regime is making great strides in providing the country with a reliable supply of electricity. Senior members of the junta are routinely shown inspecting new hydropower projects.

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, Burma’s electricity production in 2006 was 5.961 million kWh, while consumption was just 4.289 million kWh.

However, in reality, ordinary Burmese don’t receive an adequate electricity supply from Than Shwe’s administration. Analysts say the military junta keeps much of the country’s energy supply in reserve for military purposes and emergency situations.

In response to the protest in Moulmein, local authorities provided electricity for all areas of the city on March 7.

“It was really unusual in Moulmein. We did not see electricity across the city for many years,” a resident said.

But this near-miraculous event was short-lived. The situation has since returned to “normal,” and people remain as energy-starved as ever.

“Now, as usual, there is no electricity,” said journalist in Moulmein, adding that the authorities have tightened security in the city, checking people as well as motorcycles.

Since the regime crushed monk-led mass demonstrations in September 2007, dissidents have continued to organize small political defiance groups in Rangoon and other cities.

In February, at least two students at the Rangoon University of Economics lit candles in daytime to protest the lack of electricity. Fortunately, the students managed to escape arrest.

Since early this year, dissident groups such as the All Burma Federation of Students’ Unions and Generation Wave have launched pamphlet and poster campaigns in Rangoon.

In reaction, the Burmese authorities alerted member of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the junta’s mass organization, to watch for and deter such political defiance movements. Taxi divers in Rangoon say that they’ve been offered rewards of 50,000 kyat (US $50) for information about dissidents who distribute pamphlets and put posters on wall.

In mid-February, university teachers and staffers were told by the authorities to sign an agreement stating that they would stay away from any anti-government movement after an activist was arrested with anti-government papers at a dorm in the city.

Apart from these small but extremely risky acts of political defiance, two bomb blasts hit Rangoon last week in different locations. The explosions were the first to hit Rangoon so far this year. Officials said in the state-run media that the cause of blasts was still under investigation.

As a measure to counter such threats, the regime has reportedly started training workers in public areas how to spot bombs.

“Security guards and cleaning staff at Shwedagon have started receiving special training after there were rumors of a bomb at the pagoda,” a journalist in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.

March is a month of resistance activities in Burma. March 13 is the 21st anniversary of the start of the pro-democracy movement in the country. On March 13, 1988, technology students Phone Maw and Soe Naing were killed in clashes with police, leading to anti-regime demonstrations in Rangoon.

The March demonstrations sparked the 1988 uprising, which successfully removed Ne Win, the dictator who ruled Burma from 1962 to 1988, from power.

To mark the March 13 anniversary, a campaign group in exile, Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now! , is scheduled to launch an action to collect 888,888 signatures by May 24, the day that pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi should be released from her current term of house arrest under Burmese law. Over a hundred groups around the world will join the campaign, the group said on its Web site.

“The petition calls on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to make it his personal priority to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma, as the essential first step towards democracy in the country,” the group said.