March 20, 2012
www.nytimes.com
New York Times-Article by Thomas Fuller
Myanmar's U Thein Sein: The Unlikely Reformer
by Thomas Fuller
FOR most of his career, he was the loyal apparatchik in one of the most brutal troops regimes in the world. But in the twelve months given he became the President of Myanmar, U Thein Sein has been leading this nation of 55 million down the radical trail from persecution to democracy, vowing, as he told the nation this month, to "root out the evil legacies deeply entrenched in the society".
There have been no pat answers about why Thein Sein, the learned 66-year-old with the sphinx-like smile, decided to shake up up one of Asia's poorest as well as most closed countries. And tiny has been published about the President, the former ubiquitous who has been called the Mikhail Gorbachev of Myanmar.
But the trip to Kyonku, his birthplace, located in the remote corner of the country, offers some insights into his impression as well as clues as to what prompted him to embark upon such an desirous remodel programme.
Kyonku is the tiny encampment in the delta of the Irrawaddy River, an area connected by the vast network of canals, inlets as well as rivers. Four years ago, Thein Sein returned to the delta after the cyclone swept in from the Indian Ocean as well as ravaged the area. It was by far Myanmar's misfortune natural disaster, killing some-more than 130,000 people.
At the time, Thein Sein was the conduct of the country's disaster-preparedness comm! ittee as well as thus
the personality of the troops junta's emergency response. But as he crisscrossed the delta in the helicopter, he saw how confused the impoverished nation was for such the catastrophe.
Cyclone Nargis was the "mental trigger", pronounced U Tin Maung Thann, the conduct of Myanmar Egress, the Yangon research organisation which provides routine recommendation to the President. "It made him realise the limitations of the old regime."
Thein Sein may have had alternative realisations. As Prime Minister for three years, he represented Myanmar abroad, the contrariety to alternative senior officials in the junta who frequency left the country.
Those who followed Thein Sein's climb by the ranks of Myanmar's troops describe him as extremely loyal though additionally some-more conciliatory than alternative senior members of the junta. As the conduct of the Triangle command, the region in northern Myanmar rife with drug trafficking as well as home to the number of minority racial groups, Thein Sein was remembered as "less cruel" than alternative organisation who hold the same job, pronounced Khuensai Jaiyen, an editor of an organisation which reports news about the Shan racial group.
Thein Sein owes his climb by the troops ranks to his former boss, Senior Gen Than Shwe, the tyrant who led the junta for almost two decades until his retirement final year.
Than Shwe, who was at large reviled in the nation for his suppression of approved forces, is believed to have engineered Thein Sein's selection as President. One Adviser says which the selection of Thein Sein as well as the begin of the remodel routine were designed to concede the aging tyrant to trip quietly as well as peacefully into retirement.
"Than Shwe is protected due to these reforms," pronounced U Nay Win Maung, who is additionally the spee! chwriter to the president. "It creates the protected breakwater for him. An uprising is not picturesque any time soon."
Reform in Myanmar, to paraphrase Victor Hugo, was in some ways an idea whose time had come: Thein Sein's supervision responded to the bottled-up ambitions as well as desires of tiny businesses, Buddhist monks as well as ordinary citizens who suffered underneath the junta as well as were rather desirous by the Arab Spring of final year.
But analysts say Thein Sein's purpose should not be underestimated. The vital breakthrough of this supervision was convincing Aung San Suu Kyi, the personality of the country's democracy movement, to react the political system, the coup which gave Thein Sein considerable credibility at home as well as abroad.
Thein Sein is additionally mostly described as "clean", the standout in the kleptocratic troops junta which doled out contracts as well as concessions to friends as well as family. A year after Thein Sein took power, the nation is in the median house between authoritarianism as well as democracy.
"Have you already finished office building the brand new nation where genuine democracy as well as eternal beliefs flourish?" Thein Sein pronounced in the televised residence to the nation this month. "No, you still have much some-more to do."
He vowed to put in place the system of universal healthcare. Spending upon healthcare would increase fourfold in the next financial year as well as spending upon preparation would double.
Thein Sein made similarly bold as well as desirous pledges during his inaugural residence final March,
though at the time, sceptics wondered either his words were simply meant to appease the nation hungry for change after nearly 5 decades of troops order as well as unhandy mercantile management.
Towards the center of final year, however, Thein Sein began convincing sceptics by reaching out to Suu Kyi, lifting most censorship upon the media, pardon political prisoners, suspending work upon the Chinese hydroelectric dam project, rewriting land as well as labour laws as well as enlivening some-more open debates in society.
Many analysts say they have been endangered which the remodel routine is highly personalised as well as overly contingent upon the success of Thein Sein as well as the handful of his Advisers as well as pro-reform Ministers.
There have been concerns which political will could dissipate. The feeling of well-being of increasing political freedoms could shortly give way to the realities of the nation with grinding poverty, something which will take years to change.www.nytimes.com
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