Appeal to the Senior General Than Shwe,

before he leave

the political scene of Myanmar

Dear Senior General,

                                    Thank Your Honour for reading my letter and I wish to thank your brave secretary who dares to present my letter to you. Although we are standing on the opposite side of the political divide, I strongly believe that Your Honour Senior General and most of the Tatmadaw personals are patriotic and love our country, Myanmar.  

Dear Senior General, please may you also kindly accept the truth that almost all the citizens of Myanmar, including democratic forces, opposition people inside and outside Myanmar, even the rebels, all the ethnic minority races and all the religious minority groups also love our mother land, like your Tatmadaw people and SPDC Generals.  

Dear Senior General,  we all are patriotic, love our motherland and wish to see it to change into a prosperous, united, peaceful and progressive country and wish to achieve the developed nation status in a very near future. Your Honour Senior General is presently the most powerful and most important person in Myanmar who could make this happen or start this process, as you are the head of the state and because the Tatmadaw has become totally subservient to you.  

I hope that as a devout Buddhist, you could accept that nothing is permanent and no one is immortal. Even Lord Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Prophet Mohammad and all the great leaders have to leave the world in one day.  So please may you kindly consider to firmly chart the future of Myanmar before you leave the political scenario of Myanmar. You are the only one who could formulate the new, best road map for our mother land. You need to initiate the National Reconciliation and transforming Myanmar into the united, peaceful, truely democratic state with the enough check and balances. You should make sure that our country should not retrogress into a dictator state governed by one party system.

If you managed to do this, you would be remembered as the best ruler Myanmar ever have, even far more better than Anawrattha, Kyansittha, Bayinnaung, King Mindon, King Thibaw and General Ne Win.  

Even if you think you could choose the best successor as the future leader of Myanmar, you could not know or control him or his successors behaviour and character changes later. As the Myanmar saying, “Ah Soo Ya_Ah Sa Bae Yoe Thee”, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once, anyone got hold of power for a long time, one would definitely change into a dictator.

In the world and Myanmar history, politicians fail to realize that it was the people who gave them the mandate to govern on their behalf and their votes that put them there in the first place, so the peoples are their masters and the government is just the highest civil servants of the people. After staying at the helm for many years, they became megalomaniacs dictators and think they have a divine right to perch on top of the mantle and treated the citizens with contempt.  

Now there are clear signs that Military and ex-military dominated, military affiliated political party is going to stream-roll the political scenario of Myanmar. Tatmadaw is being held together, not because all the members agree your ideas but because of the culture of fear and silence in Myanmar which is blocking their mouths. Please remember the story of the king without clothes. The system of patronage and coercion based on Government and military authority made all the people to say yes to your decrees. Tatmadaw has brought power and wealth to the new military elite. Military experience is found to be the panacea and provides a shortcut to everything. It makes possible the attainment of positions of immense power. Some of the generals are in a position to acquire riches by hook or by crook. A feeling of power normally grips those who wield patronage, a feeling that they can mould and shape people and opinions any way they please. The leaders of Tatmadaw and the SPDC Government, have succumbed to this disease and, believing that they no longer need to heed the opinions of the ordinary Myanmar people.  

So please may you kindly made a strong rule that no one must hold the top post for more than two terms, i.e. total of 8-10 years.  

Please kindly create at least two biggest and strongest political parties, one affiliated to the Tatmadaw and another one based on present NLD.  

Let the two parties to compete politically in a level playing field, for the benefit of our country. Which party wins first and who became the head of the country is not important, as long as Your Honour, Senior General could established the new fair constitution, fair and just Laws, Rules and Regulations, obey the principle of the Rule of Law and established the features of Good Governance, free of corruption, transparent, respect the UN Human Rights declaration, respect the individual freedom and rights. 

Don’t worry; there is a pendulum theory in the trend of voting in politics. Even if the opposition win the election but could not deliver their promises, corrupts, and even if our country is in the danger of collapse, MYANMAR PEOPLE are clever enough to ask help from your disciplined, experienced and united Tatmadaw or your affiliated party. 

Please kindly made sure that The Constitution must clearly provide for adequate checks and balances against excesses through the separation of powers between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, each protected from encroachment by the other.  

Dear Senior General, set the internationally recognized, UN endorsed Good governance system with Rule of Law. Please make sure that all the future governments must be transparent and corruption free. Corruption in all the level of government machinery and the lackadaisical working attitude of the civil servants must be changed.  

Please make sure that there must be consistency in the justice system in protecting everyone’s legal, social, political, cultural and religious rights. We will never reach a developed nation‘s status if we do not strive for a better human development and tolerance for freedom of speech and expression. Please kindly make a review of all the restrictive printing press laws and joins the more than 70 countries in the world which have a Freedom of Information Act. 

Please make a strict rule that all the future governments must respect human rights and there must be social justice. At the present time, the differences in ethnic and religious identities appear to have become more prominent and instead of highlighting the common good virtues that would unite us, there is propaganda warfare to emphasize the differences that divides us. There is dangerously growing polarization along ethnic and religious lines in Myanmar. Please make sure that all Myanmar citizens enjoy freedom, built on a foundation of Justice, tolerance, dignity, and respect; regardless of ethnicity, religion, political association, or social standing. 

Before you leave, please make sure that there must be an economic and social justice. There must be good governance and a thriving civil society. Capable, responsible and honest persons should be chosen merely on meritocracy. Those who are found to be inefficient, incompetent, corrupt, should be expelled from the government, government service and politics. In the modern world of rapid globalization, excellence and meritocracy should be the criteria and  should be make for the rules of the game in shaping of future Myanmar.  

Before you leave, make sure that there must be Rule of Law and all the citizens are treated according to the written laws that are just and fair for all. I hope that Your Honour  have already noticed that in order to be called a democratic country; we must enact just and fair laws for all the citizens of Myanmar. In addition, no one must be above the law. The double standards in the implementation of law, one for the ruling elite, staying above all their own laws and another for the rest should be avoided at all cost and should enact in the law itself. The really sad political scenario of Myanmar is, nowadays all the ordinary citizens are coerced into submission, cowardice and obedience by the Rule by the Law, of the Jungle enforced by your Military. 

Dear Senior General, please kindly make sure so that your successor governments have a clear distinction between rule of law and rule by law.  According to the Rule of law, there is a pre-written just and fair law that respects and protects the rights of each and every citizen. No one is above the law and no one should be prosecuted or persecuted by using unjust laws.   In rule by law, the government uses law as the most convenient way to govern or subdue the people. 

Dear Senior General, once you are no more in this world, history will judge you. Your Kamma will follow you. Even Lord Buddha had abdicated from becoming the King because he knew that if he judged wrongly and punish an innocent, he have to pay back in the hereafter. But please kindly do not hastily follow the footsteps of General Ne Win and General Saw Maung by stepping down immediately without casting the new rules for the democratic transforming of Myanmar. Your hardliner subordinates would definitely betray you, dispose you with a palace coup d’état. 

Now you are at the pinnacle, please kindly do a favor for your beloved country by imposing term limit for the head of the government and for the top military generals so that they could not built up a personal cult and transform into dictators. And kindly allow the alternative big opposition party which could compete with your military affiliated party so that future generations of
Myanmar citizens could reap the best that both parties could offer. 

Nothing would change if Your Honour Senior General does not change the rules to good governance. Those irresponsible and corrupt acts will be continued by the successive dictators who took over you. The condition of dictators became even worse one after another since General Ne Win’s government. Please change the rules so that there would be no more dictators, terrorizing the
Myanmar Citizens.

We could see that the progressive, longsighted Governments that always avoid or refrain from interfering in the way of their citizens’ ability to make a living and progress will always end up ruling over the wealthier, progressive and peaceful Myanmar.

 Thanking Your Honour

Yours Humbly 

 

Dr San Oo Aung 

P.S.

Dear opposition comrades, kindly forgive me for using Myanmar instead of
Burma in this letter as I wish to avoid the resentment of Senior General even before reading my letter.

After all, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” Wiliam Shakespeare –From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2).

But I hope that we all, including our Tatmadaw Generals, could understand the truth that the new name of our country, the new design of the national flag or the national anthem is still merely a name, symbol or a song. By itself it does not generate any feelings of patriotism or loyalty. Now it is even making the border landmarks between the political divide.

It is only when people proudly uttered the name of their country, show off their national flag with pride or sing or listen the national anthem with passion and emotion that it becomes synonymous with patriotism and love for the country.