Will Myanmar’s military rulers listen to the endless pleas for restraint and dialogue? Could the regime crumble under the weight of popular anger, or through splits in the ranks of the armed forces? Or will they succeed in terrorising the population into submission again through mass killings, as they did in 1988?

We simply do not know which of these scenarios is more plausible, because it is impossible to know the thinking of the tight clique of generals who run the country. But there are “end-of-regime” scenarios we can look at in other countries; specifically Indonesia, a fellow member of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean).
The Burmese junta, the SPDC, makes no secret of its admiration for the pseudo-democracy run by President Suharto, the former Indonesian strongman, so perhaps it is instructive to look at how the Suharto regime was overthrown. The parallels between the two countries are striking. They are both large, tropical countries comprising many diverse ethnic groups and cultures that won independence from colonial rule in the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War. In both countries, strong separatist movements have hampered nation building.

In both countries the army became the dominant political force in the 1960s, arguing it was the only institution that could hold the country together. Both countries’ officer classes involved themselves heavily in business and politics.

Both Gen Suharto and Gen Ne Win, Myanmar’s military strongman until the 1990s, were from humble, superstitious backgrounds, but had their worldviews profoundly altered when they were members of Japanese paramilitary units as young men during the Japanese occupations of their countries. It instilled in both men a belief in martial values and the central role of the military in political life. But there the similarities end.

Perhaps timing was the reason — Indonesia nearly fell apart under its mercurial founding father Sukarno in the 1960s. Suharto took advantage, after a failed coup, but needed rapid economic development to restore the government’s legitimacy. It was a time when Western governments needed Cold War allies. At the time, Ne Win had taken Myanmar along what he called the “Burmese way” of socialism, a bizarre form of isolation.

In Myanmar, economic misery provoked massive anti-government protests in 1988, which were savagely put down by the army over a period of three months. Thousands died. The regime tried to adapt itself. It held elections, but miscalculated disastrously, losing by a huge margin to Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party. It refused to recognise the results.

Western governments were no longer willing to overlook human rights abuses. They were charmed by the dignity of Aung San Suu Kyi, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and imposed increasingly tough sanctions.
In Myanmar, complete isolation means the generals have little to lose from international sanctions. Nor is there a large and powerful middle class with a lot to lose. There is only the military with its fingers in every aspect of daily life.

It suffers little from isolation, except in the increasingly narrow view of its officers. Soldiers are taught that they are an elite class, entitled to special respect — and that anyone who opposes them is an enemy bent on returning the country to chaos and civil war.

That will almost certainly be the warped instruction given now to the troops who have shot at unarmed monks and civilians in Yangoon.
BBC News