Looking for the Burmese Junta? Sorry, It's Gone Into Hiding

let's play a game: in the comments section, copy your favorite sentence or point in this article. for those of you who've been to burma, this will be challenging. i could just paste the entire article, starting with this brilliant title. i'm really eager to hear from you guys on this. thanks to nicole for finding it for me.

By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 14, 2005

BANGKOK, Nov. 13 - At precisely 6:37 a.m. last Sunday, according to one account - with a shout of "Let's go!" - a convoy of trucks began a huge, expensive and baffling transfer of the government of Myanmar from the capital to a secret mountain compound 200 miles to the north.

Diplomats and foreign analysts were left groping a week later for an explanation of the unannounced move. In a country as secretive and eccentric as Myanmar, it is a full-time job to try to tease the truth from the swirl of rumors and guesswork, relying on few facts and many theories. The leading theories now have to do with astrological predictions and fears of invasion by the United States. The relocation, which the government announced to reporters and foreign diplomats a day after it began, but not yet to the public through the state-controlled media, had been rumored for years.

A Burmese truck convoy hauling office furniture last week to the mysterious mountain hideaway.
But according to reports from the capital, Yangon, officials and civil servants were given only a day or two to pack and say goodbye to their families.

When they arrived at the new site, called Pyinmanaa, it was still under construction, and there were shortages of water, telephone lines and even sleeping quarters and food, according to family members quoted by news agencies and exile groups that monitor Myanmar.

Foreign diplomats said they were told that if they had urgent business with the relocated government, they could send a fax but that no number was yet available.

According to diplomats and other unofficial sources inside Myanmar, the vast, fortified compound is to contain military headquarters, government ministries, huge meeting halls, residences, hotels, a hospital, an airport, underground bunkers and, not surprisingly in this golf-mad region, a golf course.

The minister of information, U Kyaw Hsan, told reporters in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, that the transfer of the government had begun with 9 of the 32 ministries. He gave no date for completing the move.

The military junta that runs the former Burma offered little explanation for its mystery move. "Due to changed circumstances, where Myanmar is trying to develop a modern nation, a more centrally located government seat has become a necessity," it said in a statement.

That left plenty of room for theories, and it was difficult to find one that seemed rational. Astrology seemed to make as much sense as anything.

Myanmar is a deeply superstitious nation that scheduled its ceremony marking independence from the British to follow astrological dictates, at exactly 4:20 a.m. on Jan. 4, 1948.

The 6:37 a.m. departure was reported by U Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, an émigré publication based in neighboring Thailand with a network of contacts inside Myanmar. He said this strangely precise departure time might well have been dictated by astrologers.

Astrological timing may also have been behind the abruptness of the move to a site that was not yet complete.

One theory is that the move was prompted by astrologers who several years ago warned the ruling generals that the dilapidated capital on the Bay of Bengal would become a dangerous place for them.

Seen from their perspective, the notion of an American invasion might not seem far-fetched. They are a ruling clique of soldiers whose background is jungle warfare and who know little of the outside world.

For years they have been squeezed by economic sanctions and battered by relentless criticism from the West over their abuses of human rights, and they have responded by pulling further into their shells.

In January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice included Myanmar in a list of "outposts of tyranny," along with North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe and Belarus.

Officials in Myanmar sometimes offer visitors a list of their own: Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq - places where the United States has sent armed forces.

Not long ago, according to one story making the rounds in Myanmar, a military officer was asked the purpose of obligatory civil defense training for civilian men. "You are the holding action against the Americans until the Chinese come to our aid," the officer said, according to David I. Steinberg, a professor at Georgetown University who is a leading expert on Myanmar.

Mr. Steinberg said rumors of an American "rescue" circulate among opponents of the government - a current of wishful thinking that is as extravagant as the fears of the ruling generals.

"The joke going around is, 'After diamonds, gold,' " he said. In the Burmese language, "sein" - as in Saddam Hussein - means diamonds. "Shwe" - as in Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the military junta - means gold.

There was no way to know whether there was a connection earlier this month when authorities in the capital reopened a road that passes by the entrance to the United States Embassy.

Barbed wire and concrete security barriers were removed for the first time since they were put in place after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

"Obviously, we are reviewing our security arrangements," an unidentified United States Embassy official told Reuters. "We felt a lot safer with them in place."

For now, there appear to be no schools and little housing for families at Pyinmanaa. The move is likely to separate civil servants from their families, as well as from the second jobs that many found necessary to make ends meet in the country's minimal economy.

The junta's physical move into a fortified retreat reflects what many experts on Myanmar say is a bunker mentality in the face of what it may see as a bewildering and antagonistic world.

"I keep hearing the same thing all the time," Mr. Steinberg said of the junta. "Look, we don't need you guys. We can go it alone. We've done it before, and so what's new."

(I can think of a millions and a half things I love about this article. The author has an obvious and rare understanding of the humor behind Burma's reasons for this long-awaited sojourn. An insincere apology to all who have sought to keep this country in hiding from the public eye. what do you expect when you make such a big ole' scene? really, mr. corruption and officer injustice, can you blame us for our verbosity on and hightened anticipation of the results. paranoia will destroy ya. only time will tell.)