Commander-in-waiting
Source : ROBERT HORN, TIME MAGAZINE
A pair of generals a ruthless battlefield commander and a reform-minded intelligence chief are in the running to lead Burma's junta
General Maung Aye, commander in chief of Burma's army, was relishing his victory. It was February 1997, and his troops were in the mopping-up phase of a crushing offensive against ethnic Karen guerrillas. The enemy was broken and on the run. With television camera crews in tow to record his triumph, Maung Aye arrived in the remote eastern hamlet of Azin to accept the surrender of a Karen captain and his rag-tag band of men. The vanquished fighters laid their flag and weapons on the soil, an offering before their conqueror. At long last, the half-century war for Karen independence appeared to be coming to a close. It was a moment ripe for a gesture of grace, magnanimity and reconciliation. Maung Aye would have none of that. The general walked across the flag, ground it beneath his boots and ordered the Karen captain to get down on his knees and apologize.
Maung Aye is waiting for the day when he can bring all of Burma to heel. As vice chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, the formal name of the Burmese government, he is the designated successor to General Than Shwe, who is aging, ailing and, according to close associates, anxious to retire. Maung Aye's time is coming. Junta watchers in Rangoon expect he may succeed Than Shwe some time in the coming year. He will inherit a country ruled since 1962 by generals who have crippled the national economy. Their involvement in torture, repression, forced labor and links to drug traffickers have made them outcasts in the West and frustrated their Asian defenders. There are hopes that a new general at the helm might lead to a more moderate regime. But Maung Aye, 63, heads the junta's hard-line faction and has repeatedly vowed to "annihilate" democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers. He has rattled Burma's neighbors with a massive military buildup while opposing engagement with the rest of Southeast Asia. "Maung Aye is of the old-school isolationist, even xenophobic, class of generals," says Thomas Lansner, assistant dean at Columbia University's School of International Affairs. "His promotion bodes ill for any chance of early reform."
One man, however, could stand in Maung Aye's way: General Khin Nyunt, the country's intelligence chief. Regarded as the brains behind the junta, Khin Nyunt is credited with achieving a measure of peace by negotiating ceasefire agreements with a dozen ethnic rebel groups. He is the architect of the long-closed country's opening to foreign investment, its entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its increasingly close relationship with China. As First Secretary of the government, he is not technically in line for leadership, but as head of intelligence he is feared by the other generals. "He is the real power in the junta," says a Western diplomat in Rangoon who believes the spy chief wants the top job and will find a way to get it. "This will be Maung Aye's greatest battle, the showdown with Khin Nyunt," says Micool Brooke, an Asian Defence Journal correspondent who monitors the Burma military. "It's like a volcano that's about to blow."
Some junta watchers believe the rivalry has the potential to split the military and lead to the regime's collapse. In any conflict, Maung Aye has a tremendous advantage: he controls the army. Under his command its strength has increased from 185,000 to 500,000 men, and it has acquired modern weaponry that has put the government more than $1 billion in debt. Khin Nyunt, by contrast, has few troops and is resented by seasoned officers for his paucity of combat experience. Yet he presides over a vast network of informers that spy not only on dissidents, but on the military itself. "Never underestimate Khin Nyunt," says Aung Zaw, a Burmese exile who edits the political journal The Irrawaddy in Thailand.
Maung Aye's reputation for ruthlessness has some diplomats and exiles rooting for Khin Nyunt. But others figure the spy chief isn't more moderate, just more subtle. Both generals are united by the fundamental belief that the military must rule. They know a split could doom them all. In an open struggle for power, younger officers who want the army out of politics might be a force for reform, according to Khin Maung Nyunt, a former Burma army captain who served with Maung Aye before defecting to Thailand in 1972. Barring that, Maung Aye could still turn out to be an agent of change: his rule could be harsh enough to spark another democracy uprising or ethnic rebellion. There is one other possibility, although it's a longshot: with his unquestioned hard-line credentials, Maung Aye just might be the man to talk with Suu Kyi. That, however, would require grace, magnanimity and a spirit of reconciliation. In all likelihood, Maung Aye will have none of that.