Tension is rising in Rangoon, as the regime continues to ignore more than
2 million victims of cyclone Nargis, which has killed over 77,000 persons
since it hit southern Burma on May 2^nd. The regime has increased the
number of police patrols in Rangoon, and shortened the opening hours of
Burma’s main Buddhist monument, the Shwedagon Pagoda, starting point for many of the pro-democracy demonstrations in September 2007.

’Before the cyclone, and in the first few days afterwards, people would
criticise the regime out of the side of their mouth, or through a joke.
And they would go quiet if soldiers walked past’ says Pi Mo, a local
student who has thrown all her energy into collecting food and second hand
clothes for cyclone victims. ’But over the last couple of weeks, people
have begun to express themselves open. Rather than cringe when soldiers
address them, they snarl back. People are very angry that the government
is doing nothing to help the cyclone victims, and is more interested in
stealing as much of the foreign aid as possible.’

The regime recently abandoned its attempts to confiscate aid from private
citizens who were trying to aid their compatriots in the cyclone affected
areas, and is now allowing more or less free movement in and out of the
delta for Burmese citizens. But its callous and totalitarian attempt to
monopolise aid, and its subsequent climb-down in the face of public
protest, has seriously damaged its image of invincibility. People no
longer just hate the regime. They start to see that it is incompetent, and
that it can be forced to make concessions.

The regime’s incompetence and apparent lack of interest in disaster
response contrasts with their obsession to obtain a Stalinist-style
massive ’yes’ vote in the May 10^th referendum on a new Constitution that
would give the regime 25% of seats in the parliament. "If you want to read
about the cyclone disaster you have to look on the inside pages of the
newspapers,“complains Pi Mo.”You have to read past columns and columns
of propaganda for the referendum first. But surely for this nation the
cyclone should be the number one priority".

People are not just speaking their minds more freely. Rangoon has hundreds
of internet cafes, and an hour’s air-conditioned high-speed access costs
about 0.40 USD - the same as a cup of tea in a street cafe. With few other
forms of public entertainment, the young generation is packed into the
internet cafes, and as you walk past the long lines of terminals, it is
easy to see that many people are corresponding with contacts abroad, and
writing very critically. As if they were no longer worried who is looking
over their shoulder.

The regime has even failed in its attempt to force internet cafe owners to
help them spy on internet users. One newspaper reported on 19 May that
less than 20% of internet cafe owners are complying with the strict
conditions of their license: among other things they should record the
name and ID card number of all internet users, collect a screen shot of
each terminal every five minutes, and forward this information to the
police every two weeks. Most owners know that their customers would resent the invasion of their privacy. Keeping a full register of users would also
prevent internet cafe owners from pocketing most of their income, and
declaring only a very small amount for tax purposes...

With residents of Rangoon increasingly open about their frustrations, the
regime may have to either increase repression, or make concessions towards
public opinion, particularly concerning its insensitive handling of the
cyclone Nargis disaster. It would not take much to bring people onto the
streets again. ’People are much more angry than last September,’ says Pi
Mo. ’But, because the regime was so violent towards the monks and other
demonstrators, everyone is waiting for someone else to start the protest,
before they join in.’

Unfortunately, there are virtually no organised opposition groups in
Rangoon which could provide a ’spark’ or some mobilising slogans to speed
up the current radicalisation in public opinion, or to encourage people to
move towards street demonstrations. The Burmese opposition is extremely
weak and inexperienced, with many of the leaders of the 1988-1990 protests
now in exile. The opposition also suffers from extreme factionalism,
personalisation of politics and corruption - bad habits which have cursed
Burmese politics for many years, and from which the inexperienced
opposition could hardly be immune... But the 30-40 year old generation of
political exiles, who were caterpulted into public activities during the
1988 democratic spring, and hardened by the 1989 coup and subsequent
military repression, are trying hard to link up with internal opposition
groups, including through the development of alternative networks for
disaster relief, and the widest possible distribution of independent
testimony about the true scale of the cyclone damage in the south, and the
scale of regime lies about how ’everything is under control’.