Burmese Connection. Ashish Basu

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      Win resembled Aung closely like a carbon copy. In the Western tradition, he would have been named Aung Lung Jr. Aung, Myint, and baby Win did not have much material comfort in Northern Burma in 1960, but they were happy in their austere home in Myitkyina. Burma remained a very poor country postindependence, so one area of focus for Aung was to find a steady job and a source of income. He now had a family to feed, so he knew he had to do something about it sooner than later. Aung had seen the ravages of economic hardship among the tribes, and he did not want those to touch Myint or baby Win ever.

      For the first thirty odd years of his life, the Shan cause was all that Aung was about. After Win’s birth, he realized that he was responsible for the well-being of baby Win and Myint. If it was not him, someone like him could pick up the Shan cause, but Win and Myint had no one else—they had no backup. Aung had to deliver a decent quality of life to his wife and son. Unlike others, he had no extended family on either side to lean on, so, Aung took the responsibility of looking after Win and Myint very seriously. He had always remembered the question Myint had asked when he requested her to marry him in Rangoon, so he had to act.

      General Ne Win had already succeeded in stripping the Chaofas of their feudal powers in exchange for comfortable pensions for life. He staged a coup in 1962, arrested U Nu and several other leaders, and declared a socialist state run by a council of senior military officers nominated by him. They were all his own people. He effectively got rid of the last traces of the civilian government. Essentially, his band of brothers from the army ran the country according to their personal priorities. Self-interest was above all else for the corrupt generals.

      After the 1962 Burmese coup, the status of the Shan States and the Chaofas’ hereditary rights were completely removed by the military government. At that stage, Burma was what Ne Win and his band of generals decided for her. She had no views of her own—nobody even asked. Some people in Rangoon called Ne Win’s style of governing a necessary form of “benevolent dictatorship” for Burma’s quick advancement. Aung could see the dictatorship part clearly but could not sense the benevolence part. At least there was none toward the Shan or the other hill tribes: they had learned to suffer in silence.

      Independence usually brings progress and development in its wake, but Burma was an exception. There was very little progress and virtually no development immediately after independence. The fact that independent Burma was a multiethnic society that had different priorities did not seem to be a consideration for Ne Win. Most of the Burmese people had no independent voice; there were no real national elections in sight, so no one really knew what they wanted. As Aung had feared, the hill tribes had no influence in the national conversation.

      The minority tribes were excluded from the agenda. Aung was surprised to see the process of national reconciliation implode; his Burma had become a fiefdom run by a few lords who made decisions for the many. Those few lords cared about their ostentatious lifestyles and their inflated egos, not much else. The downward slide toward fiefdom happened rapidly, and all opposition was stifled systematically.

      After General Ne Win’s declaration, a part of Aung felt that he had wasted his life thus far. In twenty years’ time, he had come one full circle with almost nothing to show for it. Shans had no peace, no prosperity, and no say in the Burmese national government in Rangoon. The only difference was now the oppressors were the Tatmadaw full of Burmar and Mon people rather than the Japanese or the British. In some ways, the outside occupation was better because the locals were united; among the locals, there was empathy and understanding of one another. In Aung’s opinion, Burmese fighting against Burmese was worse because the biggest loser was Burma.

      That was hardly any consolation for Aung. To him, his youth, the bloody battles he fought, the sacrifices he and his comrades made as part of the resistance, and the sleepless nights he spent in hammocks and tree branches in the Kachin Hills were all a colossal waste! He could not imagine baby Win living his life under the army. Aung was desperate to give Win a chance. Gradually and very painfully, Aung was realizing that he would not be able to achieve that goal in Burma.

      Aung felt dejected and broken. He wanted to hide his agony but didn’t know how. He also did not know how things fell apart so quickly.

      2020: San Diego trip

      Kip Kimura’s early morning start was going great! Kip knew he had to plan a trip soon to meet up with Dr. Kang, the researcher in the High-Performance Wireless team, at the SCRIPPS Institute in San Diego. That team at SCRIPPS was consulting with Kip’s company for a wireless infrastructure project in Thailand. A couple of times, he had almost booked his tickets, but something important always came up, and he ended up postponing the trip. He always told himself that it was a day trip to San Diego, after all, and he could plan it any time he wanted with a week’s notice to Dr. Kang. Dr. Kang always made himself available.

      This time, however, several things fell in place. Kip himself was not over committed; United Airlines had his favorite seat in business class at the right price; Dr. Kang was available, and because of the lockdown, Kip had agreed to drive down to Dr. Kang’s home office in Chula Vista. So, with all the stars aligned the right way, Kip confidently decided to make the trip. The project was not on a tight schedule, and they knew that the wireless technology specifications could change again.

      Kip Kimura had obtained a license and started “ConSec” in San Rafael, California, almost immediately after he took early retirement from the US Army. The idea of ConSec, or Consulting in Security, came from Kip’s army buddy Tim Kramer, who eventually became co-owner of the company. ConSec specialized in physical and cybersecurity, breach prevention, mitigation, and conflict resolution internationally. Tim and Kip had a unique set of skills in ConSec’s area of specialization because they were involved in similar work for the Armed Forces and US Department of Defense (DoD). They still maintained their connections with the DoD and the US Army.

      The conflict resolution part of their work required Kip and Tim to have a very wide network of international connections. Some of those were through the government agencies, and some of those were outside the formal government structures. That practice was Kip’s area of focus. As the world became more connected, one side effect was social media. With social media taking over the world, tribalism increased considerably. Whether it was election interference in a foreign land or fighting a pandemic, or other kinds of nefarious media influencing, tribalism was out and about everywhere you went.

      Much of ConSec’s recent work focused on resolving those types of conflicts, identifying the sources, and preventing those from reoccurring. As a team, they were never short of work; people knew about them in ConSec’s niche market. They were not rich yet, but with a steady caseload from law enforcement teams all over the country and their contacts in the Department of Defense, they were busy. That was part of the reason for the delay in planning the trip to San Diego, California.

      Kip’s Lyft driver dropped him at the San Francisco International Airport with plenty of time to spare. Kip managed to check his email and even finished the coffee he purchased at the terminal. He was quite elated when he saw that the flight was departing on time. With COVID-19 lockdowns everywhere, one could never be sure when the flights actually departed. With so many new restrictions, a lot could go wrong; most of the airlines were not yet allowed to sell all the seats. Some flight routes might not be commercially viable, Kip thought.

      He hoped that the US Congress would be able to approve a financial relief package for the airlines. After the flight took off into the bright blue California morning, Kip settled down in his seat and opened his tablet to watch the Netflix movie he had not finished last time. The WWII true story was about three brothers saving several hundred Jews in Northern Europe by hiding them in a dense forest. For over two years, the brothers ran a small makeshift village of Jews in the middle of the forest. It had its school, communal kitchen, and ragtag security force. Kip loved the first hour of the movie—the СКАЧАТЬ