The EconomistMarch 14th 2020 Asia 472 military officers and officials first appoint-
ed under military rule continue to serve in
every branch of government, including the
judiciary. Members of political parties, in
contrast, have been allowed to work as civil
servants only since this week, as a result of
one of the few constitutional amendments
that parliament did approve.
The courts and bureaucrats side in-
stinctively with the Tatmadaw. Two jour-
nalists from Reuters, a news agency, who
exposed a massacre in which an army unit
killed ten villagers, spent more time be-
hind bars for revealing “official secrets”
than did the soldiers who slaughtered in-
nocent civilians. What is more, the massa-
cre is the only incident for which soldiers
have been punished during a months-long,
army-led pogrom in 2017 that sent more
than 750,000 Rohingyas, a Muslim minor-
ity, fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.
This week the police said the army was
seeking a criminal prosecution of Reuters
and an mpquoted in a Reuters report, for
claiming that shelling by the army had
killed two Rohingya civilians. Neither the
police nor the army seem to have investi-
gated the shelling itself.
As if its weapons and its constitutional
powers do not give the Tatmadaw enough
power, it also has huge economic clout. It
owns two big conglomerates, Myanmar
Economic Holdings Limited (mehl) and
Myanmar Economic Corporation (mec),
which benefited from lucrative monopo-
lies under military rule. An American dip-
lomatic cable from 2009 stated that mehl
and mecare “key components of the elabo-
rate system of patronage the [army] uses to
maintain power”. In recent years they have
lost some of their monopolies and have
had to start paying taxes. But mehland its
subsidiaries, Myawaddy Bank and Mya-
waddy Trading, remain among the coun-
try’s biggest businesses.
The civilian government has reduced
expenditure on the Tatmadaw, from 4.3%
of gdpin 2015, just before the nldtook of-
fice, to 3.3% in 2017. But according to the
un, “The Tatmadaw’s ability to draw upon
alternative sources of revenue, outside the
military budget, enables it to operate with-
out effective oversight.”
Miss Suu Kyi has seldom dared to con-
front the Tatmadaw directly. Indeed, she
has leapt very publicly to its defence over
its treatment of the Rohingyas, arguing be-
fore the International Court of Justice last
year that its abuses were neither systemat-
ic nor widespread. Behind the scenes, how-
ever, she has on occasion subtly foiled the
generals. They do not appear to have antici-
pated her invention of the job of state
counsellor. She has also appointed her own
national security adviser, instead of rely-
ing on the men in uniform. And although
the army dominates the committee that
can declare a state of emergency, it is the
president who convenes it. Neither of the
twonldloyalists who have held the job
since 2016 has seen fit to do so. Most nota-
bly, at the end of 2018, in what looked like
an anodyne restructuring of the bureau-
cracy, her government moved the powerful
General Administration Department,
which controls all bureaucrats in state and
local government, from the army-run Min-
istry of the Interior to a department under
civilian control. This put “the backbone of
public administration” in thenld’s hands
for the first time, writes Matthew Arnold of
the Asia Foundation, anngo.
In theory, Miss Suu Kyi and thenldwill
not always need to resort to bureaucratic
subterfuge to get their way. The Tatmadaw
claims that it will relinquish its role in poli-
tics once democracy has “matured”. But
with their churlish refusal to countenance
even modest constitutional reforms, it is
the generals, not the civilian politicians,
who are behaving immaturely.^7L
ike beadson a slender string, a long
queue of mountaineers clings to a single
safety rope. They are waiting to ascend to
the icy peak of the world’s tallest moun-
tain: Everest. The climbers and their guides
have braved sheer rock, avalanches and
wild winds. But the crowds that await
interludes of good weather to rush for the
summit can be just as deadly. Climbers jos-
tle and bicker; long delays deplete supplies
of oxygen. Last year four of the 11 deaths on
the mountain during the spring climbingseason were blamed on overcrowding.
“It is quite a commotion up there,” says
Jeremy Tong of jtrace, a trekking firm,
who had to queue to reach the summit last
year. The Nepalese government had prom-
ised new rules to thin out the mob. (Be-
cause of coronavirus the Chinese govern-
ment has called off all ascents this year on
the northern face of the mountain, which
is in its territory.) It came up with a series of
new requirements to obtain a permit to
make an attempt on the peak. Applicants
should have successfully climbed another
Nepalese mountain of at least 6,500 metres
(Everest is 8,848 metres). They should pro-
vide documentation certifying their physi-
cal fitness for the challenge and employ ex-
perienced guides. The authorities are also
considering raising the cost of a permit
from $11,000 to $35,000. Yet this week they
announced that they would not put these
changes into effect this year, since there
had not been sufficient consultation on
them within the government.
Mountaineers are far less likely to die
on Everest than they were just a few de-
cades ago. Rescue teams and helicopters
stand ready to help those in need, which is
not always the case with other Himalayan
peaks. But there are many more climbers
than there used to be (see chart).
The Nepalese authorities handed out
381 permits to teams of mountaineers last
year, generating a welcome dollop of cash.
They are presumably keen to ensure that
stricter rules do not shrink revenues. Even
if the government comes out ahead, with
extra income from higher fees offsetting
any decrease in the number of permits is-
sued, an entire industry depends on Ever-
est. Nepal is among Asia’s poorest places:
about half of its 30m people subsist on less
than $3.20 a day, according to the World
Bank. Guides risk their lives because they
can earn perhaps $5,000 a season working
at the highest altitudes, more than seven
times the average annual wage. With last
year’s bad publicity and the impending
tightening of the rules, their earnings may
have peaked. 7Nepal’s government dithers over rules
that would cut high-altitude queuesTraffic on EverestHigh and climbing
Social climbersHigh five thousand
Mount Everest*Source: Himalayan Database *Above basecamp3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
06,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
15-
192000-
0490-
9480-
8470-
7460-
641950-
54Death rate, % Number of climbers