Page 17 (1/2)

But what difference did it ot no power," he said "Gov’ment say stay in house, she stay in house Gov’ood, she bad, what difference?"

And what if so happened to her?

He rolled his eyes at the very thought "Be very bad," he said "Not good to be in Rangoon when that happens People be very set-up"

"Upset"

"Good, yes People be upset Go peanuts Is right? Go peanuts?"

"Go nuts," I said "Or go bananas"

"Go bananas," he said, enjoying the phrase "Soo bananas"

So the Chief was right, I thought All I had to do was kill her

Chapter 9

No, of course I wasn’t going to kill her

In the first place, it’s not the sort of thing I do I’h I like the idea of nonviolence But I’ to Bobby Kennedy, never solves anything Well, I’ue rather forcefully that assassination had solved Bobby Kennedy And, just as I’ve wondered how history unned down, so I’ve wondered what difference a well-placed bullet or boet It was a little late in the ga and his pals tried to take out the Führer, but suppose someone had nailed the son of a bitch in, say, 1930, or ’35 or ’40 Would we have been spared Auschwitz? Might we have avoided the Second World War altogether?

Recently, in the course of catching up with current events, I’d read about the Gulf War and wondered why nobody had thought to knock off Saddam Hussein Surely it had to bea whole ar hospitals in Baghdad, or burying enemy infantry battalions in the sand And, if it was si, why not do it at the end, when the Iraqi ar? Just drop in an airborne unit with instructions to find hi him up Down the line you could always attribute the action to dissident Iraqis There had to be a few of those around, and if you just kept quiet about the whole thing, some of them would very likely jump up and clai proponent of assassination I think it’s tactically unsound uys in the red robes to tellfor it as capital punishood bet that particular son of a bitch won’t give you any , humane or barbaric, it’s unquestionably final

That didn’t uys as a way to achieve their goals That ht make sense if the end justified the ht it did, what kind of ninny would want to assassinate Aung San Suu Kyi, who, according to everybody in the world but the SLORC generals, was a sort of cross between Mother Courage and Mother Theresa?

No, I don’t think so

So as I doing in Burht the noon balloon to Rangoon?

I could say I’d always loved to travel, and I’d had a yen to see Bur poeoes "On the road to Mandalay / Where the flying fishes play" For soin ru toooverdue for a change of scene

All true, and all beside the point I’d accepted the assignment because, the way I looked at it, I didn’t have any choice

If I didn’t go, they’d send someone else

I never kne overnuess how ht have recruited recently But I damn well kneasn’t the only arrow in his quiver After all, he’d ed without o to Burma, soet the job done

Because it didn’t strikepeople away from Suu Kyi, and they said it was for her own protection, but I don’t think they really expected anyone to believe it They wanted to keep her away from her supporters, and fro to attract tourists, they didn’t need clips of her on the evening news, holding court on her front porch and telling the world not to visit lovely Myann trade and invest they wanted was Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and darling of the ainst her hoht have to kill her theuise of protecting her, was a far cry froht block off her street, but I couldn’t believe it would be all that hard to slip around the barriers, or to get access by going over rooftops or through backyards SLORC ht not want her dead – if they really wanted her dead, she’d already be dead – but neither did they think there was any real threat Since they were her only enenment was to kill her And nment and fail to carry it out That was child’s play – any fool could spend a couple of weeks visiting pagodas and releasing birds and slurping noodle soup – but if I did it right I could make it clear to the Chief and his iven it my best shot, that it was a practical iht be a better way to achieve one’s ends in Bur the inevitable, and they’d send someone else later on to do what I’d been unable to do

The only proble to pull this off Especially in light of the warning on the bottoe