with active support from the military, the USDA was a network of branches operating at the division, district, township, and ward levels—an administrative scheme that was closely mirrored in the years to come during the SPDC era with individual Peace and Development Councils. As M. Skidmore (2004) explained, the USDA was one of numerous Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations (GONGOs) established as a mechanism of micro-control (Skidmore, 2004). GONGOs have played a crucial role in the Tatmadaw’s formula for control and power maintenance. As Skidmore (2004) illustrated in Karaoke Fascism, GONGOs such as the USDA and other military and government-controlled organizations provide a rapid way to mobilize the Burmese populace in a strategic fashion: This serves the dual function of promoting the myth of absolute State power and establishing control of urban space by controlling the movement of individuals through this reconfigured landscape of domination. (p. 117) Controlling the urban space in Burma is crucial in terms of prolonging the power of the military enterprise. Nearly all of the successful popular uprisings that occurred throughout Burma’s modern history took place in urban locations, primarily Rangoon. Reshaping the Burmese citizens’ existence in a way that prevents popular uprisings through passive participation in their own oppression—as a conscious strategy of survival—the military-state thereby eliminates the possibility of active popular solidarity and organization. An example of this as a result of the Tatmadaw’s use of GONGOs can be seen in mid-1990s socialist-style mass rallies. As Skidmore (2004) explains, these ceremonies of forced participation consisted of public assembly and movement in strategic formations particularly in the urban centers. This compulsory engagement in spectacles of State 36