Word: burma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Bush and Dukakis trading jabs on the campaign trail, no fluffy features on roller- skating or baseball-card collectors. A typical show last week opened instead with a nearly 6-min. report on the upcoming election in Chile. That was followed by an examination of political unrest in Burma, which began in the leisurely tones of a travelogue: "Burma, a gentle land, devoutly Buddhist, dotted with the spires of golden pagodas, a place where time seems to be standing still...
...gold peacock banners fluttered over much of Burma last week, symbols of a national student movement that had become an uprising. Once again, hundreds of thousands of protesting citizens poured into the streets of major cities in a concerted effort to bring down the tottering government of the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party (B.S.P.P.). To a large extent they had already succeeded. Burma's second largest city, Mandalay, was under the control of Buddhist monks: saffron-robed holy men, known as sanghas, were directing traffic. In Rangoon, the capital, the entire civil service had deserted the government. A new opposition...
With the situation deteriorating rapidly, leaders of Burma's 180,000-member military took action. Rangoon announced Sunday that General Saw Maung, Burma's minister of defense and chief of the armed forces, had ousted civilian President Maung Maung, who took office just last month. Saw Maung immediately pledged to "restore law and order" and promised to hold multiparty elections that would end 26 years of one-party rule...
...balloting, and the demonstrations went on. By last week the opposition's emerging leadership appeared to be focusing on the issue of how to negotiate a transfer of power. Three leading dissidents -- former generals Aung Gyi and Tin Oo, and Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of one of Burma's great nationalist heroes and the country's newest and brightest political star -- wrote to Maung Maung formally rejecting the proposed elections. They were joined in that demand by former Prime Minister U Nu, who had been ousted from power in 1962. Later, a government election commission reportedly informed the regime...
...confrontation grew, the military seemingly remained loyal to Maung Maung and to Burma's strongman, former B.S.P.P. Chairman Ne Win, who was widely believed to be pulling strings behind the scenes. But last week some 6,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen appeared to have joined the revolt. In Rangoon graduates of the influential Defense Services Academy, mostly majors and lieutenant colonels, issued a statement urging formation of an interim government that would include the opposition. At midweek Saw Maung appealed to the opposition on national television to avoid splitting the military...