Word: burma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fall of Sein Lwin, frequently described as the "most hated man in Burma" because of his brutal handling of past antigovernment outbursts, could mark the end of a 26-year era of one-party rule. Since Ne Win, then head of the Burmese army, seized power in 1962 and replaced democracy with autocracy, virtually all political expression has been suppressed in something of a perpetual purge, the sole exception being the Burma Socialist Program Party...
...promised a "Burmese Way to Socialism" -- a strange mix of Buddhism, socialism and isolationism -- but instead allowed a potentially robust economy to drift on a joyless ride down a Burmese road to ruin. Once Asia's premier rice exporter and a country rich in oil, grain, gems and timber, Burma slipped into abject impoverishment, thanks to haphazard central planning, mismanagement and an unbending policy of self-sufficiency. While resources were devoted to a four-decade struggle with tribal guerrilla armies around the country, annual per capita income sank from $670 in 1960 to $190 in 1987, according to the World...
Choked off at the center and fraying at the edges, Burma seemed primed for combustion. Harbingers of trouble had appeared in the form of occasional protests for almost a year, only to be quickly suppressed by security forces under the command of Sein Lwin, then the party's secretary-general. Ever strengthening tremors began two weeks ago, as larger and larger crowds, first of students, then of all manner of citizens, gathered at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the splendid golden shrine in North Rangoon, and the Sule Pagoda in the center of the city...
...that changed within a few hours. Last Monday evening the 77th Brigade was replaced by the 22nd Light Infantry, a battle-hardened division that was pulled from eastern Burma. Half an hour after, the new unit took up positions, its soldiers opened fire; an estimated four were killed by the first volleys. Through the following day, the shooting against unarmed ralliers continued. According to reports received by officials in Washington, the soldiers appeared to have orders to fire: "There were well-organized bodies of troops roaming the city, shooting at groups of demonstrators...
...degree than Iraq. As many as 20 countries are believed to possess chemical weapons or the capability to produce them. Nonetheless, besides Iraq, only the U.S. and the Soviet Union have admitted owning chemical arsenals. But the superpowers are not the real threat. Specialists worry about countries like Libya, Burma, Cuba, Peru, Ethiopia and Viet Nam, some of which are believed to have employed chemical weapons in battle. Even terrorist groups and drug runners can get their hands on poison gases. Warns Elisa Harris, a visiting research fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies: "Other Third...