Word: burma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Burma's generals will have a tough time convincing the public they hold more spiritual suasion than the monks. Holed up in Naypyidaw, a city that was constructed out of jungle in 2005 to replace Rangoon as the national capital, the military leaders have virtually barricaded themselves from their subjects. While ordinary Burmese get ever poorer because of the junta's economic mismanagement, the generals live in swanky mansions and drive fancy cars. The government has signed lucrative gas-pipeline and timber deals with other nations, but little of the money trickles down to ordinary people. The steep fuel hikes...
...edits the Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based publication that covers Burmese affairs, recalls how it took nearly a month for word of student protests in the early 1990s to reach Thailand. "Now we get information about protests almost instantly," he says, "and it's then sent back to people in Burma so they know what's going on across the country." The flow of information has even spawned a group of Burmese bloggers, some of whom operate out of Rangoon's 200-plus Internet cafés. (Just four years ago, there were fewer than 30 such...
...Such powerful images may hearten democracy advocates worldwide, but will they persuade Burma's soldiers to disobey orders to shoot directly at the protesters? For all its economic incompetence, Burma's junta has managed to hold together the military remarkably well. Most high-level government positions are held by army officers, and lowly grunts can work their way up the ranks. Junta leader General Than Shwe, for instance, started off as a rank-and-file soldier whose psychological-warfare expertise and loyalty to predecessor Ne Win won him promotions. Still, there may be some cracks in the military...
...equation may be China, Burma's largest trading partner and ideological ally. But despite calls from the West for China to use economic leverage over Burma, it's not clear how much influence Beijing really has. "China will urge Myanmar to use peaceful means to solve the problem, [because] China would like to see a stable environment in Myanmar," says Zhai Kun, an expert on Southeast Asia at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing. "But because Myanmar is a closed society, I don't think they listen to advice from the outside, including China...
...That puts all the more pressure on Burma's monks, as the only force whose authority can challenge that of the military. Monks have urged the generals to avoid bloodshed by sitting down for reconciliation talks with Suu Kyi's NLD. The hope is that dialogue might lead to a power-sharing agreement that recognizes the 1990 election results. So far, the junta has pointedly ignored the 62-year-old democracy activist. Indeed, recently passed constitutional guidelines bar Suu Kyi from holding power because she lacks military experience and was married to a foreigner. But Suu Kyi clearly...