Word: burma
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...When Suu Kyi does walk through her sky blue metal gate, Burma's ailments won't be magically healed. Most are chronic and beyond the scope of one woman?even an icon like Suu Kyi?to cure. The country is devoid of the institutions needed to build a civil society: a democratic legislature, a functioning bureaucracy and education and health systems, an independent judiciary, a free press. But Suu Kyi stands at the very least as a symbol of hope. In the markets, tea shops and offices of the crumbling capital, Rangoon, the whispered conversations about politics now contain wisps...
...inflation, corruption and epidemics of aids and other diseases. Kyi Maung is cautiously optimistic that "reason will prevail," not least because Suu Kyi has mellowed and is willing to compromise. Where she isn't likely to give ground, however, is over the release of several hundred NLD members from Burma's notoriously harsh prison system. "These jails are our killing fields," says Kyi Maung. (The junta did release five political prisoners last Friday...
...discuss political change. One conundrum is what to do about the 1990 election outcome in which the NID won 82% of the seats in a parliament the military refuses to convene. Suu Kyi has always insisted that the results be recognized. "Suu Kyi is ready to deal," notes Burma expert Joseph Silverstein of Rutgers University in the U.S., "but not to sell...
...Than Shwe may also be influenced by asean leaders who are fed up that Burma's pariah status has blackened the organization's reputation since the nation joined in 1997. And he may be concerned about his own legacy. A family man who dotes on his three daughters and one grandson, Than Shwe, some Burma watchers say, views the impasse with Suu Kyi as somewhat of a family squabble that he wants to set right. This theory has Than Shwe acknowledging that Burma's military has lost the love of much of the populace for holding on to power...
...however, Than Shwe is a military man, and that's where his chief loyalty lies. He still firmly believes the army is best suited to rule Burma and its fractious ethnic groups. Even some diplomats agree a transition to a freer society will have to be slow and gradual as the country has no democratic institutions. But the struggle to build them may well begin with this first thaw between two once implacable foes?and when Aung San Suu Kyi takes those first steps toward freedom...