Word: burma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Burma today, the overwhelming sense is that the regime is more concerned with keeping foreigners out than allowing aid in. But unless international relief arrives quickly, the death toll of Cyclone Nargis will skyrocket. Already, disease is beginning to stalk makeshift refugee camps set up in monasteries and schools. In Laputta, 58 refugee camps have been set up for tens of thousands of dazed villagers who have nowhere else to go; the local hospital reports that one-quarter of new patients have diarrhea, a potential harbinger of killer epidemics. A Rangoon doctor says his hospital has run out of fully...
...Calls for Change For its part, an alliance of political activists, students and Buddhist monks believes that the world can't wait. "We urge the U.N. and foreign governments to intervene in Burma immediately to provide assistance directly to the people of Burma without waiting for the permission of the military junta," the underground group, based in Rangoon, pleaded in a public statement. "Just come now." When I floated the idea of unilateral intervention with a democracy activist in Rangoon, he brightened up. "People would be so happy if they got foreign food from the sky," he said. Then...
...what's Plan B? Some hope that China, whose investment in Burma helps prop up the junta, could pressure the generals to allow in more aid. (After an earthquake struck the central Chinese province of Sichuan on May 12, killing and injuring tens of thousands, China sent out relief teams immediately and said it would accept foreign aid.) But even if China is willing to speak out, it's hard to know just how much influence it would have on Burma's top brass. The extent of the regime's disconnect with reality struck me as I drove the broad...
...against the junta. Similar hopes of reform surfaced during pro-democracy demonstrations last September, only to be dashed when soldiers gunned down dozens of innocent protestors. Thousands of monks, who had led the peaceful rallies, were arrested. Hundreds of political activists remain in jail. A cowed silence descended over Burma...
...Perhaps this time will be different. The Irrawaddy delta is Burma's rice bowl. Not only was nearly all of this season's crop destroyed by Nargis, but most farmers won't be able to plant the next batch of seedlings because of salt-water inundation. Future shortages could spell dissent: at least five protest movements in Burma's recent history happened in the months when grain prices were at their highest. In a startling indication of dissatisfaction, an official counting referendum votes in Rakhine state told a Rangoon journalist that in 15 townships, the "no" vote ranged from...