Word: burma
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...NOTE: The junta that runs the country imposed a systematic name change several years ago, decreeing that Burma was to be called Myanmar and the capital Rangoon was to be Yangon. The opposition has never accepted these changes; neither has the U.S. government. TIME continues to use Burma and Rangoon...
...burgundy robes of Buddhist monks usually evoke a sense of spiritual calm. But for the repressive junta that has ruled Burma for 45 years, the recent sight of shaven-headed clerics marching the streets has been anything but soothing. For more than a week now, tens of thousands of Buddhist clerics have rallied across the country, their daily alms routes turned into paths of protest. Some walked quietly with their begging bowls overturned - an implied excommunication of the military leaders whose punitive fuel hikes provoked the first demonstrations back in August. Initially, Burma's generals tried to extinguish the protests...
...alongside the monks' bare feet. While marching monks recited prayers in the commercial capital Rangoon, civilians raised their fists and chanted their own mantra: "Democracy, democracy." The participation of normal citizens has turned what had been a series of sporadic rallies into the largest sustained display of dissent in Burma in nearly two decades. "The people's only weapons are their hands," said an elderly teacher watching the procession of protestors with teary eyes. "The government wants to wipe them out, but the people are not afraid...
...after all, this is a country where the 300,000-plus clergy is second in numbers only to the 450,000-strong military. But this is not a regime given to restraint. With the monks' protests showing little sign of abating and civilians joining the movement in large numbers, Burma's top brass reverted to their old ways. On Monday Sept. 24, the nation's Religious Affairs Minister was quoted on state television ordering the monks back to their monasteries. The following morning, trucks mounted with loudspeakers patrolled Rangoon, threatening to arrest anyone who dared join the protesting clerics...
...Other nations, most of whom greeted the '88 crackdown with silence, are keeping a much closer watch this time on the unfolding drama in Burma. On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting to discuss the turmoil in the country. A day before in his address to the U.N General Assembly in New York City, U.S. President George W. Bush criticized the "reign of fear" in Burma; he unveiled further restrictions on the regime, including travel bans to the U.S. for members of the junta and their families, extending sanctions that have been in place for a decade...