Word: burma
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...Buddhist monks first sang this mantra. For a week now, they had been marching, calling peacefully for change in a country ruled for almost half a century by a corrupt and barbaric junta. Burma's monkhood and military are roughly the same size - both have between 300,000 and 400,000 men - but the similarities end there. With the monks preaching tolerance and peace, and the military demanding obedience at gunpoint, these protests pitted Burma's most beloved institution against its most reviled...
...closer," the young woman urges, but a hundred yards away feels close enough. Last night, soldiers like these had raided monasteries, beating and arresting hundreds of monks. Soldiers like these had also snuffed out Burma's last great pro-democracy uprising in 1988 by killing and injuring thousands. I know they will not hesitate to shoot...
...Briton who first fell in love with Burma a decade ago, bewitched by its rich culture, breathtaking landscapes and hospitable people. Despite their isolation and the ever-present fear of arrest, I found Burmese to be worldly and eager to talk; I quickly formed lasting friendships, and Burma became the subject of my second book, The Trouser People. I returned perhaps a dozen times, witnessing changes that were usually for the worse. People grew poorer, stalked by disease and malnutrition. Inflation lurched ever upwards. Schools and hospitals crumbled with neglect. Insurgencies raged along the rugged borders. The brightest Burmese sought...
...been to Burma only once, in the late 1980s, and the seemingly placid surface of that exquisite nation hid the passions of a people who yearned for freedom. It was one of the world's forgotten tragedies, until, that is, Burma forced itself back into global consciousness last month when vivid images of protesting Buddhist monks slipped past the restrictions imposed by the country's repressive military regime. We published two quick news stories, but we also planned a bigger take, sending Bangkok-based writer Andrew Marshall into the country...
...walk-up to parliamentary elections in March 2008. Patxi Zabaleta, a former Batasuna member and now leader of Aralar, a Basque nationalist party, castigated the government over the arrests. "These people were meeting to talk, without arms," he said. "The right to gather must be respected, in [Burma] and in Spain...