Word: crackdowns
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...euphoria would not last, and Andrew was on hand to chronicle the junta's brutal crackdown. He was joined in Rangoon by our own James Nachtwey, the world's pre-eminent news photographer. If Andrew's story describes the ecstasy of the uprising and the agony of its failure, Nachtwey's haunting images capture Rangoon's somber mood as ordinary Burmese try to go back to their lives after the crackdown...
...Burma's repressive leaders and deny them visas. Yet when he urged "every civilized nation" to use its diplomatic and economic leverage to "stand up" to the regime, his appeal was largely ignored. Many countries acted as if they agreed with Burma's self-serving claim that the crackdown was simply an "internal matter." Notwithstanding the U.S.'s $500 billion military budget and $13 trillion GDP, its summoning power has dwindled...
...crackdown starts slowly. Several well-known democracy activists are arrested overnight. Aung Way goes into hiding. Guiltily, I retrieve his poem. "We want freedom," it reads. "We want friendship between our army and our people." The New Light of Myanmar, a junta newspaper, blames the violence on "hot-blooded monks" who "are jealous of national development and stability...
...crackdown has worked. There are small, sporadic protests but no marches. The sacred rallying points, the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, are locked and guarded. Everywhere there are troops arresting and beating people...
...have a sense that the junta's victory may yet prove Pyrrhic. The brutal crackdown has shattered the relationship between the generals and the monks. The regime spent years building new pagodas and donating alms to cultivate its image as protector of the faith. It can hardly claim that role now. The assault on a revered institution may yet cause divisions in the army's ranks. "Soldiers are humans," says a Burmese analyst with close ties to the military. "They have families. They have monks among their relatives." Already stories are being told of monks damning to hell the soldiers...