Word: ethnic
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...Felix was promoted to active duty last month, when tensions reached fever pitch between Burma's ruling junta and various armed ethnic groups in the country's northern borderlands. In late August, the military regime unexpectedly overran the army of the nearby Kokang minority, sending some 30,000 refugees spilling into neighboring China. Now other ethnic militias who control various jigsaw-puzzle pieces of northeastern Burma - the Kachin, the Wa, the Eastern Shan - are reinforcing their ragged armies and playing a terrifying guessing game: Who's next on the junta's hit list? (Read "A Closer Look at Burma...
...decades after Burma's army dictatorship reached an uneasy peace with a patchwork of ethnic militias, the country is again poised on the brink of civil war. The junta has long maintained a tense relationship with the up to 40% of the country's population that is composed of ethnic minorities. When Burma won independence from the British in 1948, political groups representing some of the country's 130-plus ethnicities agreed to join the union in exchange for autonomy. But uprisings quickly proliferated in the country's vast frontier, only worsening after the military regime wrested control...
...With nationwide elections slated for next year, Burma's ethnic minorities may soon lose what little sovereignty they have left. The junta claims the polls are the final step in creating what it calls a "discipline-flourishing democracy," after it ignored the results of the last elections back in 1990. International human-rights groups, however, decry the process as little more than a choreographed exercise designed to legitimize the junta and stamp out any threats to its power. In April, the Burmese government informed the cease-fire groups that as part of the electoral run-up they would have...
...tyrannical regime and study the fine points of our legal reforms," says Manne. "What they do is look for any way they can to get to a place of safety - to save their lives." Most of the Afghani refugees who arrive in Australia, for instance, are Hazaras, a large ethnic group that has been persistently persecuted by the Taliban...
...where he traveled to research his latest work, “Strength in What Remains.” Published just over a month ago, it chronicles the life of Deogratias Niyizonkiza, a 24-year-old medical student from Burundi. Niyozonkoza fled his country in 1994 to escape a ravaging ethnic civil war and ended up in New York. He found his footing there by learning English and enrolling at Columbia, eventually returning to Burundi to form a public health organization, Village Health Works. Kidder took a break from his book tour to talk about his new book and his career...