Word: juntas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...long as Gorbachev stays in power, George Bush will try to work with him. But Administration officials worry about what might happen if Gorbachev is replaced, or co-opted, by a military junta. Suppose, for example, the new regime attempted an outright conquest and occupation of the Baltics, which called on the U.S. for help? Or suppose it not only repressed internal dissidents but also canceled Gorbachev's plans to pull remaining Soviet troops out of Eastern Europe...
...Choonhavan. That seemed a reasonable judgment -- until the tanks began to roll. Just before noon last Saturday, the army staged an apparently bloodless coup. The military arrested the top leaders of the government, including the Prime Minister; imposed martial law; and suspended the 1978 constitution. The leader of the junta, General Sunthorn Kongsompong, 59, announced the takeover on state television and radio, proclaiming, "We are in control of everything." It was the 19th coup attempt -- of which 10 have been successful -- since Thailand's absolute monarchy was overthrown...
Burma's brief experiment with multiparty politics is over, and the country is reverting to the xenophobia and isolation of its past. In a nationwide crackdown on its opposition, the military junta led by Senior General Saw Maung has arrested at least 40 officials of the National League for Democracy, including 16 members of parliament, and some 200 rebel monks, many of them activists of the Young Monks Association. Hundreds more monks have slipped out of their monasteries and returned to their homes in the countryside. Six months after the League won a surprise electoral victory, the army has effectively...
Just as the crackdown was reaching its peak last week, Amnesty International made public another indictment of the army's brutal rule. In a 72-page special report, the London-based human-rights organization accused Burma's junta of "silencing the democratic movement" with systematic terror and torture...
...political movement that began in 1988 is effectively over now," says an Asian diplomat. Says a Western official: "One by one they have knocked off the challenges to the regime, from the League to the monks." The consensus in Rangoon is that the junta can survive any sanctions its Western critics may impose for as long as the military leaders are determined...