Word: juntas
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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...
...renewed threat of civil war in Burma isn't just an internal problem. The country's minorities are concentrated in its borderlands, and in recent weeks, as the junta has surged into rebel territory, tens of thousands of ethnic refugees have poured into Thailand and China...
...hundreds of Burmese were slaughtered when troops opened fire on monks, students and other peaceful protesters. Two years later, the generals lost badly in elections to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy; the junta ignored the results and tightened its grip on power. In 2010, the regime promises another nationwide ballot, but few expect clean elections. Particularly concerned are members of Burma's 100-plus ethnic minorities, who fear that their already limited autonomy will be erased by the polls. Fighting between the state army and a hill tribe in northern Burma erupted last month, and the monks...