Word: rangoon
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...TRIAL. KHIN NYUNT, 65, former Burmese Prime Minister; on charges of corruption and bribery; in a secret tribunal at the infamous Insein prison; in Rangoon. Once considered a comparatively moderate member of Burma's ruling military junta, Khin Nyunt has been under house arrest since being purged in October by Senior General Than Shwe. If convicted, he is expected to receive a long prison sentence; his two sons have already been tried and found guilty on similar charges...
...Shan orphans are among the most vulnerable victims of policies hatched in faraway Bangkok and Rangoon. The Shan are the largest of Burma's eight main ethnic minorities, which form a third of the country's 43 million population. Many of the groups are fighting for independence from the rule of the military junta. In recent months, the Burmese army and its proxies have stepped up efforts against ethnic insurgents such as the Shan and the Karen, driving thousands of refugees into Thailand. There, they receive cold comfort. The Thai government does not grant official refugee status to the Shan...
...Thailand and Burma share a centuries-old enmity, and a porous, ill-defined border. Even in recent years there have been clashes between the Thai army and its Burmese and Wa counterparts, usually over drug smuggling. Today, Bangkok is pursuing a policy of closer ties with Rangoon. Besides sending back the Shan, the Thai authorities have cracked down on illegal Burmese workers, and moved Burmese exiles living in Thailand to overcrowded border refugee camps. Thai officials say better relations with the pariah regime will not only help solve cross-border problems, such as the trafficking of narcotics, but also encourage...
...junta needs all the friends it can get. The 60th birthday over a week ago of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, has again put the spotlight on the repression practiced by the regime. Recent bomb attacks by unknown perpetrators in Rangoon and Mandalay have killed and injured scores of people. Unprecedented pressure exerted by other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations means Burma is unlikely to take its turn chairing ASEAN in mid-2006. The purge of Prime Minister and intelligence chief Khin Nyunt last October on corruption charges...
...Indeed, the junta's 16-year-old alliance with the U.W.S.A. is looking shaky. Rangoon is disquieted by the rebel group's bristling armory and aspirations for nationhood, while Wa resentment grows at fighting and dying in the Burmese army's own battles. Whatever happens next in the violent and complex relations between Burma's ruling generals and its diverse ethnic groups, Colonel Yawd Serk is not expecting peace for his long-suffering Shan anytime soon. "If the Wa don't come for us," he says from his hilltop redoubt, "the Burmese will come for sure...