Word: rangoon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Justice can be elusive in Burma, but when it comes, it comes with a vengeance. On Sept. 26, a Rangoon court found four members of the family of former Burma dictator Ne Win guilty of treason for plotting to overthrow the country's ruling military junta. The sentence: death by hanging for Aye Zaw Win, Ne Win's 54-year-old son-in-law, and grandsons Aye Ne Win, 25; Kyaw Ne Win, 23; and Zwe Ne Win, 21. Few tears were shed over the convicted. During his 26 years of dictatorship, Ne Win isolated Burma...
...their national dignity. Already seething over the Wa's drug trafficking, the Thai army deployed troops and heavy artillery near the border. Burmese soldiers, meanwhile, massed in support of the Wa and for an offensive against other ethnic rebels?fighting that threatened to spill into Thailand. As Bangkok and Rangoon traded accusations, soldiers traded mortar fire. Villagers were evacuated as stray rounds rained down on Thai soil. No civilians were harmed?until last week. Farther south in Ratchaburi province, three gunmen in military fatigues fired automatic weapons at a pickup truck full of schoolchildren. Three students were killed...
...world's spotlight remains on the face-off at the India-Pakistan border. But the 2,100-kilometer Thai-Burmese frontier is almost as tense?even without the shadow of a nuclear war. The clashes have plunged relations between Bangkok and Rangoon to their lowest point in years. Burma's junta has banned visits by Thai officials, expelled Thai workers and closed border crossings, while Thai army officers have accused Rangoon of warmongering...
...This is one of Asia's most combustible areas. The Thai-Burmese border is home to dozens of tribal groups whose conflicts, hatreds and alliances are so complex and layered as to be nearly unfathomable. Some want an independent state, others merely the independence to fund their wars against Rangoon or each other by trafficking heroin, opium and amphetamines. Both the Burmese and the Thais use these rebels as proxy warriors against each other. But army border units from the two sides are also known to cooperate to make money from illegal logging and mining. With so many vested interests...
...first comes 1988, when student protests in Rangoon grow into a nationwide pro-democracy uprising in which Khoo Thwe, a natural orator, plays an impassioned role. "It is hard to describe the thrill people felt in finding their voices for the first time," he writes, then describes brilliantly the sheer, heart-pounding euphoria of defying the authorities under a regime where "even to think about the possibility felt like committing a crime...