Word: rangoon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...them, watched from the pavement by eerily silent crowds. Near Sule Pagoda, trucks are jeered and pelted with rocks, and the soldiers again open fire over the protesters' heads. But as dusk approaches, the crowds disperse. The shops have been shuttered all afternoon, and the pavement teashops for which Rangoon is famous vanish. Nobody wants to be out on the streets after dark...
...about 1 p.m. on Sept. 27, and I am wedged among thousands of pro-democracy protesters near the golden-domed Sule Pagoda in downtown Rangoon. Facing us are hundreds of soldiers and riot police, who look on edge as they finger their assault rifles. The protesters, mostly ordinary Burmese clad in sarongs and sandals, appear undaunted, even jubilant. Defiantly, they chant a Buddhist mantra whose melody will haunt me for days...
...WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26 The eastern gate of the Shwedagon is where thousands of monks usually exit to start their march into downtown Rangoon. But today the gate is locked and guarded by soldiers and riot police. They are confronted by hundreds of angry monks and students. It is a little after noon, and the battle for Shwedagon is about to begin...
...there were positive changes, too. The 2004 purge of military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt dealt a blow to a once fearsome spy network. Then, one year later, the regime moved to its remote new capital at Naypyidaw. Suddenly, people in Rangoon seemed to talk a little more freely. Mobile phones and the Internet arrived and, despite being costly and state-controlled, were embraced by thousands. Student activists jailed after the 1988 protests were released and regrouping as an alternative to the National League for Democracy (NLD), the beleaguered party of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent...
...intertwined with the lives of the monks. Monks preside over marriages, chant over the dead; they shelter orphans, care for the sick; and they rely upon the people for food, medicine, clothes and shelter. "A devout Buddhist will not even step on the shadow of a monk," says a Rangoon resident. "When a monk approaches, we move aside to let him pass." And so, with soldiers and police still inside Ngwe Kyar Yan, hundreds of local people surround it. "We had no weapons and knew we couldn't compete with the military," a neighbor tells me. "Everyone just wanted...