Word: rangoon
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...NOTE: The junta that runs the country imposed a systematic name change several years ago, decreeing that Burma was to be called Myanmar and the capital Rangoon was to be Yangon. The opposition has never accepted these changes; neither has the U.S. government. TIME continues to use Burma and Rangoon...
...when they act, people follow. By Sept. 24, thousands of ordinary Burmese had overcome their fear of the regime and joined the demonstrations, their shoes slapping through the monsoon downpours alongside the monks' bare feet. While marching monks recited prayers in the commercial capital Rangoon, civilians raised their fists and chanted their own mantra: "Democracy, democracy." The participation of normal citizens has turned what had been a series of sporadic rallies into the largest sustained display of dissent in Burma in nearly two decades. "The people's only weapons are their hands," said an elderly teacher watching the procession...
...battle for Shwedagon began in ferocious noonday heat. The authorities had locked the gates of the pagoda, Rangoon's most famous landmark, by mid-morning to prevent the monks who had led the weeklong demonstrations against Burma's military rulers from gathering. Police and soldiers guarded the entrances. The eastern gate of Shwedagon is where thousands of monks would otherwise exit to start their march into downtown Rangoon. But today, hundreds of soldiers and riot police blocked their...
...hundreds of monks, students, and other Rangoon residents approached the police, stood in the road and began to pray. Then the soldiers and police began pulling monks from the crowd, targeting the leaders, striking both monks and ordinary people with canes. Several smoke bombs exploded and the riot police charged. The monks and others fought back with sticks and rocks. Many others ran, perhaps four or five of them bleeding from minor head wounds. A car was set alight - by the soldiers, some protesters claimed - and then there was the unmistakable crack of live ammunition: the soldiers were shooting into...
...pause came upon the battle. The monks regrouped at a nearby monastery to march downtown. But first came a chilling display of the people's anger - and the monks' moral influence. A man on a motorcycle rode up. Motorcycles have been banned in Rangoon for years, ever since - the story goes - the paranoid generals fear being shot by assassins riding one of them. Most people on motorcycles are therefore assumed to be spies...