Word: rangoon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...determine who would succeed Sein Lwin, the pressure to open up the political system persisted. In Mandalay, in the north, an estimated 100,000 people -- out of a population of only 600,000 -- rallied to demand democracy. In the capital 15,000 demonstrators appeared in front of Rangoon General Hospital, where two doctors and three nurses were slain on Aug. 10 by security forces. Though armored vehicles patrolled Rangoon streets, troops kept a cautious distance from protesters...
...perhaps more than had gathered for any occasion since independence in 1948 -- flocked into the streets of the capital in response to a general strike called by students. Similar demonstrations occurred in at least 16 other cities. Soldiers from the army's 77th Brigade, which had been deployed in Rangoon several days earlier, stood quietly away from the marchers...
...point, after security forces barged into Rangoon General Hospital, several doctors and nurses, having refused to hand over injured demonstrators, were shot by the soldiers. Radio Rangoon broadcast news of the decapitations of three policemen outside Rangoon and later reported that in the town of North Okkalapa, where two of the executions supposedly took place, 10,000 demonstrators had surrounded an army unit, causing more gunfire...
...Even the whereabouts of Ne Win, the man who only a few weeks earlier had seemed so unassailable, were uncertain. Rumor had it that the 78-year-old was honeymooning with his 25- year-old wife -- his sixth -- at his magnificent villa on Inya Lake, about seven miles from Rangoon, protected by 700 soldiers...
...reform from within the party might deepen the hostility of younger officers. And popular pressure could also prod the army to action. Protesters said one goal, the ouster of Sein Lwin, had been achieved, but another, the restoration of democracy, had not. As a poster that began appearing around Rangoon on Saturday proclaimed: WE ARE NOT SATISFIED...