Word: rangoons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Stewart and Tucci stayed at Rangoon's stately turn-of-the-century Strand Hotel, which was taken over by its workers after the turmoil began last month. The pair got to know the entire staff quickly: they were the only guests, the usual trickle of foreign tourists having vanished. Both men admit they owe a great debt to their hotel "family," who watched over their well-being by maintaining a vigilant security operation and scrounging for food for them. As one staff member told them, "If the police come here, we'll chop them...
...concerted effort to bring down the tottering government of the ruling Burma Socialist Program Party (B.S.P.P.). To a large extent they had already succeeded. Burma's second largest city, Mandalay, was under the control of Buddhist monks: saffron-robed holy men, known as sanghas, were directing traffic. In Rangoon, the capital, the entire civil service had deserted the government. A new opposition leadership was working with students and monks to bring rice into the increasingly hungry city...
With the situation deteriorating rapidly, leaders of Burma's 180,000-member military took action. Rangoon announced Sunday that General Saw Maung, Burma's minister of defense and chief of the armed forces, had ousted civilian President Maung Maung, who took office just last month. Saw Maung immediately pledged to "restore law and order" and promised to hold multiparty elections that would end 26 years of one-party rule...
...confrontation grew, the military seemingly remained loyal to Maung Maung and to Burma's strongman, former B.S.P.P. Chairman Ne Win, who was widely believed to be pulling strings behind the scenes. But last week some 6,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen appeared to have joined the revolt. In Rangoon graduates of the influential Defense Services Academy, mostly majors and lieutenant colonels, issued a statement urging formation of an interim government that would include the opposition. At midweek Saw Maung appealed to the opposition on national television to avoid splitting the military...
...brigadier generals, about half are said to remain loyal to Ne Win. But regional command troops are locally recruited and almost certainly would not fire on their own people if ordered; nor would their junior officers. Last week a captain of one of three elite infantry divisions in Rangoon went over to the opposition, creating a new wash of speculation about the fealty of even the most trusted troops in the nation...