Word: shwe
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...connection to Aung San Suu Kyi - the democracy icon known in Burma simply as the Lady, who in August was sentenced to 11/2 years of house arrest - that had led me to the Shwe Zedi monastery in the first place. Located in the crumbling Indian Ocean port of Sittwe, Shwe Zedi was the monastery of U Ottama, a revered monk whose pacifist resistance against the colonial British inspired independence hero Aung San, father of Suu Kyi. In 2002, this was one of the few places the Nobel Peace Prize winner visited between stints of house arrest, and she called...
...Certainly, the signs from the heavens haven't been auspicious of late. In May, the Danoke pagoda near Rangoon collapsed, killing three. Burmese with an eye for otherworldly coincidences noted that a pagoda ceremony earlier this year was officiated by the wife of Than Shwe, the junta's leader. Then, in June, an elevator inside a 32-story Buddha in Sagaing division failed, injuring several passengers. "Burmese people take omens very seriously," says a newspaper editor in Rangoon. "These coincidences aren't just coincidences. I can assure you that the generals are very worried...
...aftermath of the September 2007 protests, Shwe Zedi, like many monasteries, was forced to shutter. Cautiously, the faithful returned, but dozens of monks are still missing, either toiling in labor camps or having slipped into foreign exile. Yet the monks I spoke to were unafraid to talk. "It is our responsibility to try to change our country," said one, sitting cross-legged on the teak floor. "If the monkhood doesn't do it, who else will?" Another monk padded over to a bookcase, pulled out a Burmese-English dictionary and pointed to a word: democracy...
...years, the U.S. response to the junta's ironfisted rule has been an arsenal of economic sanctions. But Webb's confab with junta head General Than Shwe, though not an official visit, may signal a shift in U.S. policy. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that U.S. sanctions have done nothing to moderate the junta's behavior, in part because nations like China and India have poured investment into Burma. After his mission, Webb told reporters, "Isolation is only preventing [Burma] from developing economically and politically...
...addition to becoming the first top-level U.S. politician to meet with Than Shwe, Webb was allowed to see detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a privilege denied to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon when he visited last month. Webb's trip came just days after a military-backed court sentenced Suu Kyi to 18 months of house arrest. The democracy advocate, who has been locked up for 14 of the past 20 years, was punished in a bizarre case in which an American swam uninvited to her lakeside villa. The verdict virtually guarantees that...