Word: junta
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While in Algeria the junta brazenly ignored the popular vote in democratic elections, in Egypt the dictatorial regime of Mubarak, who has been in power for 14 years, launched massive pre-emptive strikes against similar rising political forces in the form of Islamic movements. This initial action led to cycles of violence by the government and opposition. The long-term interests of the West will be served not by inventing an Islamic bogeyman in another sovereign nation and propping up authoritarian regimes, but by pressuring these so-called allies to begin to practice unadulterated democracy along with a spirit...
Freedom, as Flannery O'Connor wrote, cannot be conceived simply. Few could understand this better than Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's chief dissident and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Placed under house arrest by a military junta in 1989, Suu Kyi spent six years confined to her family's deteriorating lakeside bungalow in Rangoon. At any time, she was free to join her husband and two children in London -- knowing that the generals would never allow her back. That was a definition of freedom she refused to accept. When the junta abruptly announced last week that...
...latter, but only time will tell." At the same time, she has been painstakingly cautious in her statements. She confessed to a natural affinity for the military because her father, Burmese nationalist hero Aung San, was a general. Her charm offensive was extraordinary -- but how will the junta react when the iron-willed Suu Kyi starts speaking more freely? "They have been known to misjudge the situation very badly," says Zunetta Liddell, a researcher for Human Rights Watch/Asia in London, "and I think they may have done...
...importance. SLORC 's tailor-made constitution is nearly complete; it includes a provision that disqualifies for the presidency anyone wed to a foreigner, such as Suu Kyi, who is married to British academic Michael Aris. slorc's current leader, Senior General Than Shwe, has improved the image of the junta that killed more than 3,000 student protesters in the late 1980s and early 1990s, changed the country's name to Myanmar and nullified the general election of May 1990 in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy routed the pro-government party...
...that has been her prison for six years. But is she free to travel? To take up her democratic campaign -- or, indeed, the mandate given to her by the Burmese people in 1990? That's almost certainly not the kind of freedom handed to her by the 21-general junta last week. The only thing that's sure is that Aung San Suu Kyi cannot conceive of freedom simply -- and the fate of her country may depend on her subtlety...