Word: junta
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...hardships are made more unbearable by a widening wealth gap. The country's military leaders are enjoying ever more ostentatious lives, their wallets fattened by gas-pipeline deals with neighbors China, India and Thailand. A samizdat video circulating in Rangoon shows junta chief Than Shwe's daughter getting married in a lavish ceremony. The couple reportedly received millions of dollars in wedding gifts--in a nation where the average annual per capita income is just $225. More appalling, the junta spent hundreds of millions of dollars in 2005 to build a brand-new capital city. Yet today Naypyidaw...
...over in a matter of minutes, but the significance of the occasion vastly exceeded its brevity. On Aug. 28, 20 demonstrators gathered at a market in Burma's commercial capital, Rangoon, to protest against the junta's decision to dramatically raise prices of essential goods. Led by labor activist Su Su Nway, the crowd had just begun to chant slogans when thugs employed by the ruling generals swooped in and started dragging the protesters into waiting vehicles. The frail Su Su Nway, who had only emerged from prison last year after serving seven months for reporting cases of forced labor...
...current rallies were triggered by the junta's Aug. 15 diktat to hike fuel prices up fivefold, sending everything from food to transportation costs soaring. Four days later, former student leaders from the '88 era organized a series of rallies in Rangoon, which drew hundreds of supporters. Even with most activists now locked up or on the run, demonstrations have continued to break out like spores across the nation. Buddhist monks have marched by the hundreds in several cities, adding a stamp of spiritual authority to the protest movement. University students have gathered, too, along with sidelined politicians and even...
...start effort that culminated in August 1988 with tens of thousands of people thronging Rangoon's streets. But the military quickly sent bullets into the crowds. By 1990, elections won by future Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) had been ignored by the junta. Burma slunk back into isolation...
...This time around, the world, galvanized by blow-by-blow images transmitted via cell phones and through the Internet, has taken rapid notice of the protests and the subsequent crackdown. On Aug. 30, U.S. President George W. Bush condemned the junta's actions, and White House aides have promised that Burma will be a "major topic of discussion" at the APEC annual summit, which opened this week in Sydney. A day later, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, who has personally followed the situation in Burma for years and has met with many Burmese activists, called U.N. Secretary-General...