Word: rangoon
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...city of Rangoon narrowly avoided another bloodbath last week when club- wielding government troops waded into 1,000 protesters on Martyrs Day, which marked the 42nd anniversary of the death of independence hero Aung San. The government reported that 44 people had been "detained...
...words proved prophetic. The next day government soldiers placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, effectively cutting her off from all contact with the outside world. For most political observers in Rangoon, Suu Kyi's detention demonstrated that the junta never intended to honor its promise of holding a free and fair election next...
...military leadership is almost universally despised since its ruthless suppression of what became known, in a variation on Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring, as the "Rangoon Fall." Western diplomats estimate that troops killed some 2,000 unarmed civilians in street clashes following the takeover by General Saw Maung, who took power in a coup last September. Since then, more students and other protesters have been arrested or shot. Government employees deemed sympathetic to the democracy movement are being purged from their jobs. Troops are everywhere, even in the compound of the Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's holiest shrine. "They have stripped away...
Under the guns, Rangoon is returning to normal, at least on the surface. Stores are open, tea shops are busy, and hopelessly overcrowded buses lumber unsteadily through the streets. But the mood is sullen. "We are like a dormant volcano: calm on the outside, boiling inside," says a government worker. A group of monks has circulated a leaflet calling for a peaceful protest this week unless the generals set up an interim civilian government, and there were reports that some monks had been arrested. A 9-p.m.-to-4-a.m. curfew is strictly enforced. Prices have risen...
While some of the students who participated in the Rangoon Fall demonstrations have gone underground, others have formed political organizations. Foremost among them is the Democratic Party for New Society, which says it has 100,000 members. Former Prime Minister U Nu, ousted by Ne Win in 1962, has declared a "parallel government," consisting of old officials like himself. Even the former ruling Burma Socialist Program Party has transformed itself into something called the National Unity Party...