I | INTRODUCTION |
Myanmar, officially Union of Myanmar, republic in
Southeast Asia, bounded on the west by Bangladesh, on the northwest by India’s
Assam State, on the northeast by China’s Yunnan Province, on the east by Laos
and Thailand, and on the southwest by the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The
longest land border is shared with China. Myanmar was known as Burma until 1989;
the country’s name was officially changed by the military government that took
over in 1988. Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) is the commercial capital and
largest city. The administrative capital is Naypyidaw.
II | LAND AND RESOURCES |
The total area of Myanmar is 676,552 sq km
(261,218 sq mi). From north to south, Myanmar stretches about 2,085 km (about
1,295 mi); from east to west, the distance is about 930 km (about 575 mi). The
coastal region is known as Lower Myanmar, while the interior region is known as
Upper Myanmar. A horseshoe-shaped mountain complex and the valley of the
Irrawaddy River system are the country’s dominant topographical features. The
mountains of the northern margin rise to 5,881 m (19,295 ft) atop Hkakabo Razi,
the highest peak in Southeast Asia. The two other mountain systems have northern
to southern axes. The Arakan Yoma range, with peaks mostly between 915 m (3,000
ft) and 1,525 m (5,000 ft), forms a barrier between Myanmar and the subcontinent
of India. The Bilauktaung Range, the southern extension of the Shan Plateau,
lies along the boundary between southwestern Thailand and southeastern Lower
Myanmar. The Shan Plateau, originating in China, has an average elevation of
about 1,215 m (about 3,986 ft).
Generally narrow and elongated in the
interior, the central lowlands attain a width of about 320 km (about 200 mi)
across the Irrawaddy-Sittang delta. The deltaic plains, extremely fertile and
economically the most important section of the country, cover an area of about
47,000 sq km (about 18,000 sq mi). Both the Arakan (in the northwest) and the
Tenasserim (in the southwest) coasts of Myanmar are rocky and fringed with
islands. The country has a number of excellent natural harbors.
A | Plant and Animal Life |
Forests cover 48 percent of Myanmar. In
Lower Myanmar, the dense tropical forests contain extensive stands of timber and
oil-bearing trees, including commercially valuable teak forests. Other trees
include rubber, cinchona, acacia, bamboo, ironwood, mangrove, coconut, betel
palm, and, chiefly in the northern highlands, oak, pine, and many species of
rhododendron. Tropical fruits such as citrus, bananas, mangoes, and guavas grow
in the coastal regions. Vegetation in the arid regions is sparse and stunted.
One consequence of Myanmar’s slow economic growth has been the preservation of
much of the natural environment.
Jungle animals such as the tiger and leopard
are common in Myanmar. Among the larger native animals, found mainly in the
highlands of Upper Myanmar, are the elephant, rhinoceros, wild buffalo, wild
boar, and several species of deer and antelope. Elephants, tamed or bred in
captivity, are used as work animals, particularly in the lumber industry.
Smaller animals include the gibbon, which is a small species of ape that lives
in trees, several species of monkey, the wildcat, the flying fox, and the tapir.
Myanmar has 867 known varieties of birds, including parrots, peafowl, pheasants,
crows, herons, and paddybirds. Among typical reptiles are crocodiles, geckos,
cobras, pythons, and turtles. Edible species of freshwater fish are
plentiful.
B | Natural Resources |
The most important resources of Myanmar
are agricultural. There are approximately 250 commercially useful kinds of
trees, 50 of which have been exploited. The most important forest resource is
teak, of which Myanmar holds the majority of the world’s remaining supply.
Important mineral resources are petroleum and natural gas, along with tin,
antimony, zinc, copper, tungsten, lead, coal, and small amounts of marble and
limestone. Myanmar is an outstanding source of jade and natural rubies.
Myanmar’s richest soils are found in a
narrow alluvial strip along the Bay of Bengal, where mountain streams irrigate
the land in the wide Irrawaddy and Sittang river valleys. These deep deposits
form a vast, fertile belt especially suitable for rice cultivation because of
the abundant moisture.
C | Climate |
The climate of Myanmar and other countries
in South and Southeast Asia follows a monsoon pattern. During the half of the
year that the sun’s rays strike directly above the equator, the land mass of
Asia is heated more than is the Indian Ocean. This draws moist hot air from over
the ocean onto the land, bringing the rains of the southwest monsoon. When the
tilt of the earth brings the direct sun rays south of the equator, the heating
of the Indian Ocean draws the cooler dry air of the northeast monsoon from the
highlands of Asia across the countries of South and Southeast Asia. As a result,
Myanmar has three seasons: hot and wet, warm, and very hot. During the hot, wet
season, from mid-May to October, rain usually falls every day and sometimes all
day. Almost all of Myanmar’s annual rainfall falls during this time. In the
cooler season, which runs from late October to mid-February, the temperature for
January averages 25°C (77°F) in Yangon in Lower Myanmar and 20°C (68°F) in
Mandalay in Upper Myanmar. The hottest season runs from late February to early
May. At the end of this season, the average monthly temperature reaches the
upper 30°s C (lower 100°s F) in many parts of Myanmar. By July rains have
brought the average temperature down to 29°C (84°F) in Mandalay and 27°C (81°F)
in Yangon. Average annual rainfall varies from about 5,000 mm (about 200 in) on
the Tenasserim Coast to about 760 mm (about 30 in) at Mandalay.
D | Environmental Issues |
Although rich in natural resources,
Myanmar is among the most impoverished countries in Asia. Only 78 percent (2004)
of Myanmar’s citizens have access to safe water, and only 77 percent (2004) of
the population is serviced by adequate sanitation systems. Waterborne infectious
diseases are a significant health problem throughout Myanmar. The country has a
high rate of infant mortality, with 49 (2008) infants dying out of every 1,000
born.
Myanmar is being deforested at a rate of
1.19 percent (1990–2005) every year. Teak wood is in high demand worldwide, and
most of the world’s remaining teak trees are in Myanmar. Forests are also being
consumed for fuel.
Only 4.2 percent (2007) of Myanmar’s land
is officially protected. Myanmar is inhabited by 147 (2004) threatened animal
species. Myanmar has ratified international agreements pertaining to
biodiversity, tropical forests, marine pollution, and the ozone layer.
III | PEOPLE OF MYANMAR |
The population of Myanmar (2008 estimate) is
47,758,181. The overall population density is 73 persons per sq km (188 per sq
mi), one of the lowest in East Asia. The population is 69 percent rural, with
almost half the urban population found in the three largest cities: Yangon,
Mandalay, and Moulmein.
A | Population and Settlement |
More than two-thirds of the people of
Myanmar are Burman, ethnically akin to the Tibetans and the Chinese. In
addition, several indigenous minorities with their own languages and cultures
inhabit the country. The most important of these groups are the Karen and the
Shan, each of which comprises less than 10 percent of the population. There are
also several smaller groups such as the Arakanese (Rakhine), Mon, Chin, and
Kachin, as well as numerous even smaller minorities. The Karen are found
primarily in delta villages and along the Thailand border, the Shan throughout
the vast Shan Plateau, the Mon along the Tenasserim coast (this group is largely
assimilated within the Burman majority), the Arakanese along the Arakan coast
next to Bangladesh, the Chin on the western border with India, the Kachin on the
northern border with China, and many of the smaller groups along the Chinese
border intermingled with the Shan. Large Chinese and Indian minorities dominated
the urban population during the British rule of Myanmar (1826-1948); however,
many of the Chinese have since assimilated as Sino-Burmans and most of the
Indians have emigrated, though many Indian Muslims remain in their traditional
homeland on the Arakan coast.
The borderlands in which most of the
ethnic minorities live had been separately administered under British rule.
Having retained many of their hereditary traditions under British rule, these
groups have been restless under Burman rule in the independent Union of Myanmar.
Since 1948 the Karen have been in armed rebellion, accompanied by the Kachin
beginning in the 1950s and by periodic outbursts from a variety of Shan
political groups.
B | Political Divisions |
The nation comprises Myanmar proper and
the seven states of Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan. Myanmar
proper consists of seven divisions: Irrawaddy, Magwe, Mandalay, Pegu, Rangoon,
Sagaing, and Tenasserim.
The largest city and principal seaport is
Yangon. Mandalay, in central Myanmar, is an important trade center. Other
important cities are Moulmein, on the Gulf of Martaban, and Sittwe, a major
seaport on the Bay of Bengal. The administrative capital, Naypyidaw, is located
in central Myanmar 320 km (200 mi) north of Yangon.
C | Language |
Most of the linguistic groups of Myanmar
are monosyllabic and polytonal, similar to those of Tibet and China (see
Sino-Tibetan Languages). The official language of Myanmar is classified by
linguists as Burmese, although government officials often call it the Myanmar
language. It is spoken by the great majority of the population, including many
of the non-Burman ethnic minorities. About 15 percent of the population speaks
Shan and Karen. English is spoken among the educated, and the country contains a
sizable number of speakers of Chinese.
D | Religion |
The great majority of all the people of
Myanmar are Buddhists. Most adhere to the Theravada school of Buddhism, as do
Buddhists in neighboring Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia (see
Theravada Buddhism). Theravada (the Way of the Elders) Buddhism is sometimes
called Hinayana (the Lesser Vehicle) by contrast with Mahayana (the Great
Vehicle) Buddhism, a later and more elaborate form that is practiced largely in
China, Korea, and Japan. Theravada Buddhism is also quite different from the
Tantric Buddhism that is found in Japan and Himalayan regions such as Tibet.
Underlying the everyday practice of Buddhism is a well-developed culture of
animism, the worship of spirits known as nat. This culture provides a
basis for many nat festivals and for much of traditional medical practice.
Muslims have also long formed a part of the population and there are a
significant number of Christians (mostly Baptists) as well, particularly in the
hill areas.
E | Education |
Education is free and compulsory for
children from the age of 5 to 9. Secondary education consists of four years of
middle or vocational school and an additional two years for high school. Middle
and vocational schools are also free, but fees are charged for high school.
Secondary schools enroll 39 percent of the secondary school-age population.
Instruction in primary and secondary schools is in Burmese; English is the
second language taught in many secondary schools. The literacy rate of the adult
population is reported to be 86 percent. However, the Myanmar government claimed
that less than one-fifth of the population was truly literate when it was
seeking United Nations (UN) status as a “least developed country” in the late
1980s.
Yangon and Mandalay have a variety of
long-established universities and postsecondary educational institutes. In order
to disperse the political protests by students in these two cities, regional
colleges were set up in the late 1960s in a number of principal towns. Yangon
University (founded in 1920) and Mandalay University (1925) are the premier
institutions in arts and sciences. A bachelor’s degree is also granted by the
Defense Services Academy (1955) in Maymyo. An emphasis on science and technology
since the 1960s led to the expansion of the Yangon Institute of Technology
(1964) and the establishment of the Mandalay Institute of Technology (1991) and
an Institute of Economics (1964) in Yangon. Medical doctors are trained at two
institutes of medicine in Yangon and one in Mandalay. There are numerous
teacher-training institutes throughout the country. As a result of periodic
political disturbances, universities have been mostly closed since 1988.
F | Way of Life |
Myanmar civilization is largely an
outgrowth of Indian influences. For the majority of Myanmar’s population,
Buddhism is the center of individual life and the monastery (pongyi
kyaung) is the center of the community. This is especially true in the
villages, where most of the population lives. Wisdom is believed to reside at
the pongyi kyaung and refuge may be sought there. A rite of passage for every
adolescent boy is the shinphyu, in which the boy briefly relives the
princely life of Gautama, who became the Buddha, and enters into the life of the
monastery as a novice monk. At any later time in life he may return to the
monastic life for a longer or shorter period of time. If married, he should ask
his wife’s permission to do this.
The daily life of the village begins
with the pongyis (monks) making their rounds in the morning with their
begging bowls. By donating that day’s food, the villagers earn merit, and the
monks, who are forbidden to work, are nourished. The annual cycle of life
follows the seasons, with all hands put to work for rice planting when the
summer monsoon brings the first rains. The time during the three months of the
most intensive rain is the Buddhist lent, when such activities as marriage and
hunting are put off, but nat festivals can be enjoyed. Harvest in the fall is
again a busy time, followed by the cooler season when the traditional form of
entertainment is the pwe, a type of folk opera. In the evenings during
this season, a crowd gathers on the grounds of a temple to watch the pwe in
which dancers retell tales of royal times in Myanmar or present such Indian
epics as the Ramayana. Dramatic music and dance alternate with
bawdy skits by clowns, who often include political satire in their acts. In the
towns, movies, particularly foreign feature films, are popular.
The Myanmar orchestra that accompanies
the theatrical performances in a pwe consists of a bamboo xylophone, tall bamboo
clappers, many kinds of tuned gongs, a small pair of cymbals to keep time, and
the hne, a six-reeded oboe that carries the theme. The hne mimics the
sound of the human voice speaking in the tonal Burmese language. In cities and
towns music is piped into the streets for the public’s benefit through
loudspeakers located in tea shops, and video cassette recorders bring
cosmopolitan musical culture to even the smallest settlements.
The core of the Myanmar diet is boiled
rice, combined with a little spicy meat or fish and some vegetables. Also
popular for breakfast is a hot noodle soup flavored with coconut. A favorite
sauce is ngapi, which is made from fermented fish or prawns and gives off
a pungent odor. Several varieties of bananas along with coconut are the main
fruits, while a wide variety of more exotic fruits are also enjoyed, such as the
mangosteen, the custard apple, and the durian. The common drink is weak green
tea, which is taken tepid throughout the day in small cups.
A typical gesture of hospitality in
Myanmar is to offer guests the materials and equipment for making a chew of
betel. This chemical combination of a chopped areca nut with lime and spices,
all wrapped in a betel leaf, cleans the mouth, sweetens the breath, and settles
the stomach. Locally rolled cigars, called cheroots, are smoked by young
and old, male and female.
In keeping with the hot climate, both men
and women wear skirts, except for those in the military, who wear long trousers.
The longyi is a wrap-around cylinder of cloth that is tucked in at the
waist in one way by men and in another way by women. Male and female longyis
also differ in the patterns printed or woven into them. On top men wear a light
shirt, covered by a Chinese-style jacket on formal occasions. Women wear a long
or short-sleeved blouse. On the head men may wear a gaunqbaung, which for
a farmer can be a simple length of cloth twisted around the head like a turban,
while a government official at a formal event will have one made of silk and
stretched over a light wicker frame. Because of the hot weather and rains,
sandals are worn rather than shoes. Umbrellas are carried throughout the year to
keep off either sun or rain.
For much of Myanmar’s history, women
played a stronger role than in traditional Western societies. From early on they
could own property and were independent in economic activities. In religion,
however, their place is secondary. Males can become monks and they can earn
religious merit in a number of ways; the few women who become nuns and the many
who offer gifts to monks usually hope at best to be born as a man in their next
reincarnation. While some men in powerful social positions and others who are
very poor may have multiple wives, the practice is much less common than in
neighboring Thailand.
A popular form of recreation is traveling
by bus or oxcart to visit a notable pagoda or attend a festival. Soccer is a
prominent sport, even during heavy rains; kites are flown in season; and a
frequent occurrence on any day is a local game of chinlon, in which a
small circle of men keeps a ball of woven cane up in the air with gentle blows
from the foot, knee, shoulder, or head. Golf is particularly favored among
military leaders.
G | Social Problems |
Myanmar is poor by Asian standards, and
consequently suffers from a number of social problems. Inflation in the prices
of consumer goods has been a continuing problem, particularly for poorer people
in the cities. Since a large number of young women in the border areas have been
drawn into prostitution in Thailand, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
has become a large-scale problem. For much of the period since World War II
(1939-1945), poverty along with the conditions of political unrest have kept the
population growth rate quite low, lower even than in neighboring Thailand, which
boasts a successful family-planning program.
IV | CULTURE |
The major population groups in Myanmar
migrated into the Irrawaddy River Valley from the north, bringing their spoken
languages, their gender roles, and several varieties of food and medicine. From
India on the west came the institutions of religion and government, but without
the Indian caste system of social hierarchy. India was also the source of
Pali, the sacred language, and of the devanagari script in which
the popular language is written, along with astrology and some kinds of food.
The firm grounding of Buddhism in Myanmar culture contributed over the years to
the building of many pagodas (towering temples) throughout Myanmar.
A | Literature |
The Burmese language lends itself well to
poetry and puns since words are usually one syllable long, beginning and ending
with consonants, while the vowel in the middle carries one of several tones—low,
high, high and short, or high and falling. Classical poems of four lines with
four syllables in each line followed a complex rhyme scheme. A wealth of
satirical puns play on exchanging vowels. For instance, the public switched the
title of a government welfare program known as pyi-daw-tha (a royal, happy land)
to pya-daw-thi (a pile of royal ashes). With the end of the monarchy in the late
1800s, nationalist aspirations were carried forward in an indigenous literature.
Particularly notable in the post-World War II era were the poetry and essays of
Thakin Kodaw Hmaine and stories of Thakin Thein Pe Myint, whose Tet
Pongyi (written from 1936-1938) ridiculed the corruption of the modern
monastic orders. An outstanding critical novelist of the independent period and
publisher of an independent newspaper was Ludu U Hla. In recent years the
military government has exercised severe censorship, though some short-story
writers in popular magazines are still published, under duress of the law.
B | Art and Architecture |
Secular art is rare in Myanmar; most
sculpture and painting is confined to a Buddhist context. Many large pagodas
were constructed by kings and rich people seeking to earn religious merit. These
pagodas consist of a massive central spire decorated with plant and animal
designs and lesser shrines around the base; they are often topped by a
jewel-encrusted hti, or umbrella. There are thousands of ancient pagodas
in the old capital at Pagan, others in the area of the former capital at
Mandalay, and the grand, gold-encased Shwedagon Pagoda atop the central hill in
today’s capital, Yangon. Architecture, as well as other art forms, display a
dominant Indian influence. Artisans are known for their woven silks and
lacquerware (boxes and bowls made of woven bamboo frames and covered with a hard
resin).
C | Libraries and Museums |
Formal libraries and museums, as such, are
limited in number and facilities in Myanmar. The thousands of Buddhist temples,
however, serve as repositories for books and religious artifacts. The National
Museum of Art and Archaeology (1952) is in Yangon, and state museums are in
Kyaukpyu, Mandalay, and Moulmein.
V | ECONOMY |
Myanmar is primarily an agricultural country.
Some 63 percent of the working population is engaged in growing or processing
crops, while another 12 percent works in industry. Before World War II began in
1939, Myanmar was the world’s major rice exporter. After the war ended in 1945,
the area of land devoted to agriculture slowly recovered, but as the population
grew the surplus available for export never reached the earlier level.
From 1962 to 1988 the government attempted
to develop the economy following a “Burmese Way to Socialism,” with
nationalization of most industries. The policy was a failure, however, and in
the 1990s the government opened the economy to market forces, particularly
inviting foreign investment. Still, many state economic enterprises continue to
lose money, the black market flourishes, and the heavy government spending for
the growing military budget feeds inflation. By the mid-1990s, after several
years of significant growth, the levels of gross domestic product (GDP),
agricultural output, consumption, and investment in Myanmar were about one-tenth
higher than they had been in 1985-1986, the best year before the military coup
d’état and political unrest of 1988. Since the population had grown in the
interim, this means that the average person remained worse off than a decade
before. In 1997 the United States imposed strong economic sanctions on Myanmar
to express disapproval of the military government’s human rights record. That
same year Asia suffered a regional economic downturn. These developments
affected Myanmar’s economy, slowing foreign investment and raising
inflation.
A | Labor |
An estimated 27.3 million people were
employed in the civilian economy in 2006. The largest portion, 63 percent,
worked in agriculture, forestry, and fishing; 25 percent were in services; and
the remaining 12 percent was employed in manufacturing, construction, and
mining. A significant portion of the working-age population (those 15 to 59) was
engaged in other informal economic activities, such as the black market.
B | Agriculture |
Some 15 percent of the total land surface
of Myanmar is suitable for farming, and only 2.8 percent is irrigated. Farmers
own their own land but must sell part of their production to the government at a
very low fixed price. Myanmar remains an important rice producer, based on the
annually flooded paddy lands of the Irrawaddy delta and the irrigated areas in
Upper Myanmar. An estimated 25 million metric tons of rice were harvested in
2006. While the greatest land area is devoted to rice, significant amounts of
land are also planted with sesame, peanuts, and a variety of beans, as well as
sunflower, sugar cane, corn, cotton, and wheat. Although the amount of land
cultivated for most crops was increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
productivity fell, in part because less fertilizer was used. By the beginning of
the 21st century, use of fertilizers had rebounded somewhat, and the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN) reported food production was
growing quickly. Generally, the terms of trade for Myanmar’s agricultural
exports (their world price compared to the prices of manufactured goods that
Myanmar imports) have been declining.
Myanmar is one of the world’s major
producers of opium, a substance used in the production of heroin for illegal
drug trafficking, mainly to Western countries. The drug trade within Myanmar is
carried on largely by Sino-Burmese and Shan warlords in the Golden Triangle area
bordering Thailand, Laos, and China. In the mid-1990s more than 60 percent of
the world’s heroin supply reportedly came from Myanmar. In 1997 the government
of Myanmar agreed to participate in a UN drug-control project to reduce the
illegal production and trafficking of opium. Both production and area harvested
for opium reportedly declined in the country in the late 1990s. In 2001 Myanmar
again became the world’s top supplier of opium as the supply from Afghanistan,
which had become the leading source, decreased dramatically.
C | Forestry and Fishing |
The forests of Myanmar are an important
source of wealth, especially in teak and natural rubber. The timber extraction
in 2006 was 42.5 million cu m (1,503 million cu ft). In the early 1990s the teak
harvest along the border with Thailand, which had banned its own harvest in
order to preserve the future supply, greatly exceeded the sustainable yield and
the government had to cancel contracts with Thai loggers. Important tree
products, in addition to rubber, are a sticky gum called lac, from which
lacquerware is made, quinine, and cutch, the source of a dye.
Fish, including shrimp, are caught for
local consumption and are a main source of protein in the diet. Freshwater fish
are preferred, but the government is now encouraging saltwater fishing. In 2005
the total catch in the Indian Ocean was estimated at 1,252,926 metric tons. Much
of that catch was caught by Thai trawlers.
D | Mining |
Myanmar has a rich and varied supply of
minerals. Most of the mines are located in the mountainous areas in the west and
along the Tenasserim coast. Such precious stones as jade, rubies, and sapphires
are mined, as are copper, nickel, silver, lead, and zinc. Since some of the
resources were located in rebel-controlled areas, the political stabilization of
the early 1990s has increased foreign investor interest in mining these natural
resources.
In the early 1900s the Burma Oil Company
was a major world producer of petroleum. Because petroleum production fell
during the 1980s, the government invited foreign companies to prospect for oil
both on land and in the sea. Signing bonuses paid by oil companies were one of
the main sources of foreign exchange for the government after the collapse of
the economy following the political turmoil of 1988. So far searching on land
has produced no great finds and several of the companies, along with the
principal company, Amoco Corporation, have withdrawn. In 2004 some 5.5 million
barrels of crude petroleum were produced. Also, after extensive natural gas
resources were discovered in the Bay of Bengal, French and American companies
joined in a venture to construct a pipeline from the Andaman Sea to Thailand
across Myanmar’s Tenasserim region.
E | Manufacturing |
Rice milling and the processing of
agricultural products are the chief manufacturing enterprises. In order to spur
the industrial sector of the economy, the government has started a steel
reprocessing mill, a jute mill, a brick and tile factory, and other plants.
Lumber mills, petroleum refineries, sugar refineries, plants for extracting
vegetable oils, flour mills, cotton mills, and textile and tobacco factories are
also in operation. Labor costs for export goods are estimated by foreign
investors at about one-tenth those of Thailand and one-half those of Vietnam.
However, in production for local consumers, Myanmar factories cannot compete in
price with Chinese goods streaming across the now open northern border. Private
investment under the open market system has gone more into resource extraction
rather than local industry.
F | Energy |
Myanmar, like Laos, has a great potential
for producing hydroelectricity; in 2003 some 37 percent of its electricity (2.7
billion kilowatt-hours) was from hydroelectric plants. The remainder of
Myanmar’s electricity is produced by thermal plants using natural gas, diesel
fuel, or coal.
G | Tourism |
The tourism industry in Myanmar has
attracted funds from investors in volume second only to oil exploration.
Investors from Thailand and Singapore are constructing world-class hotels and
restoring airline connections. In 1989 the government loosened visa
restrictions, allowing tourists on package tours to stay in the country for up
to two weeks. However, the government restricts tourists to officially approved
sites. In 2006, 264,000 tourists visited Myanmar, a substantial increase over
the annual number of tourists that visited in the years prior to 1988. Although
tourism is Myanmar’s leading source of foreign exchange, the political climate
in the country has hindered any efforts to promote tourism there.
H | Foreign Trade |
All foreign trade is controlled by the
government, but since 1990 firms have been able to directly participate in
trade. By making cross-border trade with China, Thailand, and India legal, the
government has been able to collect more taxes and lessen black market trade
with Thailand by rebel groups. Since the exchange rate for the official currency
is high and a number of regulations remain, much illegal trade still takes
place. In 2000 exports were valued at $1.39 billion. Exports typically consist
of beans, rice, and teak and other hardwoods. The United States, India, China,
Japan, Singapore, Germany, and France are the main purchasers.
Imports are mainly machinery,
transportation equipment, chemicals, and food. In 2000 they totaled $2.4
billion. Singapore, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia are the
primary suppliers. In 1991 the United States and the member nations of the
European Union (EU) imposed trade sanctions against Myanmar in response to
alleged human rights violations. Strong, additional trade sanctions were imposed
by the United States in 1997, again in response to human rights abuses by
Myanmar’s military government. The sanctions restricted new investment in
Myanmar by U.S. companies. In 2000 the EU also increased sanctions against
Myanmar. The United States again tightened sanctions following a brutal
crackdown on antigovernment protesters in 2007. Meanwhile, Myanmar expanded
trade with its Asian neighbors, especially member states of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
I | Currency and Banking |
The unit of currency is the kyat
(5.80 kyats equal U.S.$1; 2006 average), which is divided into 100 pya.
The black market rate in 1995 was 100 to 120 kyats to the U.S. dollar. A dual
currency system allows foreign exchange certificates to be used for some
transactions. An increase in the printing of currency to pay for urban
reconstruction and beautification has contributed to a high inflation rate. In
addition to the Central Bank of Myanmar (founded in 1990), the government
operates a number of specialized banks. Foreign banks also operate in Myanmar in
a limited capacity.
J | Transportation |
The railroad system has been owned and
operated by the government since British times; it includes 3,955 km (2,458 mi)
of track. The railroad links Moulmein, Yangon, Pegu, Mandalay, and the other
major cities but does not connect with railroads outside of Myanmar. Far more
important for moving domestic passengers and cargo are the inland waterways,
which total about 12,800 km (about 8,000 mi) of navigable rivers and canals,
about 3,200 km (about 2,000 mi) of which are open to large commercial vessels.
Most of Myanmar’s larger towns and cities are river ports; Yangon and Pegu are
near the mouths of the Irrawaddy River, Bassein is on one of the mouths of the
Irrawaddy, Mandalay is on the upper Irrawaddy near the branching of the Chindwin
River, and Moulmein is located at the mouth of the Salween River.
There are 27,966 km (17,377 mi) of roads in
Myanmar, of which 11 percent are paved, two-thirds are gravel, and the rest
passable most easily by jeep or ox cart. In the 1990s the government focused
considerable energy on reconstructing roads, often with volunteer or forced
labor. There are extensive road links and several bridge links with Thailand and
China. The Burma Road, which extended from northeast of Mandalay into China,
played an important role in World War II.
Myanmar Airways, the government-owned
airline, has international service from Yangon to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and
Kolkata. Other international carriers provide direct flights to Mandalay and the
tourist site at Pagan. Domestic flights have also been modernized by joint
ventures with Singapore companies.
K | Communications |
All postal, telegraph, telephone, and
broadcasting systems in Myanmar are controlled by the government. In 2005 the
country had 9 telephone mainlines for every 1,000 people; most of the telephones
were in Yangon. There were 65 radio receivers and 7 television sets for every
1,000 inhabitants. There is one government TV channel.
VI | GOVERNMENT |
Myanmar was governed according to the
provisions of the constitution of 1948 until the coup d’état of 1962, after
which the existing form of government was eradicated. In 1974 a new constitution
was adopted. This document served as the basis of governmental organization
until its suspension after the military coup of September 1988.
The military set up a State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC) to rule Myanmar until elections could be held. When
the SLORC lost overwhelmingly in elections held in 1990, it delayed turning over
government to civilian control until it could write a new constitution. Many
winners of that election were arrested; others were invited to join with other
delegates selected by the SLORC in a constitutional convention. The convention
first met in January 1993 but was adjourned in March 1996 without producing a
constitution. The SLORC reconvened the constitutional convention in 2004, and it
continued to meet into 2005. Unlike the previous convention, however, it did not
include representatives from the country’s main opposition group, the National
League for Democracy (NLD).
A | Central Government |
The core of Myanmar’s central government
is the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which was formed in 1997 when
the SLORC was dissolved. The SPDC is made up of military men. It is currently
headed by Senior General Than Shwe as chairman, who is assisted by a vice
chairman, a first secretary, and 18 other members. General Than Shwe and about
30 ministers handle the administrative direction of the government, with
responsibility for areas such as agriculture, education, foreign affairs,
national planning, and religious affairs. Some ministers and deputy ministers
are not from the military. In November 2005 the government began moving
government offices from Yangon to a new administrative capital, later named
Naypyidaw, in the central part of the country.
B | Judiciary |
The administration of justice is directed
by local Law and Order Restoration Councils (LORCs). A chief judge, a
five-member supreme court, and an attorney general were appointed by the SLORC
after it came to power. The martial law and curfew imposed since the 1988 coup
have been lifted in most of the country. Public gatherings of five or more
people remain illegal without a special permit.
C | Local Government |
The administration of Myanmar is highly
centralized, with a chain of command passing from the SLORC to the local LORCs
to the village level. The country is organized into seven divisions in the
central river valleys and seven states on the hilly borderlands, with large
towns organized as separate administrative units.
D | Political Parties |
In contrast to the period from 1962 to
1988, when the Burma Socialist Program Party was the only legitimate political
party, more than 100 political parties began organizing in 1988, and 93 competed
in the national election held in May 1990. The political role of competitive
parties was extinguished, however, after the major opposition party, the
National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the seats in
the 1990 election, while the parties supported by the army captured only 2
percent.
E | Defense |
In 2004 the armed forces of Myanmar
included 428,000 people. The army had 350,000 members, the navy had 13,000, the
air force had 12,000, and the remainder were paramilitary personnel, including
the People’s Police Force and the People’s Militia. Myanmar has a military
conscription law but it has not been applied because of sufficient voluntary
enlistments. When required by military necessity, voluntary and involuntary
labor is recruited from the streets, a practice that has been described by the
government as traditional but is much criticized in international forums. Women,
with the exception of medical personnel, generally do not serve in Myanmar’s
armed forces.
F | International Organizations |
Myanmar is a member of the following
international organizations: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations (UN), the World Health
Organization (WHO), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Myanmar became a
full member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997.
VII | HISTORY |
The history of what is now Myanmar
(formerly Burma; renamed in 1989) has been made by a succession of peoples who
migrated down along the Irrawaddy River from Tibet and China, and who were
influenced by social and political institutions that had been carried across the
sea from India. First came the Mon, perhaps as early as 3000 bc. They established centers of
settlement in central Myanmar, in the Irrawaddy delta, and farther down the
eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. They constructed irrigation systems and
developed commercial and cultural contacts with India, while maintaining loose
ties with other Mon civilizations in the Chao Phraya Valley of Siam (now
Thailand). The Pyu followed much later, moving down the western side of the
Irrawaddy and founding a capital near present-day Prome in ad 628. The Burmans entered the
Irrawaddy River valley in the mid-9th century, absorbing the nearby Pyu and Mon
communities. Later waves brought in the Shan and Kachin, who, along with the
native Karen, have all played a part in the country’s development.
A | The Pagan Kingdom |
The first unified Myanmar state was
founded by King Anawrahta (reigned 1044-1077) at Pagan in Upper Myanmar and was
brought to its height by his son, Kyanzittha (reigned 1084-1112). Their domain
advanced from the dry zone to incorporate the delta Mon centers at Pegu and
Thaton; they extended political and religious ties overseas to Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka) and fought off a Chinese invasion from the north. The internal structure
of the state was similar to that of a Hindu kingdom, with a court at the capital
supported by direct household taxes or service obligations drawn from villages,
which were under the guidance of hereditary myothugis (township headmen).
In time an increasing proportion of the land was donated to Buddhist monasteries
in the form of slave villages for the maintenance of the sangha
(monkhood). Kingship was legitimated by both Hindu ideology and the king’s role
as defender of the Buddhist faith. During 250 years of relative peace, the
devout rulers built the many pagodas for which Pagan is known today.
In 1287 Pagan was conquered by the
Mongols under Kublai Khan. This was the beginning of a turbulent period during
which Upper Myanmar led an uncertain existence between Shan domination and
tributary relations with China, while Lower Myanmar reverted to Mon rule based
at Pegu.
B | The Toungoo Dynasty |
In the second quarter of the 16th
century, a new Burmese dynasty emerged from the sleepy principality of Toungoo
in central Myanmar. With the aid of Portuguese adventurers, the Toungoo dynasty
established what became under its third king, Bayinnaung (reigned 1551-1581), a
reunified and precariously prosperous state. After his death, succession
squabbles and encroachment by the Portuguese along the coast, by the Thais on
the east, and by Manipuri horsemen from the west brought on the decline of the
dynasty, although the system itself endured until the mid-18th century. Its
survival was made possible by a stable administrative and legal system at the
central and local levels. The dynasty was finally toppled by a Mon rebellion in
1752.
C | The Konbaung Dynasty and the Anglo-Burmese Wars |
Increasing European commercial and
political pressure set the context for the rise and demise of the last Burmese
dynasty. During the 1600s and early 1700s competing British, Dutch, and French
interests had established commercial ventures at Syriam, near present-day
Yangon, and elsewhere on the coast. In 1752 Alaungpaya founded the Konbaung
dynasty by restoring Burmese rule first at Ava and later in the delta. He moved
against the British at the Negrais trading post and then initiated another
attack on the Thai, whose capital at Ayutthaya was later destroyed by his son
King Hsinbyushin (reigned 1763-1776). Another son, Bodawpaya, lost control of
Siam but captured the Arakan, a rich coastal province bordering on Bengal.
By the early 19th century, political
friction over an Arakanese independence movement based in Bengal was compounded
by the military successes of the Burmese general Maha Bandula in Assam. The
British responded by sea in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826). The ensuing
Treaty of Yandabo left the British in control of Arakan to the west and
Tenasserim to the east of the Irrawaddy delta. The production of rice and timber
flourished in these two areas under the British, while their relative political
stability induced massive population growth, a general pattern that was repeated
after the remainder of the delta was annexed in the Second Anglo-Burmese War in
1852. Commercial ambition and political pretext, heightened by Anglo-French
regional rivalry, precipitated the final annexation, when Mandalay fell after a
brief battle in 1885. These extensions of British rule were progressively less
popular with the resident population, and each in turn required a period of
pacification. In the longer run, British rule brought widespread administrative
and social modernization to a land that, except for the benign efforts of King
Mindon, the builder of Mandalay, had been swamped in reclusive policies and
wracked by court intrigues.
D | British Rule |
Burmese culture, now submerged under a
colonial overlay, had three aspects: the language, with accretions from Mon and
Pali; Theravada Buddhism, which had come from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and mixed
with local nat (animist) rituals; and the society of rice-growing peasant
villages. Under colonial rule the linkage of government and religion was lost,
the monastic orders fell into disarray, and the monastic schools, which had
given Myanmar a higher rate of male literacy than England, declined as English
became the language of social advancement. The indigenous culture nevertheless
persisted in the magical world of the pwe (a type of folk opera), in the
practice of Buddhism and nat worship, and in the language of the
peasantry.
The British moved the capital from royal
Mandalay to the port city of Yangon in 1886, developing it as a substation of
the British Empire in India. This led to large-scale Indian immigration. Yangon
thus became the hub of a “steel frame” of administration spreading out into the
hinterland, where district officers maintained law and order, collected revenue,
and administered justice. As the country was opened up to the world market, it
became the world’s major exporter of rice—from 0.5 million metric tons before
the fall of Mandalay, to 2 million in 1900, and 3 million before World War II
began in 1939. British rule and economic penetration gradually engendered social
disintegration and provoked a nationalist movement. This movement used modern
institutions, such as the Young Men’s Buddhist Association, student strikes, and
political participation in partial self-government to agitate for immediate
reforms, including separation from India, and later for independence. In the
countryside, the unrelated antimodern Saya San Rebellion of 1930 to 1932 drew
widespread support, but was crushed.
The individuals who eventually forged an
independent Myanmar began their political careers as student leaders with the
title Thakin (master), a term that had previously been applied to the
British. One of the student leaders, U Aung San, assembled a military force that
was trained by the Japanese into a Burma Independence Army (BIA). When the
Japanese invaded Myanmar in 1942, during World War II, the BIA accompanied the
Japanese troops, fighting few battles but swelling their membership as a
political movement in military garb. This political movement later took
advantage of the strains of wartime occupation and the weakness of the
Japanese-installed government near the war’s end to resist Japanese rule under
the name of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL).
E | The Modern Nation |
After the war, the returning British
discovered that the AFPFL, led by former BIA head Aung San, had nearly
monopolized native political power. The AFPFL negotiated with Britain to gain
Myanmar’s independence by 1948. It also compelled the inclusion into a “federal”
republic of such peripheral groups as the Shan and Karen, thought to have had
special British protection. In elections held in April 1947, Aung San’s AFPFL
won an overwhelming majority of seats in the constitutional assembly. In July
1947, U Saw, a nationalist political rival of Aung San, had him and six
ministers of the new government assassinated. U Nu, a former student leader and
the foreign minister in the wartime government of Ba Maw, was asked to head the
AFPFL and the government.
E1 | Constitutional Democracy |
Myanmar’s new independence confronted
the AFPFL government of U Nu with a series of political and ethnic
insurrections, which continued over the next three decades. During the 1950s a
major threat created by the Karen revolt was blunted, and the Communist
insurgents were forced to retreat into the hills. U Nu, along with Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, President Sukarno of Indonesia, and
President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, helped establish the Nonaligned
Movement, a loose association of nations that accepted aid but refused alliance
with either the Western bloc of nations led by the United States or the
Communist bloc led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Some
decades later, when the movement became too much aligned with the USSR, Myanmar
quit. After the establishment of the nonaligned foreign policy, economic
reconstruction was begun and some new growth undertaken with multilateral
foreign aid.
AFPFL rule was validated in national
elections in 1951-1952 and 1956. By 1958, however, a party split required the
constitutional intervention of a caretaker army government for 18 months.
General Ne Win’s government tightened administrative discipline to promote
modernization and curbed separatist tendencies in the Shan states, where some of
the traditional rulers wanted to exercise the right to secession that was
available during the first ten years under the 1947 constitution. The 1960
election gave a resounding victory to U Nu’s faction, based largely on respect
for his personal piety. U Nu’s return to power was short-lived, however. His
promotion of Buddhism as the state religion and his tolerance for ethnic
separatism precipitated a bloodless coup that reestablished military rule under
Ne Win in March 1962.
E2 | The Ne Win Regime |
During the 1960s and 1970s Ne Win
attempted to build an effective totalitarian government, establish legitimacy
with the country’s people, and maintain autonomy on the world scene. The
military Revolutionary Council, which was established after the 1962 coup,
abolished independent political parties; independent newspapers were also
banned, being replaced by a single paper, The Working People’s Daily. The
military leaders formed the Burmese Socialist Program Party and nationalized the
economy through a plan called the “Burmese Way to Socialism.” Students
protesting in the early months of the revolutionary government were shot with
machine guns and the Rangoon University (now Yangon University) Student Union
building, where the Thakin movement had been launched decades before, was
dynamited.
During the radical first dozen years
of the new regime, foreign contacts were curbed. Tourist visas were limited to
24 hours, foreign newspaper reporters were barred, and most foreign assistance
was terminated. The economy declined as the consumer goods distribution system
became mired in chaos (leading to a booming black market) and agricultural
production fell. A combination of urban food shortages and the spillover from
China’s Cultural Revolution ignited strikes and anti-Chinese riots, compelling a
rethinking of economic policy. Following modest liberalization of trade, a
raising of the official price paid peasants for their rice, and the acceptance
of international aid for fertilizer and other technical improvements, the
economy recovered marginally.
A new constitution was put into effect
in 1974, transferring power by referendum and single-party election from the
military Revolutionary Council to a People’s Assembly, commanded by Ne Win and
other former military leaders. Student strikes still erupted at intervals, as
when U Thant, a political figure of the constitutional democracy period and
former UN secretary general, died and was returned to Myanmar for burial in
1974.
Ethnic insurrections, which broke out
in the Kachin and Shan states after the army coup, continued to deny major areas
to government control, including Myanmar’s part of the Golden Triangle (a major
supplier of the world opium market). The Karen insurrection moved to the Thai
border where it benefited from the black market trade. The Burma Communist Party
insurrection migrated from the central Pegu Yoma region to the northeast border
with China, where it retained official support from China. When that support was
withdrawn in the late 1980s, the aging Myanmar leadership became dependent upon
ethnic minority foot soldiers, who mutinied in order to be able to run their own
opium business and eventually worked out a cease-fire with the central
government. In 1981 Ne Win relinquished the presidency to San Yu, a retired
general, but continued as chairman of the ruling Burma Socialist Program
Party.
A new citizenship law was gradually
implemented during the 1980s designating as “associate citizens” people whose
ancestors were not of the “original races” of Myanmar. Its principal target was
the Sino-Burman and Indo-Burman community. These groups were permitted to vote
but could not be elected nor could they hold appointed office above a certain
level in the government.
After a quarter of a century, the Ne
Win regime seemed to reach stagnation. The insurrections had been successfully
pushed to the periphery and no hostile neighbor actively threatened the
independence of the nation, but the economy was declining again. This led the
government to apply to the UN for “least developed nation” status and to begin
market liberalization in hopes of reviving the domestic economy. In the autumn
of 1987 a surprising devaluation of the currency eliminated any savings most
people had, resulting in antigovernment riots. The following spring a series of
critical public letters to Ne Win from a former military comrade, Brigadier Aung
Gyi, and escalating student protests triggered violent repression. As a result
of antigovernment riots in March and June 1988, Ne Win officially retired from
politics and suggested that a multiparty system might be better for the
nation.
E3 | Myanmar Under Military Rule |
Following Ne Win’s retirement in July
1988, Myanmar endured three months of political turmoil. The head of the riot
police took control of the government and the subsequent protesting, looting,
and police response left an estimated 500 to 1,000 people dead in Yangon and
several thousand dead elsewhere in the country. Leadership then shifted to a
civilian associate of the military, Maung Maung, who tried to both appease and
restrain the growing, but peaceful, opposition to military rule. The opposition
found a wide base of support, from the Yangon Bar Council to nurses and dock
workers. Some shape was given to this movement by an alliance of Brigadier Aung
Gyi with General Tin U, a former defense minister, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the
daughter of Aung San, whose portrait was carried by protesters. When it appeared
that parts of the armed forces might join in, the military staged a coup against
the government that it had created. On September 18, 1988, Defense Minister
General Saw Maung announced the formation of a State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) that pledged to restore law and order; repair transportation and
communication; meet the food and shelter needs of the people; and hold free and
fair multiparty elections. Meeting the first goal required several months and
cost 560 lives according to government reports, although outside sources
estimated the loss at more than 1,000 lives.
Campaigning was restricted and the two
top leaders of the main opposition, the National League for Democracy (NLD),
were taken off the scene; in July 1989 Suu Kyi was put under house arrest and
General Tin U was put in prison. The NLD won the May 1990 elections in a
landslide, taking 80 percent of the seats with 60 percent of the vote in
contrast to the parties favored by SLORC, which received 2 percent of the seats
with 25 percent of the vote. When the winners of the election made moves to
organize a government, the SLORC responded by arresting many of them and
declaring that there could be no civilian government until after a new
constitution had been written. Some of the elected representatives fled to the
Thai border and set up an alternative National Coalition Government of the Union
of Burma at the base camp of the Karen resistance movement.
International pressure on the SLORC
intensified in October 1991, when Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for
her commitment to nonviolent change. Many Western nations imposed sanctions and
suspended bilateral aid as well as high-level government visits to the country
in response to UN reports of human rights violations by the government of
Myanmar. General Than Shwe replaced General Saw Maung as SLORC chairman, prime
minister, and minister of defense in the spring of 1992. The last democratically
elected prime minister of Myanmar, U Nu, was released from prison, as were a
number of other political prisoners. Suu Kyi was permitted visits by family
members in 1992 and two years later by a U.S. congressman, a UN official, and an
American reporter. By the autumn of 1994 she was having discussions with the top
two SLORC leaders, generals Than Shwe and Khin Nyunt. Because she refused to
accept exile from Myanmar, however, her detention continued beyond the legal
limit, which the government then changed. In August 1995 Suu Kyi was released
from house arrest but was banned from leaving Yangon. She held weekly public
conversations outside her front gate with gatherings of several thousand
citizens and foreigners.
The SLORC contended with other sources
of opposition, as well. The military junta’s relations with the Buddhist
sangha (monkhood) were strained at best, as monks had played a role in
the 1988 uprising. Widely revered by the people of Myanmar, monks held an
influential position and even helped administer the town of Mandalay. Monks in
Mandalay protested military rule by refusing to accept alms from military
households. The SLORC responded by pressing the sangha authorities to discipline
the monks.
The SLORC also faced continuing ethnic
insurgencies on Myanmar’s borders. General Khin Nyunt negotiated separate
cease-fire agreements first with the smaller, largely Chinese, hill tribes and
then with the Kachin, adopting their armed forces as an autonomous militia and
offering economic development aid along with tolerance of their border trading
activities (including commerce in opium). The Karen gradually lost the informal
support that Thailand had given their independence movement (which had long
acted as a buffer for the historic hostility between Myanmar and Thailand). As a
result, the Myanmar Army was able to take the Karen’s main base at Mannerplaw in
the spring of 1995. Thereafter the parties made several attempts at negotiating
a peace settlement, but in early 1998 active fighting continued between the
Karen rebels and the Myanmar military. The major opium warlord, Khun Sa,
remained in control of a key section of the eastern Shan state until December
1995, when, faced with a U.S. drug indictment and reduced business connections
through Thailand, he surrendered to Myanmar troops. Khun reportedly reached an
agreement with the SLORC and retired to Yangon.
E3a | Political Impasse |
A national convention selected by the
SLORC to draft a new constitution began meeting in January 1993. The convention
received instructions from the SLORC to grant the military a dominant role in
any future government, along the lines of the Indonesian constitution. The work
of the convention was occasionally suspended. In late 1995 Suu Kyi’s NLD party
walked out of the convention, asserting that it was not being conducted on
democratic principles. The convention was adjourned in March 1996 without
producing a constitution.
Tensions between the SLORC and the
NLD heightened in May 1996 when the SLORC arrested more than 200 delegates
headed toward an NLD party congress. A similar crackdown occurred in May 1997,
when the SLORC again arrested NLD members to thwart a meeting intended to
commemorate the 1990 elections. In November the SLORC was dissolved and
immediately replaced by the newly formed State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC), although the top leadership remained the same. In response to UN reports
of human rights violations in Myanmar, issued annually since 1991, and boycotts
against corporations doing business in the country, the United States increased
sanctions against Myanmar in 1997. The member nations of the European Union (EU)
also increased sanctions in April 2000.
Suu Kyi was again put under house
arrest in September 2000. A UN envoy to Myanmar began brokering negotiations for
national reconciliation between Suu Kyi’s democracy movement and the ruling
junta. The closed-door talks between the two sides led to the release of about
250 of an estimated 1,500 political prisoners. Suu Kyi was released from house
arrest in May 2002, with the understanding that no restrictions would be placed
on her movements or political activities. Although her unconditional release was
one of the main demands of Western nations that had imposed sanctions on the
country, Western leaders stated that substantive political reforms would be
necessary before sanctions could be lifted. Subsequent reconciliation talks
between Suu Kyi, representing the pro-democracy aims of the NLD, and the Myanmar
government resulted in a stalemate.
After her release, Suu Kyi worked to
reinvigorate the NLD base of support, touring the country and drawing large
crowds to pro-democracy rallies. During a road trip to northern Myanmar in May
2003, Suu Kyi’s motorcade was violently ambushed. The government took Suu Kyi
into custody, arrested party activists, and closed most NLD offices.
International demands were again made to the Myanmar government for the release
of Suu Kyi, who was subsequently placed under house arrest. In November 2005 the
government announced that it was extending Suu Kyi’s house arrest, despite
international protests and condemnation.
Also in November 2005 the government
began moving its offices to a new administrative capital in a relatively remote
area of central Myanmar. The new capital was constructed as an entirely new
planned city. It was officially named Naypyidaw (Burmese for “royal capital” or
“abode of kings”) during ceremonies held there for Armed Forces Day in March
2006.
E3b | Opposition Protests and Crackdown |
Protests erupted in Myanmar in
August 2007, sparked by a government decision to increase the price of fuel. The
nation’s monks became involved in early September, after government troops used
force against protesters, and formed the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks
to coordinate ongoing demonstrations. The alliance issued a statement on
September 21 describing the military government as “the enemy of the people.”
Daily protests in Yangon and other
cities grew increasingly larger, as people responded to the monks’ call for
involvement. Facing the largest antigovernment protests since 1988, the SLORC
imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew and deployed army troops and riot police to break
up the demonstrations. Violent clashes between government forces and protesters
resulted in an uncertain number of civilian injuries and deaths. In addition,
thousands of monks and other people, including members of the NLD party, were
reportedly arrested and detained.
The brutal crackdown renewed
international scrutiny of Myanmar’s military government. The United Nations
Security Council adopted a statement that strongly deplored the use of “violence
against peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators” and called for the release of all
political prisoners and detainees. The statement also urged the military
government to engage in a “genuine dialogue” with NLD leader Suu Kyi, who
remained under house arrest. The statement represented the first formal action
taken by the 15-member Security Council over the situation in Myanmar.
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