Whether or not Myanmar holds elections this year, democracy seems to be a mirage on the horizon. The military is geared to remain in power for the foreseeable future.
Burma’s Junta Built to Last
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Burma
Reader Challenge: Do Burma’s Generals Just Need a Little Love and Understanding?
Sanctions can’t truly be targeted. If they’re directed at Burma’s generals, they just pass them along to the people. In fact, the most dire human rights violation in Burma is crushing poverty.
Genocide in Burma
Nearly 50 years after a military-led coup overthrew Burma’s last democratically elected government, the Southeast Asian country has suffered some of the world’s most egregious human rights abuses. For activists, Burma has become synonymous with institutionalized rape, torture, forced labor, and ethnic cleansing. In the popular imagination, however, the enormity of Burma’s crisis remains obscured by indifference and the overshadowing presence of disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur.
Interview with Virgil Suarez
How might the changing political relationship between Cuba and the United States influence Cuban-American literature?
Asia’s Axis of Evil?
The two pariahs of Asia, North Korea and Burma, often get mentioned in the same breath. With no one else to depend on, these two countries would appear to be natural partners. Indeed, the Obama administration has been gathering circumstantial evidence that North Korea is providing Burma with nuclear technology so that they can both thumb their noses more aggressively at the international community. There are satellite images of Burma’s underground tunnels. The Japanese recently arrested a North Korean and two Japanese businessmen for attempting to sell Burma a magnetometer, a component of missile guidance systems. The Kang Nam, the North Korean ship that the Pentagon was recently tracking, was bound for Burma with a pile of who-knows-what on board.
Burma’s New Charter: Radical Change or Fig Leaf?
After a drafting process of more than 15 years, Burma unveiled its new constitution in February. The 194-page document has generated a widely disparate response. In May, just days after tropical cyclone Nargis hit Burma and killed tens of thousands of Burmese, the military government reported that 92 percent of the population supported the new constitution in a referendum vote.
Sharp Attack Unwarranted
Gene Sharp, an 80-year-old scholar of strategic nonviolent action and veteran of radical pacifist causes, is under attack by a number of foreign governments that claim that he and his small research institute are key players in a Bush administration plot against them.
Change in Burma?
The Burmese government has recently announced a number of political changes that have caught the attention of the international community. It has announced that a new constitution will soon be completed in time for a nation-wide referendum in May. More dramatically, the government has announced that “it is now time to change from military rule to a people’s democracy. There will be a multi-party general election in 2010 under the new constitution."
Parallel Editing in Burma
Recent and ongoing developments in Burma call for parallel editing—the filmmaking technique of
running two scenes concurrently to suggest that they are happening at the same time while ratcheting
up suspense.
Myanmar, the UN, and ASEAN
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s latest round of intense shuttle diplomacy since September’s "saffron
revolution" produced no major breakthroughs in Yangon. It merely confirmed the suspicions of
close Myanmar watchers that the military junta has no intentions to change its ways or compromise
with anyone.