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Burma's Overdue Crisis
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14725 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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Date : |
11 / 1988 |
3,014 Words |
| Author
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David I. Steinberg
David I. Steinberg, consultant, is a former president of the
Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs and a retired senior
Foreign Service officer, as well as the author of two books
and numerous articles on Burma. |
The international press has been shaken by events in seemingly somnambulant Burma, long isolated and aloof. Massive demonstrations and cries for democracy, brutal suppression, and virtual anarchy have directed attention to a country long outside our ken.
Burma is undergoing its most profound crisis since attaining independence in 1948. Although Burma has experienced a turbulent history of incessant insurgencies both ideological and ethnic in origin, two military coups (one constitutional), and diverse demonstrations and riots over the years, the crisis of 1987-88 cuts more deeply into the fabric of the society. Its crescendo peaked in July and August 1988, and its aftermath is still in flux; the effects will be felt for many years.
On the surface, the crisis appears to be mainly political. Even though police and military brutality was used against rioting students in March 1988, unrest spread to the general population, resulting in the largest demonstrations ever seen in Burma. These events produced the resignation or ousting of three chairmen of the state's sole legal political entity since 1962—the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP)—as well as a popular movement for a multiparty system and democracy, and the collapse of government control throughout much of the country.
This crisis is both multiple in its origins and overdue: a reaction to the compound of economic myopia and mismanagement, political repression and arrogance, brutality and suspicion, ethnic rebellions, and international isolation that has festered since
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