Vol. 71/No. 38      October 15, 2007

Rallies began in mid-August after the government announced a fivefold rise in fuel prices. By late September, tens of thousands across the country were protesting. A military dictatorship has ruled Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country of 52 million, for more than four decades.

Buddhist monks, who number 500,000 nationwide, joined demonstrations after the initial protests exploded. “The recent economic hardship has caused monastery populations to swell with students from poor families,” reported the September 22 Financial Times.

Naing Ko Ko, an exiled representative of the Burma Trade Union Federation, told the Militant that the monks are calling on the generals to join a dialogue for “national reconciliation.”

Some 100,000 people marched September 24 in the capital, Yangon. Over the following week, troops moved against the monks, beating and hauling many away, and sealing off pagodas that had become organizing centers.

Guns and tear gas were fired against the thousands of civilians who continued to resist. Activists say that hundreds have been killed, and many more thrown in jail—alongside the 1,100 already there for political “crimes.”

Some 20,000 troops are manning barricades in Yangon. “The place is like a graveyard, only dogs could be heard barking,” wrote an unidentified Burmese man in a September 29 e-mail printed by the BBC.

The government shut down public Internet access after news of the protests and crackdown was broadcast widely.

Indicating a continued mood of resistance, however, occasional spontaneous protests against the siege have spilled out from shops and workplaces, and dispersed just as rapidly.

Hypocritically posturing as a defender of democracy, U.S. president George Bush announced new sanctions against Myanmar government leaders. The sanctions add to restrictions on trade and investment imposed in 1997 and 2003. The investment of U.S. oil giant Chevron, through its subsidiary Unocal, is exempt from the restrictions.

Government ministers in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, issued a statement expressing “revulsion” over reports that “the demonstrations … are being suppressed by violent force.”

European Union members threatened to extend already existing economic sanctions. The French oil company Total has major holdings inside Myanmar.

The Associated Press noted that the governments of China, India, and Russia are “ruling out sanctions as they jostle for a chance to get at Myanmar’s bountiful and largely untapped natural resources, especially its oil and gas.” Companies from south Korea and Thailand are also exploring energy extraction in Myanmar.

Alongside this new oil rush, more than 30 percent of Myanmar’s citizens live below the poverty line. Per capita gross domestic product is less than one-quarter that of Thailand, Myanmar’s semicolonial neighbor.

According to the CIA World Factbook, of the 70 percent of Myanmar’s population living in rural areas, 37 percent do not own land or livestock. A bullock-drawn cart is the most common means of rural transportation.

The army numbers 400,000. Its forces have more than doubled since the current junta was consolidated in 1989.

The military has ruled the country since a coup staged by General Ne Win in 1962. He had been a prominent leader of the government elected after independence was won from Britain following World War II.

Students and others seized on Ne Win’s retirement in 1988 to stage massive anti-military demonstrations. The generals launched a bloodbath, killing up to 10,000 demonstrators. They placed Aung San Suu Kyi, the most prominent opposition figure, under house arrest.

In 1990 Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won elections in a landslide. The junta blocked the new parliament from meeting.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home